52. Object (Patreon)

“Excuse me?” Unfiltered confusion flooded Aloe’s thoughts. Though her visage was overrun by embarrassment as she violently blushed.

“Don’t fret, you are excused.” The girl, no, the child said to her face. “Though you should be ashamed of being a virgin at your age.” Then any rage Aloe had managed to build up was slapped out of her being, her blushing intensified.

“Hahaha!” The emir meanwhile laughed in the comfort of her throne, her voice echoing through the whole hall.

Rani-al-Sadina did not stop the girl.

“Ehm...” Aloe quickly recomposed herself as soon as she noticed no one was going to aid her. “Ignoring the slander–“

“What slander? That’s an objective statement.” The amber-eyed girl interjected.

Aloe continued as if the girl had not spoken. “–against my person, who are you to interrupt the audience of the Emir of Sadina mid-speech?”

Diplomatically but not too aggressive, that was Aloe’s preferred style. With her question, she had made an honest inquiry whilst sounding somewhat derisive, but not too much. Because she was right. Whoever the girl was, she had indeed interrupted the conversation of an emir.

The girl grinned dangerously, her eyes turning into knives. “You are addressing Naila Asina, forty-second child of Her Majesty, the Sultanah Aaliyah-al-Ydaz.” The girl curved into a bow, the stretched clothes marking her build. A constitution that wasn’t of a child.

Aloe paled.

The ex-banker’s apprentice contained her breath, as the lack of blood in her face wouldn’t be detectable in her dark skin, she had better things to worry about. I haven’t been too antagonistic, right? Her mind worked furiously to recompose her and to assess a response.

The situation was far from unrecoverable.

Children were malleable, young people could be misled easily. The imperial child wasn’t much younger than Aloe, but besides her head, there was also her pride at stake. And some may say the latter was far more valuable than the former.

Aloe smiled, straightening her back as she did so. Diplomacy was one of the first subjects she was taught to be a banker, only second to Economics.

“With all due respect, Sultanzade Naila.” Aloe bowed deeply, far more than the sultanah’s scion had done but far from enough for a formal apology. “Whilst your standing as a princess of Ydaz is far higher than my position, you still have interrupted my Emir, Rani-al-Sadina, who not only outranks you as your older sister but also in titles. In this current moment, you have disregarded the authority and rule of the Emirate of Sadina.”

Aloe didn’t sound smug, she didn’t smile, nor she exhaled in any way that could be considered offensive. She was now only a vassal whose liege had been thoroughly disrespected. Not even Naila knew how to react.

That was the issue at hand, no matter how lowly Aloe’s blood and social standing may be, she was right. And everyone in the audience hall knew it.

So Naila did the most sensible thing and turned back. Aloe didn’t know what the sultanzade was imagining, perhaps she thought that as she turned her head an irate sovereign would yell at her after all the ideas Aloe had put into her head.

Whatever she was imagining, it certainly wasn’t her sister holding her laughs, almost in tears, as she twisted and jerked around in her throne.

“Sister?” Naila asked with veritable confusion.

“Sorry, sorry.” Rani-al-Sadina hid her lips with her hand as she talked. “I’m still processing the first thing you said. Oh, heavens, my stomach is hurting.”

It didn’t suit well with Aloe that the ruler of her city laughed at her misfortune, but her thoughts were mostly placed on where to look. Rani-al-Sadina was lightly clothed, and the clothes she donned were loosely fit. As she jerked around, so did her bountiful cleavage. Aloe... she didn’t know what to do with that image.

“Ah~” After a solid minute, the emir exhaled in a way that could only be classified as a moan. “It has been a while since I laughed, I needed that.”

Least to say, no one reacted to the sultanzade’s words, nor did nobody interrupt her. The only person that may have the right to do so also abstained from talking.

“Having said so,” Rani-al-Sadina restored her composure in a blink as if her laughing fit never happened, she continued talking, “I have no qualms with you interrupting me, Naila. Only Aaliyah or the fucking moron of Hassan would impose themselves over such trivial matters.”

There were many hidden meanings in the last sentence, Aloe had that feeling. However, she willingly decided to not worry about it and let it pass.

“I see, sister.” Naila shallowly bowed to the emir and then pointed at Aloe. “So who’s this virgin.”

“Oof.” The older sultanzade curved into a ball as she coughed into her fist. She needed a few more coughs to process the statement.

Much to Aloe’s dismay and her liege’s entertainment looking by her amused gaze, she blushed again. It wasn’t even controllable. That was what getting called a virgin in the middle of a room full of people, strangers all of them, did to a person.

“Ooooh...” Rani-al-Sadina reclined her head on the back of the throne as she exhaled, her exposed belly rising up and down uncontrollably. “It’s getting hard to breathe.” She added in a whisper, Aloe herself had difficulties catching her words even if she was close to the throne.

Aloe heard a deep breath coming from the emir as she regained her composure once more, but her skin tingled as the sultanzade did so. There’s a... chillness? She couldn’t understand what she had even felt, but as soon as the sensation appeared, it vanished without a trace. Before she could dwell on it, the emir talked.

“Oh, Naila. You spent too much time at the palace.” Rani-al-Sadina said with the tone expected from an older sister. “I do believe some apologies are in order for your public humiliation, Aloe Ayad.”

The emir faced her, though the younger sultanzade twisted her visage as if to say: “I won’t apologize to this woman.” It would seem her sister also thought that as she spoke her next words.

“Not from you, Naila. But Aaliyah.” Both Aloe and Naila frowned at the emir’s words. “This is not a well-known fact for outsiders, but in Asina palace, sultanzade don’t tend to stay virgin for a long time, nor do they guard their virginity as others may do.”

“Wait,” Naila interjected, “are you saying that this behavior is normal?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say normal, sister. People do as they please with their intimacy, but it is common for women to protect their virginity, if not to find a definitive partner, certainly as a political tool for marriage.”

Aloe cringed and felt nauseated as the emir lectured her sister in front of her. Not only wasn’t this a subject to be taught in public but also not when they talked about a person in specific. Aloe had been looked down multiple times before, but this was the first time she truly felt like an object, a pot decorating a room. And... she didn’t know what she was feeling as her hands trembled. Nothing good, she knew. But she couldn't point exactly the words.

“I comprehend,” Naila added with a rather scholarly tone. “I guess virginity is not as much of an identifying trait as I thought.” Aloe couldn’t know this, but there weren’t any virgins in the heart of the capital. At least beyond the age of fourteen.

“Yes, there are virgin people out there. It’s not as identifiable as saying ‘they have jet-black hair’, or something along those lines.” The young sultanzade nodded in understanding at her sister’s words. “That also reminds me, don’t tell people if they are virgins or not.”

“Why?” Naila inquired.

“People can’t tell virginity by sight alone.”

“I don’t tell someone’s virginity by sight alone.” The princess corrected. “Maybe the sexual prowess, but not the virginity.”

“It’s not about if you can or not, that’s how it feels for others. You surely use more senses, but non-cultivators wouldn’t understand it.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“Yeah.” Rani-al-Sadina dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand, then snapped her fingers. “Where were we before all of this?”

“I was asking you who was this woman you were referring to so casually.” Naila pointed at Aloe with a nudge of her head, this time thankfully not mentioning her lack of sexual prowess, much to her dwindling sanity.

“Right, right.” The emir clapped lightly twice; the sound was weak, but it filled the whole room.

The echo snapped everyone out of the trance from the weird conversation. Even Aloe, who hadn’t noticed that she had stopped paying attention, mostly out of shame.

“Aloe Ayad?” Rani-al-Sadina asked with a warm smile in her visage.

Dunes. Aloe cursed; the sweet touch of the smile almost made her forget how badly the princess had talked about her.

“Yes, my Emir?” She kneeled upon being referred by her ruler.

“Didn’t I tell you to speak to me by my name?” Rani’s grin accentuated.

Not only she had failed now, but looking at the sultanzade’s overjoyed expression, she also had noticed the other times Aloe had done so during the conversation. She did remember... Fuck.