Starveil

Chapter 67 The Truth Bleeds

Hatim’s chambers were dark when he returned, though the night outside was darker still. Storm clouds coiled above the palace, heavy and relentless, their growls of thunder echoing through the stone halls like the kingdom itself was restless.

He closed the door with a heavy thud and leaned against it, his chest heaving as though he had run for miles.

His hand shook as it reached for the goblet of wine left on his table — his untouched wine from hours ago.

Without hesitation, he drank, the bitter burn clawing down his throat, doing nothing to drown the fire in his chest.

For the first time in his life, he did not believe his mother completely.

Not fully. Not blindly.

Her tears, her trembling hands, her sorrowful eyes — he had always believed them to be truth.

But tonight, when Sana’s chained voice broke and screamed the words “our unborn child”, something inside Hatim snapped.

A memory he had buried, buried so deep he thought time itself had swallowed it, clawed back to life.

Her laughter. Her eyes. Their whispered promises under starlight.

And he had to face it now.

Hatim staggered to his chair, the golden embroidery of his ceremonial robe still clinging to him like a shackle. He dragged a hand across his face, as if he could rub away Sana’s words.

But they didn’t leave. They wouldn’t.

Instead, memories began to unfurl, unbidden.

---

He remembered one evening, long before crowns and war and betrayal.

The two of them had sneaked away into the palace gardens, their laughter muffled under the blanket of night.

Sana had been sitting cross-legged on the grass, plucking petals from a flower while he sprawled beside her, watching the stars.

“If we ever had children,” Sana had said suddenly, her voice laced with both shyness and mischief, “what would we name them?”

Hatim had smirked. “Easy. For a boy — Rustam the Great.”

Sana had wrinkled her nose instantly, laughing. “Rustam? That sounds like a stubborn old horse, not a prince!”

“And for a girl,” Hatim had continued, ignoring her, “how about… Zuleika the Wise?”

Sana had burst into laughter, clutching her sides. “Hatim, these are names for epic ballads, not real children! Can you imagine a tiny baby being called Rustam the Great?”

He had rolled toward her, eyes gleaming. “Exactly. Our child would grow into the name. People would tremble when they heard it.”

“Oh stars,” she had said, still laughing, throwing a flower petal at him. “You’d curse the poor child before they could even walk.”

“Fine, fine,” Hatim had relented, a rare softness tugging at his lips. “Then you choose.”

She had gone quiet for a moment, tracing invisible patterns in the air. Then she whispered, “Zaid. If it’s a boy.”

Hatim had nodded, surprisingly serious. “And if it’s a girl?”

Sana had smiled, almost dreamlike. “Amira. Because she’d rule her own heart before anyone else could.”

Hatim had stared at her then, at the light in her eyes, and something in his chest had tightened.

He remembered her next question too, the one that had slipped from her lips so quietly he almost thought he imagined it.

“Hatim… if I ever carried your child, would you stay with me? Even if the world turned against us?”

His answer had come without hesitation, without thought.

“Always.”

---

Hatim’s goblet shook in his hands. He poured himself another drink, but this time the wine spilled over, staining the marble table like fresh blood.

“Always,” he whispered to the empty chamber. His voice cracked.

And yet he hadn’t stayed.

Instead, he had chained her. Believed lies. Let himself be poisoned against the one woman who had ever truly seen him.

Hatim slammed the goblet onto the table, his breath ragged. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Sana’s face that night in the dungeon — her chains, her tears, her fury. Her truth.

And beneath it all, he saw the flicker of something that hurt most of all: her hope.

Her hope that he would still believe her.

Hatim pressed his forehead to his hands. “Stars… what have I done?”

The storm outside roared, lightning flashing against the stained-glass windows, casting fractured colors over his chamber walls. He couldn’t stay like this — drowning in half-truths and memories. He needed something real. Proof. Something to anchor him.

And that’s when he thought of it.

His mother’s chamber.

Roshni never let anyone near her private study. Even as a boy, Hatim had been told the rule: Do not touch the black chest. It was where she kept her most personal writings, her diary, she claimed.

He had never dared disobey.

But tonight, he had to.

Hatim rose to his feet, his robe dragging across the floor, heavy as guilt. He left his chamber with a torch, his steps echoing through the empty palace corridors. The storm muffled most sounds, but every creak of the floor felt like a betrayal, every shadow like an accusing ghost.

Finally, he reached her chamber door. His hand lingered on the bronze handle.

He hesitated.

Was he truly about to search through his mother’s secrets? To confirm the truth he both dreaded and needed?

But then Sana’s voice returned, tearing through his hesitation.

> “Will you believe if I say your mother killed our last symbol of love even before it is born?”

Hatim pushed the door open.

The queen’s study was as pristine as always, its shelves lined with scrolls, its tables polished, its air still perfumed faintly with roses. And there, against the far wall, stood the black chest.

He approached it slowly, his heart hammering. Kneeling, he traced the iron lock. To his surprise, it was not sealed with magic. Only a keyhole.

Hatim clenched his jaw. If fate wanted him to see the truth tonight, he would.

He drew his dagger. With a sharp twist and force, the lock snapped.

The lid creaked open.

Inside lay stacks of parchment, some bound, some loose, and atop them all, a leather-bound diary. Its cover was worn, edges frayed, but in the center glimmered a golden insignia: the crescent moon of Chandlok’s queens.

Hatim’s hand shook as he picked it up. He sat on the floor, torch beside him, and flipped it open.

The first pages were harmless. Notes of the court. Lists of alliances. Private reflections on palace life.

But deeper into the diary, the words changed.

They twisted.

Hatim’s breath quickened as he read, each entry dripping with venom disguised as duty.

“Chandini is too beloved. Her beauty, her grace — it steals from me. The people whisper her name more than mine.”

“The child. Her cursed child. Born under twin stars. If she lives, she will outshine my son. I cannot allow it. For Hatim. For me. For the throne.”

Hatim’s blood ran cold.

The words blurred, but he forced himself to keep reading.

“Tonight, it ends. The forest will be her grave. No one will remember the servant’s son or the starlit queen. Only me. Only Chandlok. Only Roshni.”

Hatim’s hand clutched the page so tightly it nearly tore.

There it was. The truth. In her own hand.

Everything Sana had said. Everything he had denied. Everything he had buried to protect himself from the unbearable possibility.

It was all true.

Hatim pressed a hand to his mouth, his chest heaving. The torchlight flickered over his face, catching the tears that spilled freely now, staining the diary’s pages.

Sana hadn’t lied.

She never had.

And he… he had become the monster she begged him not to be.

Hatim dropped the diary from his hands as if it had burned him, but the fire remained — not on the pages, but in his chest. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the cold stone floor, breath heaving, palms pressing into his eyes as though he could block out the words he had just read.

But he couldn’t. They were carved now into the marrow of his bones.

"The forest will be her grave."

"The cursed child cannot live."

"Only me. Only Chandlok. Only Roshni."

His mother’s voice bled through those words. He could almost hear her whispering them, not as the gentle woman who had once tucked him into bed, but as a queen dripping with venom, cloaking her cruelty in duty.

And then Sana’s voice pierced through it all.

“Hatim, do you even know what your mother has done?”

He had laughed at her once. Mocked her. Called her a liar. Chained her wrists as if her truth was a crime.

Now it was his own heart in chains.

Hatim clutched his chest as memories crashed over him, relentless as the storm raging outside.

He saw Sana in the palace gardens, laughing so loudly she had to cover her mouth with her hands.

He remembered the way she danced barefoot under the moonlight when they were young, daring him to join her, and how he — the crown prince, groomed to be unshakable — had given in and laughed until his ribs hurt.

He remembered the way she used to tilt her head when she teased him, that small quirk of her lips when she pretended to be braver than she felt.

And gods, he remembered the way she looked at him — like he was more than a prince, more than a crown. Like he was just a boy she had chosen to love.

And then…

He remembered the night he chained her.

Her eyes, swollen with tears, still shone with hope. Hope that he would choose her. Hope that the boy from the gardens still lived behind the crown.

But he had turned away.

“Stars…” Hatim gasped, curling into himself. His shoulders shook violently as sobs tore through him, raw and unrestrained. He was not the prince anymore, nor the son of the queen. He was a broken man crushed beneath the weight of his own betrayal.

“I told her… always,” he whispered into his palms, the word cracking like glass. “And I left her alone.”

Hatim’s heart wrenched with a crueler truth — he still loved his mother.

Not the queen who had ordered blood in the forest, not the venom in her diary, but the mother who had held his hand as a child, who had wiped his fevered brow, who had whispered to him that he would be a great king one day. That version of her — tender, human, flawed — still lived in him.

And now he hated himself for it.

How could he love the woman who had destroyed Sana’s family? Who had destroyed him by turning him against her?

Tears blurred his vision. His chest heaved. “Mother…” he rasped, his voice trembling between anger and anguish. “Why?”

But no answer came. Only silence and the thunder’s roar.

The storm outside was nothing compared to the one inside him.

Hatim pushed himself upright, wiping his face with shaking hands. The diary lay open before him, its pages stained with his tears. He stared at it, the ink blurring under the flickering torchlight.

This was no longer about choosing between them. The truth had already chosen for him.

Sana had suffered long enough.

He had stood idle long enough.

“Never again,” Hatim whispered, his voice raw but steadying. He pressed his trembling hand against the diary. “I will protect you, Sana. I swear it on the stars. Even if it means standing against my own blood.”

The words tasted like betrayal, but they also tasted like freedom.

He would not expose his mother yet — not without a plan. But he would gather proof. He would shield Sana from every dagger, every lie, every poisoned cup, even if she never forgave him.

She didn’t need to forgive him. She just needed to live.

Hatim closed the diary and tucked it beneath his robe, his decision solidifying like iron around his heart. The path ahead was brutal — torn between his mother’s love and the justice owed to Sana. But for once, the prince who had always obeyed, always followed, finally chose his own fate.

He stood slowly, his legs weak but his resolve stronger than it had ever been. The storm howled, lightning cracking the sky, as though the heavens themselves bore witness to his vow.

Before leaving, he looked back once more at the chamber, the room that had raised him with lullabies and lies. He knew he was not the same boy who had walked in.

Hatim pressed his hand against the doorframe, his voice breaking as the name slipped past his lips like a prayer.

“Sana…”

The sound of it nearly undid him. His chest heaved, his tears hot and endless. He bowed his head, whispering again, softer this time, as though afraid the walls would hear.

“Sana… forgive me.”

The torch flickered, and the storm outside raged on. But within him, something new sparked through the ruin — a fragile flame of resolve.

He would burn for her. He would bleed for her. He would tear the throne apart if he had to.

Because the truth had already cost him everything.

And now, only justice remained.