The Prince
“Well, well, the false shahdokht has returned.”
My father’s mouth split into a wicked grin. True fear slithered through my gut, and worry consumed my mind.
“Leave her, Peder.”
Yildiz’s maid, Esana, lunged for the stairs, but a guard grasped her and slammed the hilt of his dagger into her head. Her eyes rolled back, and she was efficiently tossed into an empty cell. Yildiz’s shoulders drew back. I recognized that look. She would go down fighting.
“You have begged enough for the wench.” Shah Jihangir lifted the key from the chain around his neck. He slid it into the lock, and the cell door swung open.
Yildiz slipped inside, throwing her arms around me.
My father entered the cell. He was scheming. This was far from over. “Chain her.”
I struggled against my restraints as guards tore her away from me and placed metal cuffs around her wrists and ankles, chaining her to the wall.
As soon as she was secure, Shah Jihangir barked at the guards to leave.
Their heavy boots clomped out of the dungeon, and the loud door groaned closed.
My father inspected us, pacing back and forth.
“You were so driven.” His dark voice filled the cell. “That may have been what angered me most. You were a driven boy. You went after what you wanted. But you had this just side of you that you couldn’t ignore. You were so righteous. It drove me mad.”
“I only wanted your approval,” I told him. The hurt and agony from years past flared to life.
“You were never like me,” Shah Jihangir continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “You took after him.”
“After who?” My brow furrowed.
“And you took my boy from me. You stole my son!”
He unhooked the whip hanging from a rack of different torture instruments.
Yildiz’s pleading was left unheard. Shah Jihangir lashed the whip against me over and over until the thin fabric of my undershirt was torn and soaked through with blood.
My head hung forward, my body spent from the weight of my screams.
Shah Jihangir paused, taking a moment to regain his breath and wipe the sweat from his brow.
“Please stop,” Yildiz begged.
“Silence!” He slashed the whip at her.
It sliced her shoulder. Blood bloomed through her clothes, and a cry burst from her throat. I lunged against my chains with a newfound strength.
“Do not touch her.”
My father swiveled to me, his eyes carrying that same fury I had seen in the throne room. His chest heaved from exerted energy.
“Why do you hate me so much?” The words I had pondered since I was a mere boy slipped past my lips for the first time.
He froze, seeming stunned by them. “Let me tell you a tale. There was once a shah. He had two sons. His elder one was given the praise, the admiration, and there was nothing left for the younger one. The younger brother found one thing he wanted. The most beautiful woman in the desert.”
He was telling his story, I realized. My uncle had been his elder brother.
“But the elder brother couldn’t let him have her. He had to take her too. They spent hours together, reading ridiculous poetry and spouting love ballads. The younger brother resorted to other means. He spoke to his father directly, attained his blessing, and the woman was his.”
My mother, I filled in the blanks. He’d taken my mother as his jawahar.
“But the wench wanted the older brother as much as he wanted her. They continued to meet where eyes couldn’t see them.
They betrayed me.” He paused. “Morvarid gave me a son with eyes blue as the sky and hair black as tar. But they were his eyes, his justice, his cursed mannerisms in that child. In you.” He pointed his finger at me.
“I realized it too late. But I handled it well. I removed the bastard.”
“You killed him.” His words fell into place. The sudden death of my uncle. My mother’s grief.
“He was gone.” Shah Jihangir’s voice was twisted. “And Morvarid gave me another boy. My boy. The second child, as I had been. I made him my heir, as he deserved to be.”
The puzzle finally fell together. Every moment I had questioned now made sense.
“But I couldn’t seem to rid myself of Vorkosh.
He lived on in you. So I worked to ruin you, turn you to the dark.
Form you into a monster. But it didn’t work.
You still have that justice in your veins instead of blood.
You are still the favored among the people rather than your brother.
I should never have let you live long enough to take revenge for your true father and murder my son. ”
I shook my head. “I did not kill Bahir.”
But Shah Jihangir was lost. He had disconnected from the truth in a troubling way and remained stuck in the past.
“But I will end this now. I will end my worthless brother for good.” He reached out, grasping a spear from the rack.
“No!” Yildiz screamed. “Do not do this.”
Shah Jihangir’s eyes turned crazed as he lifted the spear and prepared himself to throw. I swallowed and met his stare head-on. I whispered my last prayers, hoping the Almighty would allow me into heaven despite all the horror I had inflicted onto the world.
And then the spear clattered from Shah Jihangir’s hand. He looked down, blanching as red spread across his royal robes.
“He is your son,” a female voice said, “but you never deserved him.”
Shah Jihangir collapsed onto the ground, revealing a figure standing behind him, wielding a long curved dagger.
Malikeh Madar Morvarid.