chapter twenty-three.

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THE BOOK MARIA had sent up to me was thick, its pages yellow yet perfectly pressed, and when I opened up the cover, my fingers made a solid handprint onto the layer of dust.

Clearly, it had been in that library for a long time, and no one had opened it.

It was a shame, for a book like this — A History Of The Persian Kingdom: The Sons And Daughters Of Heaven, written by a some famous, palace historian a few hundred decades ago — would never have been accessible in Babylon, even to the rich. And yet here it was, the ink left to fade away onto yellowed paper in the confines of an old, gigantic library in the West Wing that Maria had secretly snuck into.

I wondered why I'd never seen the library before.

"The library is inconspicuous, Miss," Maria had said. "At least, the one in Prince Cairo's wing is. It's behind a small door, and even I had to ask one of the head butlers to find out about it. It doesn't seem as if it's been entered in years."

"Is it not the prince's private library?"

"I thought it was," she said, "but as far as I could tell, it isn't. The whole room was filled with dust."

Maria stretched her arms out around her head in a wide, open semi-circle, her eyebrows furrowing together. "I suppose the room was about this big. I thought it was odd, Miss, because it must've taken an extremely long time for so much dilapidation to set into all of the shelves and decor of such a big area."

Maria had made a good point, but watching the way she stretched her arms out around her, big doe eyes darting between her left and right hand, it was exceptionally hard for me to try and not smile.

Certainly a twelve-year-old child, after all.

Just as the thought finished coming to me, I frowned.

Exactly. She's only a twelve-year-old child.

"Why haven't you gone and rested yet, Maria? Didn't I tell you to do so an hour ago?"

Maria blinked, her hands falling to her sides. "Miss, I can't."

"Can't what?"

"I can't just go and rest," she said, frowning. "I have to stay."

"No, you don't."

"Miss, I do. I happened to meet Ismal as I was on my way back to the library, and he told me I must stay close," she said. "This incident might have given Miss a scare. I have to ensure that you are all right after all is said and done, to ensure that you stay healthy for yourself and everyone else around you."

The words were much too robotic for someone like Maria to actually say, and I couldn't help but think that this must've been a sentence that Ismal had made the girl repeat and memorize at least three, four times before he even allowed her to be back on her way.

No wonder she'd taken such a long time to come back.

"Did he say that the corpse might have frightened me?"

At the word 'corpse,' Maria flinched back, before she said, "Yes."

"Maria, did you know the person who died?"

It was a blunt question to ask, and one that I regretted the moment it slipped out of my mouth, but before I could stop and apologize, Maria said, "Not really. I knew of him. He was one of Prince Finn's personal valets. The Shahzadeh valued him a lot, and would often gift him with more gold or food than his other personal valets. That made him very popular amongst the staff."

I paused, before nodding slowly. "I think that this incident might have given you a much larger scare than it could ever have done to me. Go rest."

"No, thank you, Miss. Ismal has already told me to stay." Maria smiled, before she sat down on the floor next to me. "Please continue reading the book, Miss. I will just accompany you from here."

With every passing minute, I felt a growing frustration building at Ismal. "Ismal does not understand what you need, Maria. You need to rest and to distance yourself from this situation. You are a child."

"I am also your personal chambermaid, Miss. Please allow me to do my job."

"When did you become so stubborn?" I finally said, frowning so hard that the sides of my cheeks hurt. "When did you stop listening to me? Am I not your Miss?"

I hadn't realized when I'd decided to raise my voice, but when I did, Maria had started frowning.

"Miss," she said. "Please allow me to do my job. This is a normal occurrence in the Palace. I have lived within the Palace my entire life. You've only recently arrived. I must ensure that you are alright and protected, Miss. Not only as a maid but also as somebody who cares and is worried about you. Please understand that."

She had said a long statement, but only one thing she'd mentioned stuck to my mind.

'This is a normal occurrence in the Palace?'

"Maria, this is a normal occurrence within the Palace? Finding a corpse on the second floor of the West Wing?"

Maria's face turned pale, and when she opened her mouth, there was no sound.

"Maria?"

Slowly, she licked her lips, before whispering, "I might have said something wrong, Miss. This certainly isn't a normal occurrence. I apologize for scaring you."

Once again, as always, she was a terrible liar.

I stared at her. "It isn't?"

She shook her head.

"I didn't realize that you'd started so outwardly lying to me, Maria," I said, shifting my position on the chair. "Explain."

She shook her head again, her face still pale, and getting paler by the minute. "I don't know what you're talking about, Miss."

As she spoke, her eyes darted once, twice, three times in the direction of my bedroom door.

I frowned, before I lowered my voice and whispered, "What is it, Maria?"

She shook her head again.

"You can tell me," I said, glancing at the door. "What are you afraid of?"

Maria stayed silent for a long, long time, her eyes straying over to the bedroom door, before she finally whispered, "Ismal placed someone outside the door to guard us."

"Guard us?"

"Yes. To ensure that we don't run into any danger. But I know the man he assigned to the door, and his hearing is very sharp. He might hear our conversation and deliver it back to Ismal."

"Why would he deliver our conversation?" I whispered back, before getting up out of the chair and dragging her to one corner of the room, as far away from the door as possible. "What does he think he will hear?"

Maria bit down on her lip, so hard that when she released it, I could see the remnants of blood sticking to them.

"You can tell me, Maria," I whispered. "Trust me."

"I don't know what exactly he's listening for," she said, pausing, and her voice was so quiet that I had to bend myself down just to hear her, "but I think that the thing he's listening for is exactly the thing I just said."

"That this is a normal occurrence?"

Hesitantly, she nodded. "Yes," she whispered, "This has happened a few times in the past, Miss. I don't know when it started, but it's been here for a very long time, even as the Princes grew up. Every few months or so, someone will find a corpse in the Palace. Murdered. But we've never been able to find out how or why."

"Have they always been killed in the same way?" I said.

Maria nodded again. "Yes," she whispered. "Usually, something is used to slit the throat. We've never managed to find out using what. It's just that the victims are usually staff personnel that work on the outside. People who aren't regularly seen in the Palace. It was the first time that we've had a personal valet situation."

Staff personnel that work on the outside?

"Outside workers?"

"Yes. Messengers. Stable hands. Food deliverers." She hesitated, before she whispered, "Gardeners."

Gardeners?

"Maria," I said. "You're twelve. Who told you all this? This is not information you would give a child."

"I am also a chambermaid, Miss. It is important for me to know this," she whispered, rubbing at her eyes. "My father told me the rest. Before he disappeared, I mean."

Before he disappeared?

Outside personnel? Gardeners?

Could it be...?

"Maria, were you..."

"Oh, no! Miss!" Maria raised her head up, her eyes wide. "No, no, my father was not a victim. He just disappeared. I would know, because at the time I was eight and I asked around. There had been a killing the day before, but it wasn't my father. They said it wasn't my father."

Slowly, I nodded. "You are... sure?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes. They would've told me if it was him. I have a lot of close friends within the Palace, Miss."

She sounded so sure and desperate that, when she finished speaking, I did not know how to tell her that all of it sounded as if the staff just didn't want her to know — as they should. After all, she had only been eight. Doing so would have traumatized her.

Still, I felt an extreme amount of pity for her.

"Maria," I said. "Aside from being outside personnel, was there anything else that linked the victims together?"

"I'm... I'm honestly not too sure, Miss," she said, frowning. "I know that some of the butlers were tasked with finding out, but they never found anything too important. It's just always been— oh!"

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm assuming you found something, Maria."

She nodded. "I don't know about the recent person, but if I'm not mistaken, Ismal once mentioned that all of the people who were killed had either one of two things in common — if it was a woman, Ismal found that the woman would always be stunningly beautiful, or wear a gold necklace. For the men, all of them were found, after death, to have stolen at least one thing from the Palace."

Maria's face then brightened up as she said, "That's why it couldn't have been my father, Miss. My Baba has never stolen. I know him well enough to know that. Don't you think the same, Miss?"

Slowly, I nodded. "You are right," I told her, and when her smile widened, I thanked myself for lying. "Thank you for sharing all this information with me, Maria. Now you can go rest."

Her eyes widened. "But Miss—"

"Do not worry. Just rest here. I'm worried about you, Maria. Simply go to sleep here, and the guard outside will not suspect anything. You will be alright."

She hesitated again. "But, Miss—"

"Sleep. That's an order."

Slowly, she nodded her head, before she turned herself inwards, curled herself up, and closed her eyes.

It took all of two minutes for the sound of soft snores to fill the room.

Once I was sure that she was asleep, I stood up, slowly tip-toeing over to my vanity.

The butlers had been very efficient in moving my things, it seemed, because they even managed to bring back Maria's favorite jewelry box, probably by request from the girl itself.

The box was heavy, shaped like three little cabinets and inlaid with gold. Maria had always used the first one to store necklaces, the second for earrings, and the last, left completely deserted.

Slowly, I opened the third drawer, before pulling out a small piece of paper.

I haven't looked at this in so long.

I smoothed out the portrait, trying my best to erase all the wrinkles and fold lines as I had so many times in my house before — I'd always tried, it never worked.

But seeing mother's eyes brought a sense of comfort.

"Mama," I whispered, as quietly as I could. "Mama, I miss you. And I am scared."

"It is the first time in a long while that I have felt scared," I continued. "I know that I have always been afraid of death, but not to this extent. Mama, I am not ready to die. I am not ready to die with my throat slit, somewhere in the corner of an abandoned room within this cold, cold Palace. I would like to go home, Mama. I am not ready for this."

Perhaps, sometime in the middle of my one-sided conversation, I'd started crying, because when I finished talking and looked down at the picture, there was a large tear stain on one corner of the paper.

Desperately, I held both ends of the portrait down and blew, hoping to dry down the wet spot as best as I could. And to an extent, I suppose it worked.

Supposed.

I frowned, pulling back to try and see the picture from a larger angle, trying to see if, in the bigger picture, you'd still be able to see that wet stain.

I couldn't.

But all of a sudden, when I finally tore my stare away from mother's face, my eyes stopped at her neck.

She had on a beautiful necklace, one that I remembered extremely vividly because she'd said that her own mother had given it to her, and when I reached a marriageable age, then she'd give it to me, too.

A family heirloom, she'd called it. The only family heirloom we'd ever had, but it was alright, because it was one of the most beautiful heirlooms either of us had ever seen.

If I remembered correctly, it had been long, had a fake blue pendant, and was made of cheap, but solid gold.

It can't be.

KAY ©️ 2020.

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