His position had been shaken greatly, and there were still two princes beneath him.Though Borji was a Djinn, at least his existence meant his mother was favoured by a god, meaning he still had a chance to become the Okpalaeze.
In the seas of men that stalked the palace, Somadina had suddenly shrunk to a height he never imagined he would.And he couldn’t understand just who was the one behind all this.It couldn’t be the Ugoeze; he had spies on her side, watching her.Then just who was it?
A man passed him in the corridor.
Somadina came to a stop, turning.
The man was nothing special—medium height, medium build, the kind of face you forgot the moment you looked away.He wore the simple robes of an apothecary, and he was following a young girl—Nkiru, Azul's maid, the one who never left her side.
An apothecary.
Somadina's heart hammered.Pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird trying to escape.He watched the man's retreating back, and something seized in his chest.
Did we look alike?
The thought came from nowhere, intruding on his fragile state.He pushed it away.Of course they didn't look alike.They were strangers.But his feet would not move.His eyes would not look away.
Was he hallucinating?
The question slithered through his mind like a snake.Was he seeing things that weren't there?Was his guilt so great that it painted every stranger with the same brush?
Or did Azul really have him?
The thought was absurd.She was a purchased girl, a slave playing at princess, a vixen who had crawled out of some village and somehow wrapped a barbarian around her finger.She could not possibly have reached this far.Could not possibly have found him.With what resources?
And yet the man walked on, following Nkiru toward the shrine, and Somadina's blood ran cold.
He was scared.
He, Somadina, Okpalaeze of the Borjigin, was afraid of a woman.
Why?
Why was he afraid?
He should be angry; if truly this was her doing, she was destroying his legitimacy, dragging him down to the pits of hell.He should be furious; he should be planning her slow and agonising end.
Instead, he looked down at his pants, and his face was ashen.
He turned and walked quickly, his steps echoed off the stone, a rhythm that matched the pounding of his heart.Through the corridors, past the guards, past the servants who pressed themselves against walls to avoid his path.
He entered his bedroom, breathing laboured, not from exertion.
Suddenly, he was alone in the dark room; the sun hadn’t come out, merely grey clouds.
He crossed to his bed, pulling back the curtains that covered the back walls, and there she was.
It was only a painting, crude and imperfect, commissioned from a palace artist who had seen her once and tried to capture what he could.But it was her face.Her eyes, ones that loathed him with everything in her soul.
Somadina looked at it.
He thought of her hands around his throat.Her weight above him.The vase shattering against his skull.Only once had he managed to anger her enough to hurt him, and since then it seemed she had disregarded him completely.
It felt like he was suffocating; he needed her to curse him, to request his death.He needed her to fight him, to despise him, as long as it was him.
His hand moved.
It was shameful.It was degrading, everything a prince should not be, should not do, should not want.But he couldn’t stop.No matter how many times he pounded into his wife looking at her portrait, it could never feel like her.Someone he was so close to having, whom he had tried to punish again and again but to no avail.Perhaps the gods had abandoned him from the very beginning.Of all the warlords on the Main Continent, why did this one need to be gentle to her?Why did he need to like her?Why did he need to favour her?
