A Guide to Charming Royals

Chapter Eighteen: ARIAH

An important rule about being a royal is to remember that you are human. That you will also feel guilt, a horrible, damaging feeling that can consume you. It will bite at you, prevent you from sleeping, and leave you soundlessly walking down the kitchen, and peeking into the living room. So, if you've done something wrong, it might work in your favour to accept it and apologize.

There's no point in recalling your inconsiderate words, and the blankness of someone's face as they took in what was said. Don't spend time thinking of how you'd like to return to the moment, stop yourself from speaking. Because it's done, and now, you must be the better royal, always charming, always kind, and fix your mistakes.

That is exactly what we're here to do.

We watch Madyan from a distance, his back turned to us, gaze fixed on something outside the window, as though he is observing the other houses on the block. Earlier when we'd heard him head downstairs, our mind had jumped with dialogues, refining lines to make sure whatever we said to him sounded like a sincere apology.

However, standing so close to him makes those words rush away from us, his presence enough to steal the confidence we'd been wearing only mere moments ago. Because we hadn't meant to hurt him, hadn't realized the impact of our words until it was too late.

We think of Uncle Rami, and his mantra that we are a good person, an amazing friend and an even better princess, before we take the final step toward him and make our presence known.

His head turns slightly, before returning his attention to the darkness outside.

"Hear us out before you say anything," we start, clutching the plate of scones tightly in our hands, "because we just want to apologize. We know that there have been rumours about you in the media, like there have been rumours about most of us. But yours have been about your parents, your status, and the truth is, growing up being subjected to horrible rumours about why we moved out of Riyadh, why we visit our family so little, we know better than to believe everything we see on the media. So with our words, we didn't mean to imply we believed any of the rumours that Auntie Omaiza isn't your mother, or Uncle Haaris had a relationship with someone and you've been left here because you're unwanted."

The clock ticks, marking each moment we spend in silence.

We continue. "We were a couple of months shy from our eleventh birthday when we heard the first rumour. We remember being in a room with our cousins and a bunch of other kids at some party, and we heard your name on the news. They had a picture of you, it was a grainy image and they probably suffered from a lawsuit for that afterwards, but then, when we saw you, we just thought about the fact that we knew you, at least some part of you. And we were so proud to have known you. So, we told the other kids, 'that's our May.' And..."

He deigns an answer when we go quiet. "What happened afterwards?"

"They laughed at us and said why would we want to associate with a–a–"

"Bastard," he whispers, when we hesitate. We want to tell him that he isn't one, but he turns to us, eyes glazing. "If we told you that we are a bastard, then why would you want to associate with one, Princess?"

Something shifts behind him, followed by a soft thump.

We feel it, the change, the wrongness of the situation. Being a royal, an important rule has always been to notice the change in atmosphere, in order to steer conversations in a new direction if needed, to leave a setting without being thrown out, and to escape death.

Having grown up in the palace, and then later moving to Calgary, we had been required to participate in a lot of drills, to pick up on the slightest sound, and to always suspect something was wrong by even the smallest shift in a moment. Now, we press a finger to our lips, wondering if it's not an external factor, rather something internal, a part of us that is uncomfortable in Madyan's presence. However, just as we convince ourself of this, the figure behind Madyan shifts, glances at us through the window before smashing their foot against the glass.