A Queen's Redemption

Chapter 15- A Revelation Pt.2

*Mature*

Rage…wasn’t enough to describe the feelings around the room. rage …wasn’t enough to describe what I was feeling.

Qasim was pacing again at this point and Issa was trying hard to stop from transforming. And me? Well…Jahid, Rhaan and I…we wanted blood.

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*Serene’s POV*

“That lasted…five years.”

I took in a shuddering breath.

“He tortured me for five years. I begged him to let me go. I don’t know what happened, if it was something I did…but I begged him to let me go. He would just laugh and tell me that the only way I was leaving was in a body bag so then I would beg him to kill me. I just wanted it to be over. He would get this excited gleam in his eyes and go harder. I came to understand that he got off on me begging…so I stopped. I became mute. No matter how much he hurt me…I said nothing.

One day he moved me from my cell to an actual room, and I stupidly thought he’d let up. Again, I was wrong. He gave me an ultimatum. I pledge my allegiance to him, or the torture continued. I asked if I would be able to go free, he told me no. But my pain would stop if I swore allegiance…and submitted to him.

I refused. From then it became a free for all. I became…a toy…for anyone who wanted a piece. His rule, ‘you could do anything you wanted to her..just don’t touch her sexually’. Regardless of everything that was happening to me, that became my one solace. That was the one thing I held precious to me that I still had control over.”

“Had?” I heard Amir ask shakily. I looked up at him and smiled through my tear stained face.

“I became a shell of myself. He would bring other women to the room and fuck them in front of me, while…forcing me to watch as someone beat me. His sister beat and brutalized me, and she enjoyed doing so. But that…that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted my submission and doing what he was doing to me…he thought I would’ve given up. And he snapped.

One day, he came in…he was by himself…he shut and locked the door and I thought to myself that this was another beating session…”

I stopped as I choked up. I hugged my arms to myself as I remembered that day. “He…he raped me…that day.”

I heard the gasps and the enraged cries but I refused to look at their faces because I knew what I would see on them. I felt the shame coming back and I couldn’t stop it.

“Twice a day…he would come in and rape me. Then let someone else or multiple other people beat me until I was unrecognisable. Even then I refused to submit to him. He’d taken my purity…but he wasn’t about to take my pride. How long that lasted, could’ve been weeks, months….I don’t remember. I went numb. In order to keep myself sane, I went numb.

Then a law was passed that all citizens who weren’t willing residents of a country would be granted freedom and any misconduct against them would be thoroughly punished. A clean sweep was done of all the buildings in Mayuda and at the end of it, around 2000 people walked free. When I was found, Lyon knew that it would’ve looked bad on his image, although…it had already been ruined by then…but he wanted to save what was left of it.

So they came up with a cover story. A cover story that said I had committed a crime and that all they did was punish me for it. So, in front of everyone, I was accused and condemned for the crime of infidelity. Infidelity towards him. His story wasn't very credible considering he couldn’t bring forward the man in which I did the crime with…and that in itself was enough to merit my freedom. They didn’t really believe him and pushed for him to free me.

I remember on my last day there…I asked him…after years of him not hearing my voice, I asked him simply, why. He smacked the document in front of me. It was a picture of two men. Lyon said that the men in it ruined his and his family’s lives. That they were banished to this backwater country and they couldn’t do anything about it. He’d vowed revenge on them but got enraged when he realised they’d died before he could.

So when his sister found out about me, she thought I had looked familiar until she found out who I was.”

I looked up from my lap and finally looked at them. The women had tears in their eyes and the guys looked like they were barely hanging on by a thread.

“One of the men in it was a wizard named Kassim. Kassim Reyes.” their eyebrows shot up. I felt my mother stiffened beside me and Sebille turned pale. “He was my father.”

“Your…your father’s Kassim Reyes? The Kassim Reyes?” Qasim choked out. “Ey yo I was named after him dawg!” he exclaimed, jumping up. Issa rolled his eyes and smacked him on the back of his head.

I chuckled but nodded anyway. They marveled at that revelation. I turned to Amir who still looked very angry at what I just confessed to but he looked at me and gave me a comforting smile. I sighed in relief. I was hesitant to tell him about my past because I didn’t know how he would take it, and while this isn’t how I wanted him to find out…it was out now. Nothing to be done about that.

It was no secret that my father was a legend when it came to the world of magic. It was because of that fact that he made me promise to never mention or say his name to just anybody. He said it was a way to protect my mother and I.

While they were still speechless about that revelation, I realised our mothers had gotten up and were whispering to each other. I noticed Amir saw it too as he glanced at me before looking at them.

“Mom?” They tensed up and stared at each other for a while.

“Was…was the other man in the photo…wearing red and gold…” Sebille asked softly.

I tried to rack my brain to remember…and then I did. My eyes widened. “Yeah. Yeah he was.”

“Wait mom, how’d you know to ask that?” Amir asked, confused.

They looked at each before sighing and turning to us. “Because…that other man was your father, Amir.”