Elysium

Chapter 3

Mariam watched her mother stalk away in Meerab's direction, the crowd parting as if she were the grim reaper himself. Knowing she was the only one in the family who had not inherited the legendary Khan temper, Mariam hastened after her mother, determined to salvage the situation. But she froze in her tracks when Haya locked onto her new prey, spitting poison at him.

She turned around just in time to see an enraged Haya walk up to Anwar Chacha, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

"It's all your fault; your selfishness to see your daughter as the Khanam of the house is the reason why we are all here today. As if she were not satisfied with just stealing this family's respect and honor, she is now after Murtasim's life. Why? Because she does not want someone above her authority when she finally starts her reign in the haveli?"

Haya was seething by this point, her outburst attracting quite a number of onlookers. Stating that Mariam was shocked would be an understatement. Haya, the goody-two-shoes, the one who seemed to be in every elder's good books, had shouted at Anwar Chacha, the one man who had as much of a say as Ma Begum in their lives.

Mariam was privy to Haya's unrequited love towards her brother; it had always bothered her how she was hyper-fixated on him, going to lengths and beyond to be his ideal woman, even when she had only ever taken the spot of a beloved sister. Well, after the stunts Haya has been pulling for the last few months, Mariam was not that sure about the beloved part.

So Haya's outburst should have made sense to her; she should have felt a sense of admiration for the profound love and devotion that Haya regularly claimed to have for her brother. But she failed to see an ounce of that love in her outburst. Yes, her anger had come from a place of fear, a fear of loss, but unlike the rest of them, she was not afraid of losing Murtasim; she was afraid of losing the Khan and her shot at being Khanam.

Haya was projecting her own desires and selfishness onto Anwar, victimizing herself as she always did. But this time she could not quite hide her thirst for power under her love for Murtasim. Mariam might not be the most confrontational person in the house, but she was an observer, picking up on subtle cues and shifts in behaviors, and Haya's personality had done a total 180 from the moment Meerab had entered the Haveli.

And Mariam was foolish enough to bring her ice cream and soothe her broken heart when it was not her heart that had taken the hit but her ego. She had known that Haya paraded herself as the future Khanam of the house, silently and secretly mobilizing her own entourage among the house staff, which then resulted in many of the ladies vying for her attention and grace.

Even after all these years of camaraderie and sisterhood, Haya had always prioritized Murtasim over Mariam, something that Mariam thought was a byproduct of her budding feelings for her brother. But it was simply her leeching onto the more powerful heir. Her obsession with taking the Khan name and referring to herself as a Khan was always taken as a harmless wish for belonging. But now, under the glaring hospital lights, Mariam felt as if a mask had been ripped off Haya's face and that, for the first time, she was seeing the woman for who she really was.

Mariam saw how months of envy and suppressed anger boiled over in a flurry of poisonous words and blatant accusations, something that had been going on since the moment the three of them had departed from the Haveli. But her desperation seemed to have reached an all-time high when she spotted Anwar Chacha.

Haya, in her utter delusion, firmly believed that if it were not for Anwar and Ma Begum bringing Meerab into the picture, Murtasim would have married her. And thus she had chosen Anwar and Merab to carry the burden of her despair. But Haya was someone who always kept up appearances, and thus her hostility towards Anwar was not as evident as with Meerab. But Mariam knew today was a different case.