Till Life Bring Us Together... {COMPLETED}

Chapter 18

A/N: Vote and comment.

***

The sun hadn't risen yet. Silently the night was slipping into dawn. Nothing was audible except the occasional hoots of an owl or chirps of crickets. Droopy soldiers guarded the wall.

There was a knock on the front gate. The gate creaked open letting in a tired horse man. His clothes were muddy and his hair shabby. His eyes were tired due to lack of sleep and his posture dull. A blood soaked tunic cover his torso.

In an instant a message was sent to The Empress' room. The Empress was jostled awake by a her hand maiden, Ila.

"Your highness? Your highness!"

"What is it?" Ruh said rubbing her sleepy eyes.

"He's back, your highness."

Hearing that all the sleepiness had left her body and she sat up straight. "Is he? I need to see him..."

She pushed off the embroidered duvet. Ila helped her with a shawl. She wrapped it around her shoulders and walked out of her room.

Her anklets chimed in the empty corridors as she walked towards Farookh's chambers. Once she reached there she saw his blood soaked tunic. Somehow, horrifying images flashed before her. 

She rushed towards him and helped him rip off the grimy tunic off. She gasped as she saw cuts and bruises all over his torso.

"Who did this to you?" She asked eyeing the wounds, also analysing how she would heal them.

"You don't want to know. Trust me." 

At once she called Ila and told her to fetch the royal doctor. She then helped him lay down.

"I trust you and I want to know who did this to you too. Tell me..." She pleaded him.

He sighed. "The Emperor."

She was silent. His words hardly evoked any reaction from. Whether it was shocking or not, she didn't know.

"He wouldn't... He would never resort to such cheap tactics." Her voice rung in confidence.

"I found this letter on the assassins sent to finish me off. As you can see, it has his stamp on it." He pointed out.

Ruh frowned at the letter. She shot glares at his stamp. It was his personal stamp. It had his name with roses around it in a semi circle. Thorns completed the other half of the circle. The stamp was engraved on his ring which he wore all the time.

She had such ring too. Her name and the exact pattern on it. It couldn't have been if it had been stolen. It was always on his person.

The doctor came in soon after that. After he was bandaged and tended to, she stood up.

"Rest, brother. I shall leave now." Saying that she left the room yet clutching that letter.

***

Just as the sun sees it all without eyes to see. The winds hear it all without ears to hear. The Emperor knows it all despite not being able to hear it all and see it all.

"What?" He shot the arrow in surprise and it almost missed it's target. "I find it hard to believe she would do such a thing."

"I get no profits from lying to you, your highness. What I said is the truth."

"I never said you lied, Wazir. I need hard facts to even suspect her, let alone accuse her. Despite that I'll look into this..." He shot another arrow and it reached it's mark.