Wicked Love | ✓ (#featured)

¹ | i n c e p t i o n

(n.) beginning, dawn.

Raneem listened behind the door as her father tried to stifle his sobs. She, herself felt no sadness, whatsoever, but listening to her father cry was heart-wrenching. It was all she could do, not to turn back from the doors and go to the courtyard to work out her annoyance in training. But she knew she couldn't leave her father mourning alone for much longer. She had already stalled enough and her father would soon ask why she had not been visiting.

With a sigh, Raneem swung open the doors to her step mother's chamber. She nodded to Adam as he stood guard behind her father but she could not decide whether she was going to grin or frown. The woman was there, lying in bed, pale and seemingly skeletal. A week in her condition had reduced her to a shell that she once was. The proud and condescending look was no longer present in her eyes.

Beside the poor wretch was her father, holding her hand as if she were precious porcelain. His face was gaunt and dark circles framed his red, puffy eyes. The crown of his head was now closer to white than grey and his hairline started to recede from his forehead. He looked up at Raneem and a smile that didn't touch his eyes pulled at the corners of his mouth. At once, he stood and went to her as fast as an old man with feeble knees could.

Raneem immediately closed the distance to save her father the effort. He held her in a tight embrace and she could feel how thin her father had grown. He was still larger in stature than most men in the kingdom, but he felt old and weak to the touch. The fact that her father had grown frail worsened her anxiety even more. He was no longer the image of the great and mighty king his people had looked up to.

"Raneem," he began, his voice hoarse from weeping, "They have given her thirty days to live. No more. The men I have sent to Treliron have not returned. I don't know if I have sent fools or greedy bastards on that errand, but I am losing hope. I've already lost your mother. I can't lose Amira."

Her glance went to the woman in the bed for a while. She would wish that the witch was dead, but seeing her father become what he has become-Witchcraft or no, the woman had her father in sackcloth and ashes at the prospect of losing her. It even occurred to her that it was possible that he would follow her in grief.

Raneem supposed the whole illness was a sham from the moment she was proclaimed sick. None of the healers or the magic could heal her. Despite the wretch's worsening disposition, she did not believe she was truly ill especially when her father started sending out some of the kingdom's best warriors to get the cure with his blood and his treasures. She had feared for their lives and her suspicions were confirmed when they did not return. That made her want to show everyone what a liar she was, but she had no proof. The wretch was too cunning.

But no matter how much she hated the woman, she could not show her disdain as her father forgot all his cares in her company. She held her tongue and had become civil with the witch, never telling her father all the troubles the wretch was bringing her.