The Crown in the Storm ✔️

The sun will shine on us again

My dearest Elena,

I did not want to offer my explanation on a piece of paper. I want to do that in person, so I can see your eyes when you understand why I hid that information from you. I will wait till you are ready to hear my side of the story. I don't know how much time you need but I am willing to give you as much as you need. Why am I writing this letter? I never wanted a communication barrier between us. You told me not to talk to you. I respect that, even if it kills me. Fortunately for me, you did not stop me from writing to you. I wanted to comfort you about Uncle Ehsan. I saw your heartbreak when he was being taken away. I know how important he is to you. How much you love him. Know that he is innocent and none of us will stop in our support for you.

I don't know how to end this, I never want our conversations to end. I miss you. I miss talking to you. God, there are times when I wonder about what you'll say or how you'll react when I tell you something. It doesn't come close to the reality of you.

Yours,

Zaroon.

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I clutched the letter to my heart. Rania was right, I was not ready to let him go. I never was and never will be. With the letter still in my hand and a smile on my face, I fell asleep.

A huge crowd was gathered outside the castle as we got ready to go to the city court. The stylist, Anni, fixed my hair and makeup and declared me good to go. I walked down the stairs to meet up with Ammi Jaan. Rania and Izzy were to stay at home.

"Will you be okay?" Izzy asked. Rania fixed my dupatta, her eyes anxious. At that moment, Hussein's message flashed across my screen.

"Hussein says they're ready to go and that Sameer is confident"

"Yeah, when I talked to him last night, he was pretty confident too," Rania said, moving away towards Ammi Jaan. Izzy raised an eyebrow. I shrugged. This would have to wait.

"Come on, hopefully, we're done before the Friday prayers. I have vowed special prayers if he gets released today" Ammi Jaan said. I nodded and we moved towards the cars.  After a lot of shouting and arguing, Feroze had managed to weasel his way out of this. He said that it was better for him to stay away from this case. He took his wife and kid, on our helicopter, for his campaign mission in the interior parts of the province. We only had four more days till the elections and no time to spare.

Zaroon and Ahsan were our designated guards for the day. I thanked Ahsan when he opened my door. I  avoided meeting Zaroon's eyes. He was keeping his distance. If I had not read the letter in the morning, I would have thought it was a hallucination. That's how distant he was. He sat in the passenger seat while Ahsan drove. We had aimed to keep this whole event as simple as possible. The whole theme had been normalcy.

We neared the courts and I could see that we would be fine. Rania's strategy had worked. There were no protestors just the media. The cameras were not allowed inside the court premises, so we had that to our advantage. We were directed to courtroom 1, where we were then told to get seated. Zaroon had come in with us and Ahsan waited outside. Hussein and Sameer were already there. I saw them huddled, whispering and talking with their heads together. We moved to our seats behind them. Hussein turned to look at me, a smile on his face.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"Uh... the guy isn't here"

"What guy?"

"The guy Uncle Ehsan tried to bribe and his counsel," Hussein said.

"That's good, right? We'll get the bail accepted?" I asked Sameer. He looked at me calmly.