Kingdom of Secrets ✔

13 ♚ Betrayer

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March 30th

6:35 AM Sulifa, Qa'ihr

The Saleh Royal family was built on certain values: Honour, Loyalty, Family and Power. It was one's duty to uphold them at all times no matter what that entailed. King Hakeem the second's infidelity, Dalia's murder, Amir's suicide attempt, Cyra's incident, Amir's secret love child. Those were the front running secrets but even they had more to it than met the eye and with the article release about the affairs of the late King, they had to be careful to not unravel any more secrets and show the world exactly who they all were.

Amir never knew a time he had craved the taste of alcohol more than he did at the present moment. He had tried his hardest to stay away from it, but as he spent more and more time happy he was waiting for the other ball to drop.

He knew exactly what he was - an alcoholic who relied on his fiery liquid addiction to make him feel anything other than fear. But in the present, he was a father and that too was important to him.

He gently rocked Eira in his arms wishing for her crying to subside. Many nights had been full of her crying and it was weird that he enjoyed it. His daughter's tears reminded him that he had to be better for her, that he couldn't be the man he had been and if he could he would spend the rest of his life with Eira in his arms. Every night Aya would offer to attend to their daughter and every time Amir would tell her he could manage. He had missed her birth but he wanted to be around her all the time in order to never miss any important moment ever again.

"Why do you cry so much, Edie?" he whispered to her as she wailed exposing her pink gums.

 "Do you want Mummy and not Daddy? That kind of hurts me you know," he said kissing her puffy cheeks. 

Amir didn't know how to feel after the release of the article. His siblings had all chosen to ignore it out of respect for their mother but deep down Amir felt that it was true. He had grown up thinking his parents loved each other so dearly and would never have imagined anything like the scandal, but then he would be naive to not believe that the family he knew wasn't able to cover up something as small as an affair when they had successfully covered up Dalia's murder.

He loved his family but his urge to leave was gnawing at his chest, it was what he knew best to leave when things got too intense but he would not make the same mistake with Eira and Aya. He already had too much to make up to them for. He had been fine with Eira and the wedding but he was still Amir, and adapting to the life he was now going to live was scary to him. He dreamt of nothing more than to pick up a few drinks and lock himself away for a few days just for his sanity.

"Your Mummy is much nicer though I agree," he said and then looked up smiling as Aya Chanler- Saleh walked in. She wore a blue robe and was rubbing her eyes yawning.

"I am much better." Aya agreed slumping down next to her husband and daughter. She took Eira off of Amir into her arms and began to feed her as she cuddled into Amir's side. They sat in silence as Eira's tears subsided and they drifted off to sleep.

♚

Amila King looked at the blog on her phone, she knew it was just tabloid gossip but it still made her feel unsettled, the news about the late King Hakeem's affairs had broke, she wondered how the family were coping and on top of that, yesterday would have been her wedding day and the local Sulifa blog she had subscribed to when she was in Qa'ihr talked about the rumours of a failed marriage between her and King Hakeem.