[AMAL POV]
The eastern wing buzzed with activity when I arrived. Courtiers in silk robes discussed trade agreements while servants carried scrolls and refreshments. I had dressed carefully—my best robe, my hair properly covered, my manner respectful but determined.
The guards at the Prince's temporary chambers recognized me by now. One of them, a young man with kind eyes, looked at me with something approaching sympathy.
"He's with the treasury officials," he said quietly. "But I'll ask if he can see you."
I waited in the antechamber for what felt like hours, watching the parade of important people who were granted immediate audiences. Merchants with full purses, foreign ambassadors with official credentials, nobles with ancient titles—all of them swept past me as if I were part of the furniture.
Finally, the guard returned. "His Highness will see you now."
The Prince's temporary receiving room was smaller than his old chambers, but he had managed to recreate some of the formality. Tapestries hung on the walls, and guards flanked his chair. He looked older than I remembered, his face bearing new lines of stress and responsibility.
"Amal," he said when I entered. "I'm told you have a request."
I knelt. "Your Highness, I come to request the release of Najwa, daughter of Abbas the baker, as you promised."
"Ah yes, the baker's daughter." He leaned back in his chair. "I recall making such a promise. Very well. Since you've reminded me of my word, I'll honor it."
He gestured to one of his guards. "Bring the prisoner from the lower cells. The one called Najwa."
Hope flared in my chest, but it was tempered by the Prince's tone. There was something cold in his voice, something that suggested this wouldn't be the simple release I had hoped for.
"Your Highness is most gracious," I said, remaining on my knees.
"Indeed I am." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Though I wonder if you truly understand what you're asking for."
Before I could respond, the sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor. The guards were returning, but their steps were slow, labored. I heard the scrape of chains, the shuffle of feet that couldn't quite support their owner's weight.
And then they brought her in.
The woman they dragged between them was barely recognizable as human. Her hair, once thick and dark, hung in matted strands around a face so gaunt that her skull seemed to push through her skin. Her clothes were rags, stained with things I didn't want to identify. But it was her eyes that made me gasp—they were the eyes of someone who had looked into the abyss and seen it looking back.
"Najwa?" I whispered.
She tried to lift her head at the sound of her name, but the movement seemed to cause her pain. Her left arm hung at an unnatural angle, and I could see the marks of chains on her wrists and ankles. Fresh bruises mottled her visible skin, and when she tried to stand straighter, she swayed like a tree in a storm.
"Is this the woman you wished me to free?" the Prince asked conversationally.
"Yes, Your Highness," I managed, though my voice was barely audible.
"Very well then." He stood and walked to where Najwa hung between the guards. "By my royal decree, you are hereby free to go."
He reached into his purse and withdrew a handful of coins, which he threw at her feet. The silver scattered across the stone floor with a sound like falling rain.
"Your payment for services rendered," he said. "Use it wisely."
Najwa stared at the coins, and I saw her lips move as if she were trying to speak. But no sound came out—perhaps because her throat was too damaged, or perhaps because she had forgotten how to form words.
"You may go," the Prince said, returning to his chair. "Both of you."
The guards released Najwa, and she immediately collapsed to her knees. Her hands scrambled weakly for the coins, but her fingers couldn't seem to grasp them properly. She made a sound—a low, keening noise that might have been weeping or might have been laughter.
I felt rage building in my chest, a fury so pure and hot that it threatened to burn away all my carefully maintained composure. This was his idea of honor? This was how he kept his word?
"Thank you, Your Highness," I said, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. "Your mercy is... overwhelming."
If he heard the edge in my voice, he chose to ignore it. "See that she receives proper care. I would hate for it to be said that I freed a woman only to have her die in the streets."
I helped Najwa to her feet, supporting her weight as she swayed. She was so light, so fragile, that I felt I might break her with too firm a grip. The coins lay scattered around us, and I made no move to collect them.
"The money," the Prince said pointedly.
"She can't carry it, Your Highness," I replied. "Perhaps you could have someone collect it for her?"
He studied me for a long moment, and I saw something shift in his expression. "You're angry," he observed.
"I am grateful for Your Highness's mercy," I said carefully.
"But you're angry nonetheless." He leaned forward. "Did you think justice would be pretty, girl? Did you think freedom came without cost?"
"I thought honor meant something," I said before I could stop myself.
The silence that followed was deafening. The courtiers stopped their conversations. The guards shifted uncomfortably. Even Najwa, lost in her own private hell, seemed to sense the tension.
"Honor," the Prince repeated slowly. "You speak to me of honor?"
"Forgive me, Your Highness. I spoke out of turn."
"No, please. Continue. I'm curious to hear a servant girl's thoughts on honor."
I knew I was walking on dangerous ground, but Najwa's weight against my shoulder reminded me why I had come this far. "I think... I think honor means keeping your word in the spirit it was given, not just the letter."
"And you think I've failed in that?"
"I think you've given me exactly what you promised. Nothing more, nothing less."
He was quiet for a long moment, studying both of us. Najwa had begun to shake, though whether from cold, fear, or simple exhaustion, I couldn't tell.
"Take her," he said finally. "And take the money. You'll need it for physicians."
I gathered the coins with one hand while supporting Najwa with the other. As I straightened, the Prince spoke again.
"Amal."
"Yes, Your Highness?"
"Do not mistake mercy for weakness. And do not mistake survival for victory."
I bowed my head. "I understand, Your Highness."
But as I helped Najwa from the room, I wondered if I truly did understand. Was this justice? Was this the natural order Ghada had spoken of? Or was this simply what happened when power was challenged, even by those who meant no harm?
The journey to my quarters felt endless. Najwa could barely walk, and she flinched at every sound, every shadow. When we passed other servants in the corridors, she pressed herself against the wall as if trying to disappear.
"It's all right," I murmured to her. "You're safe now. You're free."
But even as I said the words, I wondered if they were true. What kind of freedom was this? What kind of safety?
Ghada was waiting in my chamber, and her face went white when she saw Najwa.
"Sweet merciful Allah," she whispered. "What have they done to her?"
"What they always do," I replied, helping Najwa to the bed. "They broke her."
We worked together to make her comfortable, bringing water and clean clothes, tending to her wounds as best we could. Just like how she used to tender girls' wounds before. But it was clear that Najwa's injuries went deeper than the physical. She wouldn't speak, wouldn't meet our eyes, wouldn't eat unless we put food directly in her mouth.
"We need a physician," Ghada said.
"With what money? The Prince's coins won't buy much healing."
"Then we'll find another way."
As if summoned by our conversation, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Khalil standing in the corridor, his face grim.
"I heard what happened," he said. "How is she?"
"Dying," I said bluntly. "Slowly, quietly, but dying."
He winced. "I brought a physician. He's... discrete."
"Can you afford discrete?"
"I can afford to do the right thing."
The physician was an old man with gentle hands and kind eyes. He examined Najwa thoroughly, his expression growing darker with each discovery.
"Three broken ribs, poorly set," he murmured to me. "Her left arm was dislocated and never properly treated. Signs of repeated beatings, malnutrition, and..." He paused, his voice dropping. "There are other injuries."
"Can you help her?"
"Her body will heal, given time and proper care. But her mind..." He shook his head. "That may take much longer. If it heals at all."
After he left, the three of us sat in silence. Najwa slept fitfully, occasionally crying out in her dreams. Each sound made my heart clench with guilt and rage.
"This is what justice looks like," I said finally. "This is what I fought for."
"You fought to save lives," Ghada reminded me. "You succeeded."
"Did I? Look at her, Ghada. Look at what my success bought."
"You think she'd be better off dead?"
"I think she'd be better off if I'd never involved her in the first place."
Khalil leaned forward. "The Prince wanted to teach you a lesson. He wanted to show you the cost of challenging the established order."
"Then he succeeded."
"Has he?"
I looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"
"I mean: what will you do now? Will you retreat to your duties, keep your head down, accept that this is how the world works? Or will you remember that you once stood in a burning hall and chose to save lives?"
After the incident, Khalil's demeanor shifted. There was something in the way he looked at me — not exactly softer, but more… measured. As if he admired what I'd done. Or maybe not. Maybe admiration was just another mask, another tool sharpened into a trap. Perhaps he's watching me even now, reporting every breath, every hesitation. I wouldn't be surprised.
But I don't care anymore.
If I'm to live in a place where eyes lurk in every shadow, where my footsteps echo louder than my voice, then let them watch. Let them take notes and whisper behind closed doors. I've stopped twisting myself into something smaller just to survive. From now on, I'll do what I believe is right — even if it earns me another collar. Even if it kills me.
I looked at Najwa, broken and haunted, and felt something crystallize inside me. The Prince had shown me the price of justice, but he had also shown me the price of injustice. And in that moment, I realized that some prices were worth paying.
"You're right," I said quietly. "This isn't over."
"What do you mean?"
I had not answer.
As night fell over the palace, I sat beside Najwa's bed and made a silent promise. She would heal—both her body and her spirit. And when she did, she would be free in a way that the Prince's coins could never buy.
But more than that, I would make sure that what happened to her would never happen to anyone else. Somehow, someway, I would find a path between the cruelty of the rebels and the coldness of the crown.
The great hall had burned, but from its ashes, something new would rise. And this time, I would make sure it was built on a foundation of true justice, not just royal decree.
The palace would endure, as Khalil had said. But the kingdom that emerged from this chaos would be different. It had to be.
Because if freedom meant nothing more than the right to crawl away broken and defeated, then it wasn't freedom at all.
It was just another form of prison.