Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) (44 page)

After another short period of silence, I decided to get back to my room–I’d learned that Janna was okay, and that was all that mattered. “I’m going to go back now,” I said. “Thank you for everything, you really don’t know how much this means to me,” I smiled softly at her, and she returned it with a smile just as soft.

Just as I was about to get up off the stool, Mona spoke, “By the way, Princess,” I turned my gaze back to her and stopped midway to standing, “Prince Fahd loves Princess Janna just as much as Prince Mazen loves her, if not even more–he would’ve never hurt her,” she said.

Huh!

Her words made me sit back on the stool, my eyes locked on hers, not really looking at her but rather trying to understand her words–was she for real? I had to ask, “Seriously? I wouldn’t think that of the one who wanted to beat her near death, and actually
did
slap her more than once when he learned she was pregnant.”

Mona looked surprised that I knew that story, but then recovered quickly and sighed before replying, “I guess Princess Janna was the one to tell you that story.” I didn’t say anything. “It’s a good thing she thought that: it was the point, to know that what she’d done was a really bad thing to do, a line that should’ve never been crossed.”

“What do you mean by
‘Good thing she thought that’
? You mean it wasn’t actually the case?” I asked.

“Of course not, Princess,” she replied, “but Prince Fahd had to do it.”

“How?”

“It’s really not my place to tell, Princess.”

“Please, Mona, you can tell me. You’ve already told me a lot, so what’s one other thing?” I tried to be convincing.

Mona took a deep breath. “Prince Mazen was the first to learn about Princess Janna’s pregnancy, and Prince Fahd was the only one he told after that,” she started. “Only I know of what really happened after that.

“Both of them were really mad and angry, at your brother more than anything, but they were raised well: they knew that acting with anger wouldn’t cause anything but more damage. That’s a thing you need to learn well in order to rule a country, and they did so, they made a plan.”

“A plan?” I frowned.

“Yes, Princess,” she answered. “They made it look as if Prince Fahd learned about it at the same time as the queen, when Prince Mazen asked for both to come to Princess Janna’s wing. They knew the queen would be furious and even madder if Princess Janna wasn’t punished. She would’ve raised the issue with the king–and not in a good way–and done whatever it took to get Princess Janna her punishment, to be killed,” she sighed. “The queen has one rule that she respects most of all: respect all of the rules. Their plan was that one of them had to slap their sister in the presence of the queen, and make it look like he was going to kill her. Prince Mazen couldn’t do it, so Prince Fahd took care of it even if his heart was breaking inside–and trust me, it was. When it happened, Prince Mazen acted as if he was angry with his brother and pushed him away from Princess Janna. They threw fists at each other and made it look ugly, believable enough for the queen to believe that one of them was going to die if she didn’t stop them. Prince Mazen made it clear he wouldn’t see his sister killed, no matter what, even if he had to die for it. They made the queen come up with finding another solution herself, as that had been their plan from the start: for it to be her own idea–and it worked. Because the queen definitely wouldn’t want to see her son getting killed for something he didn’t even do,” Mona smiled.

“Wow!” I breathed.

“Sadly, the king still didn’t take it well, even though he learned about it with the solution of the trade tailing the news of her pregnancy.”

“Yeah, may God cure him,” I prayed: he seemed like a kind person.

“There are lots of things we wouldn’t know if we only heard the story from one side, Princess. And when it comes to the royal family, you can never tell what hidden intentions there are in the story, even if you heard it from both sides. Trust me, I know.”

I studied her a little longer, my eyes narrowing. “You’re really not only a servant, are you?” I asked.

“What would make you say that, Princess?” she asked with a hint of a smile on her lips.

“Aside from the fact that Prince Fahd was really surprised that you were my servant, and the fact that you knew of Janna’s pregnancy like I expected, you sure know lots of things that no servant could know without one of those persons you just talked about telling you those things themselves,” I told her.

She smiled. “No, Princess, I’m not a servant anymore, for over ten years now. Prince Mazen ordered it once he was old enough to give orders,” she told me.

“Then why are you serving me, and why did you introduce yourself as my servant?”

“Prince Mazen asked me to do it for the first seven days, until you choose one yourself. I’m the only one whom he trusted to serve you well.”

“Why?”

“Islam makes me his mother, something the queen doesn’t really like for me, or him, to address by that title,” she said.

“How so?” I frowned.

“I raised him since he was a little baby. I breastfed him along with my own daughter, as well as Prince Fahd, when his servant got sick or whatever. In Islam, I take the title of his Nursery Mother just by having done so a certain number of times.” There was undeniable pride in her words.

“Oh, I see,” I said, “That’s – nice,” was all I could say. I really needed lots of time alone to be able to process all of this.

Right at the same minute, I heard a buzz that I hadn’t heard before, and Mona stood up right away. “That would be one of the queen’s servants bringing breakfast, I have to get that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, sure, thanks again,” I smiled, getting up this time and heading back to the sunroom and then to the bedroom.

While I lay awake on my bed, I couldn’t help but think about all of the things Mona had told me. I was glad to learn that Janna was okay, I just hated that she was so depressed that she thought about ending her life. The poor girl had dealt with so much since she’d gotten pregnant, I couldn’t even imagine what she’d gone through. She believed that one of her brothers wanted to kill her, and the other didn’t want anything to do with her. They were really upset with her choices and they made her believe that they were mad, to the point of not wanting to deal with her at all. I’d seen it with my own eyes just the day before: the last time she’d come here with Joseph, the prince wouldn’t even look at her.

Their culture was really complicated. I knew that in old Europe it was really bad to get pregnant outside of marriage–heck, it’s still not very acceptable
now
in some Eastern countries or even in some states in America–but I don’t think they ever kill for it. Or maybe I didn’t know…truth was, I’d never really given it that much thought.

My thoughts drifted to the prince, and what he himself had gone through: it was a lot, and devastating to even think about it. It seemed that he hadn’t taken a breather since everything happened with Janna, and because of her. And now with my escape attempt…

I didn’t think he would ever hurt me. He’d promised. I didn’t know why I’d ever thought he would. After all, he’d only been kind to me and had never made any move that spoke of bad intentions.

I found myself thinking of how I wanted things to get back to how they were just a day ago, or like those few hours we spent in the royal stable. I sighed, my thoughts really confusing and annoying me. Certain thoughts of what he’d done to defend me made me smile a goofy smile, despite everything that was going on inside of my head. But when I remembered his reply, and how he’d said that he only did it to keep his promise of keeping me safe, my smile dropped and I started having weird and stupid–oh, so stupid–feelings.

Before I thanked him, I’d kept thinking that maybe he had feelings for me, and that was why he’d done all of that; but when I asked him, he said it was only to keep a promise. And now, I was upset that it
didn’t
mean he had feelings for me, and even more upset at myself. No...I was actually
mad
at myself for being upset that he didn’t have feelings for me. Why on earth did I want him to have feelings for me? It was really crazy. I
was
going crazy.

Not too much later, Mona knocked. When she came in, she held the tray with our breakfasts on it. She set it on the round table in the middle of the room as usual, smiling and telling me she would be informing the prince that breakfast was ready.

Though I still didn’t feel much like eating, I still got excited that he was finally coming back to our room. Maybe when he got here and we had breakfast together, I’d figure out how he truly felt about all of what happened, and if he was very upset with me because of it...or not much...or
hopefully
not at all.

My hopes dropped when Mona came back to tell me that the prince would only have some tea for breakfast…in the living room.

He still doesn’t want to see me
, I thought. But I really wasn’t going to just sit there and do nothing about it. My old self needed to get back in the driver’s seat: enough of that weak and miserable person who barely knew how to act anymore.

I got out of bed. “Mona, please leave it,” I told her. “I’ll get him his tea.”

Mona actually grinned for the first time in what seemed like a long time at my statement about going to the prince with his tea, and then nodded. She prepared the smaller tray that held the teapot and a cup with a plate of English cake, while I fixed my hair and took a look in the mirror to see how wrinkled my blue short-sleeved shirt and navy sweatpants were. They looked fine.

“Shall I put your coffee with it, Princess?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” I smiled, and she added another elegant cup with the coffee pot to the tray. Mona then carried the tray and was about to take it in to the prince herself, I imagined, thinking that I’d be following, but I stopped her.

“Please, let me,” I said softly.

“But, Princess–”

“C’mon, Mona, I’m not
that
spoiled, I know how to carry a tray,” I smiled.

She smiled back. “All right, let me open the door for you.” After handing me the tray, she opened the secret door and held it open for me as I went inside, mouthing a ‘thank you’ to her. She replied with a smile and a nod before she closed it again.

The prince wasn’t sitting on the armchair I’d seen him sitting on last night. I searched for him with my eyes only to find him standing in front of a large window which dominated one of the side walls of the living room.

I set the tray on a table near him, the tray making a noise when it touched the glass tabletop, so there was no way he hadn’t heard, yet...he didn’t move at all, seemingly deep in thought.

I cleared my throat, but it was no use. I thought it would be better to just pour him that cup of tea, so I did, then asked, “How much sugar?” my voice soft and my tone calm.

It was then that the prince turned his head to look in my direction. His eyes didn’t hold the same amount of emotions I’d seen in them about six hours ago. They now held sadness most of all, more than I’d seen in any sad eyes before–and I’d seen a lot. It made me sad myself, but I kept my soft smile in place as I kept my eyes locked on his green ones.