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Altair(31)
Author: Marian Tee

The glass wall had shattered into pieces, and on the other side of the room was Beatriz.

She was still crying.

Crying so damn hard it had her body trembling violently.

And yet—-

All the time he was looking at her, all he could see was his princess.

All he could imagine was his Safiya...

And how the princess must've cried just as hard so many times...because she had been foolish enough to think angels like him would not be able to hurt her.

 

 

ANOTHER WEEK PASSED. With the public still reeling from the shock of Tamara having seemingly returned from the grave, the palace was able to continue conducting their search for Safiya in private. Unfortunately, there was little progress to celebrate, and at present, the team's only success was having located Urwa in a Bedouin encampment.

The eunuch, after learning what happened to Safiya, agreed to come to the palace to be interviewed. But like Beatriz, the older man was only able to speak of the past.

"I wish I could be of more help to you," Urwa said heavily when all the others were gone, and it was just him and Sheikh Altair in one of the palace's drawing rooms. "But it has been years since I last spoke to the princess. We had not any contact since Saul convinced Sheikh Mahmud to banish Beatriz and me from Farigha on false charges."

"You are not to blame for anything." Altair's tone was harsh with self-recrimination. "It is my fault that she is gone, and I only wish to find her and ensure that she is safe."

Urwa quietly studied the sheikh's stoic features. When looking at Sheikh Altair, he supposed that most people would never care to look past the surface. Scarred and intimidating, the sheikh did not appear to be the type to care for his betrothed in any significant amount.

But when one looked really closely—-

That was when they would see the depth of torment in the sheikh's dark gaze, and the sight of it had him swallowing hard. Although Beatriz had scoffed at him the first time he spoke of a relationship between the princess and the sheikh, he had always secretly prayed it would be so. Because after all that Safiya had undergone, he had thought that she, more than anyone else, would deserve to marry a hero like Altair.

And yet in the end...

Urwa cleared his throat and waited until the sheikh glanced at him—-

"There was once a eunuch, an aging harlot, and a princess..."

"That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke," Altair muttered

"It is," Urwa acknowledged. "But you will need to hear it anyway."

Altair frowned when Urwa repeated the same line.

"There was once a eunuch, an aging harlot, and a princess..."

What the fuck was this about?

"And of the three...could you guess which one of them didn't know a thing about love?" Urwa saw the sheikh's jaw clench, which told him that the younger man knew exactly what he meant.

That the girl knew how to love, there was no question of. The girl loved true, and the girl's love was constant, to the point that Beatriz and Urwa often wished it was not so.

And as for the sheikh...

Urwa had asked the younger man earlier about his relationship with the princess, and the sheikh had been honest - painfully so at times - in admitting how his distrust had caused him to misunderstand many of Safiya's actions. The manner in which the sheikh spoke had also been telling. The man clearly believed he deserved to lose the princess; the only reason the sheikh was desperately searching for Safiya was to ensure her safety, and it was because of this—-

Urwa knew that the sheikh's feelings for Safiya were what he had always dreamed the princess would someday have. Imperfect as the sheikh was, and regardless of how the sheikh's relationship with Safiya had been rooted in deception and distrust - all of those things were immaterial.

What mattered was that the sheikh loved Safiya.

And his love was just as true and constant.

His love was the kind that would last.

And most importantly of all, his love for the princess, even in the times he had been blinded by fear - his love had always put Safiya first, and for a girl who had been abandoned and neglected by her father for her entire life -

That was the love that would mean the world to the princess, and the thought had Urwa's voice turning thick with emotion when he started speaking again.

"The girl knows how to love, alshaykh, but she knows nothing of love. She has experienced so little of it that her understanding of it is still that of a child."

Altair could only clench and unclench his fists as Urwa's words sank in, and he found himself remembering having come home after meeting Mahmud for the first time...and not understanding why she wouldn't ask him a single thing about it. He remembered thinking her actions were proof of guilt, but now he knew it was just as Urwa said.

She had not realized that her actions could be misunderstood. She had assumed, just like a child, that there was only one conclusion for him to draw, and that his conclusion would be something good.

But it hadn't been.

Because he was not and never had been the guardian angel she insisted on seeing him as.

All he had been was a man who had hurt her. Distrusted her. Deceived her.

And now...

Even now...

All he could be was a man who loved her.

Even if she were never to come back to his side—-

Urwa looked away when he saw the sheikh's shoulders began to shake.

"All I need is to know she's safe. Dear God, just keep her safe. It's all I ask."

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

 


A month went by. The kingdom, along with most parts of the world, remained fixated on Tamara's ongoing trial, which the judge was expected to come to a decision about in a few days. Everyone in the royal family, Tarif most especially, found the whole process bitterly anticlimactic, but all of them also knew this was for the best.

In the meantime, however, an emergency meeting also took place. More and more people were asking about Safiya's whereabouts, and the palace knew it had to answer such questions sooner or later. Also discussed were other ways to further expand the search, and although the meeting lasted for over half a day, not once had the possibility that the princess had suffered a misfortune was brought up. It was clear in everyone's faces that everyone wanted to believe Safiya remained safe and alive, even if it did feel that they kept hitting the same brick wall the longer the search went on.

From the very first day the princess went missing, Altair had been completely truthful with the assortment of agents, detectives, and even bounty hunters that had been made to sign a disclosure contract before being assigned to the case. He had let everyone know why the princess had left in the first place, thinking that this would make the search easier and quicker.

And indeed, everyone was in unanimous agreement that this was the optimal strategy to take. When searching for an individual, one had to place one's self in that person's shoes. And in the princess' case, the question was simple: where would a young woman go if she did not want a royal sheikh to find her?

It was a good question to ask, and in most cases, it was a question that made a lot of sense to ask. But in the princess' case, this question was also the sole reason behind everyone's inability to find a single clue about Safiya's whereabouts.

Over and over they searched places they believed the princess would find ideal for hiding, but in reality not a single one of these places had even crossed Safiya's mind. With Tamara already in trial and their betrothal broken, the princess believed the sheikh no longer had a reason to pretend to love her. As such, she also believed that the sheikh had no reason to search for her, and it was how she inadvertently ended up hiding in plain sight.

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