It was clear that Loyata could not rule itself, but it took a while before it became a Sultanate. First, the Emirates came. Considering that there were revolts here and there and a strong hand was needed to put Loyata in check, I put any martial-aligned sultanzade that was not an emir already in power. Loyata was colossal in size, but most areas had high autonomy thanks to Rani's many treaties, so with only six Emirates, the whole coalition became quite governable.

You only knew one of the new emirs, Fatima. She was a warrior and not a politician, but all my siblings were versed in statecraft, especially at her age. She also missed your presence, but she never told us why. Could you enlighten me?

Oh, how interesting. And why did you decide to do that?

Ah, that checks out. If you are so adverse now to show me your 'evolved' plants, it makes sense it was the same back then. What did this plant do, though?

Alright, alright. I will wait. I guess I deserve that after having wasted these many days with my narration but worry not, I am nearing the end.

There were now sixteen emirates under my banner, and considering the lust of war had yet to fully vanish, it was obvious that both the populace and the army wanted more expansion. They were intoxicated with the spoils of war. Around this time, the snake-tongues spoke of the Caliphate, of how the Sultanate fell too small, and whilst I was not exactly drunk on power, those rumors made sense.

But what I want to focus on now was my discoveries in Asina. Around this time frame, the Evergreen was already resembling a forest, though the World Tree had yet to be discovered. The first Myriad lights were already invented, but because we did not have any reason to trek to your oasis again, it remained forgotten for a few more decades until it became painfully visible. But that is a tale you mostly can guess and I cannot offer much insight into.

As I have told you beforehand, since the start of my reign I had not been able to spend much time in Asina. As such, only when the war ended was I able to claim Aaliyah-al-Ydaz's office as my own. And she hid quite the… juicy documents.

I will not call a 'testament' the documents I found, because she did not write them with her death in mind. My first revelation to you is that Aaliyah-al-Ydaz did not want to rule anymore. She was tired of the political landscape of the court of Asina even if she held all the power. My mother wanted to give the throne to a worthy heir. It was not like the primogeniture of other countries, she did not care about the age and gender of the heir, she just wanted the sultanzade to seize the throne to be the most competent one.

In statecraft, of course.

These series of documents were not a post-mortem letter, but instructions for the heir. But it was clear who she wanted that heir to be. Impartiality may seem noble and wise, but Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was probably the most biased and hypocritical being in all of Khaffat.

Yes, she wanted Rani to be her heir.

Amusingly enough, Aaliyah-al-Ydaz told Rani the opposite. She said that she wanted to make me the heir. This was but a twisted ploy.

Now, I need you to listen to me, Aloe. You have to promise me that no matter what I tell you next, you will not react poorly.

Promise me.

…

Rani-al-Sadina is a cowardly woman. There has never been a woman more cowardly than her in Khaffat in all of history. And our mother knew that. Rani had been hiding that aspect of herself for long under a potent mask, but Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had found out either way. Rani was so scared of pain that she refused to participate in battle and, even worse, give birth to heirs.

We have a word for that now, psychopathy. She had a fear of pain so deeply ingrained in her body that she would do anything to not feel it. It is not that she feels it more potently than others, but rather, that any instance of pain leads her to panic. And any mother that had spoken to her just exacerbated that fear when related to childbirth to degrees bordering insanity. I can say with some confidence if you ever got ever-so-slightly aggressive when she bedded you many centuries ago, history would have changed a lot. A simple caress too strong for her liking would have intimidated her instead of angered her, that is the magnitude of such illness.

Aaliyah-al-Ydaz knew that whilst Rani was scared of pain and giving birth, she would not be capable of ruling. As you have heard, Rani was djinnishly competent in diplomacy and statecraft. If she had been the Sultanah instead of me, she might have been able to subjugate Khaffat with her voice alone. Our mother had predicted that well prior to her death, but she felt Rani needed to grow a spine. This is utter stupidity by today's standards as psychopathy cannot be cured, at least not in that manner, but for all of her scholarly background, Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was as ignorant of future discoveries as any other great thinker or commoner.

Our mother foolishly believed that Rani either needed to overcome her fears or…

Let me take a deep breath before, this is going to be hard to say.

Ehem.

Everything Naila had said so far was enough to make Aloe nauseated. Especially the way she spoke about Rani in a condescending way yet with a soft tone, pitying her, as if everything the emir of Sadina had been inflicted upon her should be forgiven because it was the result of an illness. Those pathetic excuses made her feel something. More than rage, Aloe felt sick. But they were not done yet, Naila had yet to finish speaking.

"Aloe, everything Aaliyah-al-Ydaz has done to you, how she had raped you, how she had reaped you, how she had made you unable to walk… it was only to make Rani jealous and angry so she might overcome her fear."

Oblivion.

There was no other word to describe what she was feeling as her stomach was upside down, her ears ringing, her head spinning, her heart seizing, and her throat tied in a knot.

Her whole life was a joke.

An ever-growing void that…

"Aloe!" Naila's voice cut through her tangled thoughts. "Stand down…"

Only after she spoke those words did Aloe realize that she had stood up. When had she done so? She couldn't remember. She only knew that she was so… tired.

"Please…" Such a marvelous word was spoken by such a dirty mouth, yet that only made it better, for it felt genuine as there were hints of desperation gathering in the corners of the eyes of the greatest monarch of Khaffat in the form of water. "Aloe, sit back down. Could you do that for me?"

"I…" The sound came out of the Mother of Plants' mouth but no words formed. "I am so… angry." She wasn't angry, not at all, but there were no words on the Ydazi lexicon to represent what she was feeling so that misnomer just came out. Her body just collapsed back to whatever seat it had been on.

"I completely understand your rage, I truly do." The amber-eyed woman spoke out, unbeknownst of what foolishness she was uttering.

"You do not."

"Yes, I cannot begin to imagine how it is that everything you have gone through, your whole vengeance and suffering, was only the byproduct of a plan where you were barely a pawn, but she is dead, Aloe. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz is no more…"

A soft breeze of calmness caressed Aloe's cheek. Yes, that woman was dead alright, but… what about all these feelings? Her actions still lingered many centuries later and she just wanted for them to boil down. Maybe just not the feelings.

"This was the second secret. Of how your mistreatment was only a ploy to get Rani out of her shell."

Aloe couldn't help but laugh at the words. "What shell? From your very narration, Rani stayed a coward from start to finish! Why did I even suffer? Why…"

Aloe felt her skin vibrate and her eyes melt as she spoke, nausea wasn't enough of an ailing to describe what she was going through. The only substance that came out of her vegetable, tainted, and hellish body was another chuckle.

"Yes, it is quite the laughing matter," Naila spoke with a soft tone that made Aloe impossible to be mad at her, the soft warm hand of a mother. In a way, she didn't have the right. For better or worse, Naila had hated Aaliyah too and had claimed her vengeance for her. "There is nothing worse in life than a sacrifice that served no purpose. Rani never came out of her shell, she never became Sultanah, and you just carried all that pain by yourself. I will not deny it."

Understanding.

She almost felt herself whole, even if she had never been more broken in her life just because a single being tried to understand her, even if she was utterly failing at it. It was pathetic, but that was what made it endearing.

"Do you want some tea?" The calipha spoke after a long silence, but Aloe could only muster enough strength to sway her head in negation. "No? That is fine."

Silence, painful yet paradoxically comforting, lingered between the two. It was Naila who broke it yet again.

"I have another secret, but this one is more trivial. The reason why Rani was so infatuated with you, beyond her sexual tendencies, was because of what I mentioned about her psychopathic fear. There are many ways to wield the flowing stance and its techniques, and in her constant research, Aaliyah-al-Ydaz found one that allowed for women to reproduce between each other."

The Mother of Plants wanted to laugh again but, from her throat, only a muted and tired groan came out. "So you are saying that…"

"Yes. Rani feared pain so much – childbirth included, or rather, especially – that she decided to impregnate you."

"Do not jest," there was no violence or emotion in Aloe's voice. A corpse would have portrayed more liveliness than her. Neither she nor Naila believed that previous statement. "So beyond Aaliyah's stupid ideas of inheritance, I was trapped in another ploy even more stupid than the former?"

"It is hard to hear – mostly moronic – but that was, indeed, her grand plan."

"Why?" Aloe almost didn't realize that she had asked that question. It was a reflex as she honestly wasn't interested in hearing any other excuses, but momentum kept her going. "There were thousands of women out there. Why me?"

"The reason is… somewhat valid," Naila expressed with the most imperious of doubts. Aloe almost growled at the word 'valid'. "The more vitality a mother has, the greater the chances the child has to have more innate vitality and a better control of Nurture. Rani was not so fargone as to impregnate our sisters in the possibility she needed an heir, and you were just the perfect candidate. Before you revealed your status as a cultivator, we honestly believed you were a person with thrice the vitality of a normal person. As I said, the perfect candidate."

"The perfect broodmother…" The Mother of Plants spook slowly, heavily.

"That is a bit of a crude term, but… yes," the calipha sighed in defeat, finally admitting to her sister's offense.

The following silence became deafening. Far stronger than any previous one. She doubted no shout with potency donned could have made such an ear-splitting sound. Her hands practically trembled from the brutality of cry of nothingness, as if they were harmonized with the mute sound.

"We can leave it here for today," Naila announced with the softest of voices. She had been wielding the charm stance all this time, yet only now it felt like it. For a Naila this sweet couldn't have been the one she knew.

"No," Aloe taciturnly responded. "I am tired of unknowns and secrets, Naila. Finish your tale. Or I fear I might finish something else myself."

Those were not words of threats, both bicentennial women knew it. They were facts. Aloe Ayad doubted she could bring herself to care any longer.

Epsilon_Twilight

There you have it, the reveal. I did drop some hints here and there and some got close to the truth.

Rani's sins are those of incompetence, Aaliyah's those of malignant neglect and disregard for life. For better or worse, the greatests monsters are still human. Or rather, they were so because they were human.

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