Chapter : 889
He then delivered the line he had been preparing, the line that he believed would finally, definitively, solve the puzzle of her intervention. “Your aunt's attendant, Sumaiya… she is a woman of incredible loyalty and a profound, almost reckless, compassion. I know that I am only here because of her. Whatever she said to you, whatever story she told to convince you of my worth… I am deeply, and eternally, grateful that you chose to trust her judgment of me.”
He had done it. He had laid his theory bare. He had given her the perfect, elegant opening to confirm his suspicion, to admit that it was her servant’s passionate advocacy that had won the day. He had offered her the easy, logical, and perfectly plausible explanation.
The Princess was silent for a long moment. He could not see her mouth behind the veil, but he could see her eyes. And in her dark, intelligent eyes, he saw a flicker of something he had not expected. It was a look of pure, unadulterated, and almost comical amusement.
“She did speak highly of you, Doctor,” the Princess said at last, her voice a cool, melodic hum. “She told me you were a man of great courage, of profound wisdom, and of a quiet, almost divine, skill.”
She paused, and her next words were a soft, beautiful, and utterly devastating bombshell.
“But I am afraid you are mistaken,” she continued, the smile now clearly audible in her voice. “I did not believe her because of what she said about you.”
She reached up with a slender, graceful hand. And, with a slow, deliberate, and world-shattering movement, she lifted the silk veil from her face.
Lloyd stared. And his mind, the great, powerful, and always-in-control engine of the Major General, the Lord of Ferrum, the Saint of the Coil, went completely, utterly, and blissfully… blank.
He was staring into the familiar, beautiful, and utterly impossible face of his mysterious, compassionate, and fiercely loyal clinic assistant.
He was staring into the face of Sumaiya.
The interior of the royal carriage, which had been a space of opulent, quiet luxury, suddenly became a small, suffocating, and utterly surreal prison. The air, which had smelled of lavender and leather, now seemed to crackle with a silent, electric charge. The gentle, rhythmic rocking of the carriage, which had been a soothing, almost hypnotic motion, now felt like the unsteady lurching of a world that had been knocked completely off its axis.
Lloyd could only stare. The face before him was so familiar, so intrinsically linked to the grimy, honest reality of his clinic and the shared, life-or-death terror of the jungle, that to see it here, in this context, framed by the regal elegance of a royal princess, was a paradox so profound that his mind simply refused to process it.
It was Sumaiya’s face. There was no doubt. The same high cheekbones, the same strong, determined jaw, the same cascade of hair the color of polished obsidian. And the eyes… the same large, intelligent, and deeply expressive eyes, the color of a midnight sky.
But it was not Sumaiya’s face. The humble, practical, and often worried expression of his clinic assistant was gone. In its place was a look of serene, unshakeable, and almost regal self-possession. The faint lines of exhaustion and stress that had always been etched around her eyes were gone. Her skin, which had been the healthy, sun-touched skin of a woman who spent time outdoors, was now a pale, flawless, and almost luminous alabaster, the skin of a noblewoman who had never known a day of hard labor.
And the smile. The small, almost imperceptible, and deeply enigmatic smile that was now playing on her lips… that was not Sumaiya’s smile at all. It was the smile of a queen on a chessboard who has just placed her opponent in a perfect, beautiful, and inescapable checkmate.
“You,” was the only word Lloyd’s brain could produce. It was a stupid, inadequate, and utterly useless word, a small, choked sound of pure, unadulterated shock.
The woman who was, and was not, Sumaiya, inclined her head in a gesture of graceful, almost mocking, acknowledgment. “Me,” she confirmed, her voice the cool, melodic, and perfectly modulated tone of the Princess Amina. It was Sumaiya’s voice, and yet it was not. It held a new, and deeply unsettling, note of innate, unquestionable authority.
The implications of this single, impossible fact were a tidal wave that crashed over him, threatening to drown him in its sheer, logical horror.
His unwitting, compassionate, and deeply loyal assistant, the woman he had so masterfully, and so contemptuously, manipulated, was the heir to the throne of the very kingdom he was trying to infiltrate.
The humble, palace attendant whose judgment he had praised, whose loyalty he had used as a tool to gain the trust of the princess, was the princess herself.
The entire, intricate, and beautiful web of deception he had so carefully woven was not a web at all. It was a child’s clumsy drawing, a foolish, arrogant scrawl on a canvas that was far larger, far more complex, and far more ancient than he could have ever possibly imagined.
He had thought he was the master of the game. He had thought he was the puppet-master, the one pulling the strings. And now, he was faced with the quiet, smiling, and utterly terrifying reality that he had not been the player at all. He had been the piece. And the hand that had been moving him across the board, so gently, so subtly, that he had never even felt it, was the hand of the beautiful, enigmatic woman who was now sitting opposite him, her expression one of profound, and deeply satisfying, amusement.
A wave of pure, cold, and professional dread washed over him, a feeling he had not experienced since his long-ago days as a young, terrified lieutenant in a war on a different world. He had been outmaneuvered. Outplayed. He, Major General KM Evan, the man who had toppled governments and won impossible wars, had been played like a cheap fiddle by a woman he had dismissed as a kind-hearted, if surprisingly competent, pawn.
“How?” he finally managed to say, his voice a low, rough, and deeply humbled croak.
“How what, Doctor?” she asked, her voice a silken, innocent purr. “How did I come to be in my own carriage? How did I manage to put on a simple dress and walk through the city without being mobbed by adoring crowds? Or do you mean, how did I, a simple, sheltered princess, manage to convince a brilliant, mysterious, and profoundly guarded man like yourself that I was a humble, and equally mysterious, handmaiden?”
She leaned forward, and the smile on her lips widened. “You are not the only person in this world who understands the strategic value of a good disguise, Zayn. Or should I call you… ‘Challenger’ who has transcended spirit power?”
The final word was a soft, gentle, and perfectly aimed dagger that slid directly into the heart of his last, remaining defense.
The entire, intricate, and beautiful edifice of his own perceived genius, his own masterful control, crumbled into dust. He was not just outplayed. He was naked. His every move, his every secret, his every carefully constructed persona, had been seen, had been known, had been… allowed.
He stared at her, at this woman who was Sumaiya and Amina, at this princess who was a slum-dweller, at this compassionate healer who was a master of the great, and very dangerous, game.
And in her dark, intelligent, and now completely, utterly triumphant eyes, he saw not an enemy. He saw not a rival. He saw a reflection. A perfect, beautiful, and terrifying reflection of himself.
The carriage rolled on, carrying the two of them through the heart of the sleeping city, a small, quiet, and opulent world of their own. The parting of paths had been a lie. Their paths had not parted at all. They had, it seemed, been walking the exact same road, side by side, from the very beginning. And Lloyd, the master of the game, had no idea where that road was about to lead.
The silence inside the royal carriage was no longer awkward or tense; it had become a thing of profound, and deeply unsettling, density. It was the silence of a chessboard after the final, devastating move has been played, a silence filled with the ghosts of a hundred brilliant, and ultimately futile, strategies.