After an uneventful day, Mariam went to bed after reading an erotic novel, 'The Frost Prince'. It'd been a romance story about an ambitious woman and her relationship with the King, which began after she went to attend a ball that was held to celebrate his victory in battle.
Much of the novel was lewd, and the plot was quite secondary to the acts committed--but was interesting enough for her to keep reading; and, in part, explicit enough to keep her heart racing. Like many novels, the female lead, Yelena, was a quiet, gentle young woman. She was unfortunately mistreated by her stepmother Djamila, her father's mistress. The two lovers who had been together since childhood were broken up due to Djamila's lower status as a commoner.
Anoushka and Andrei's marriage was one arranged between two affluent families looking to produce more suitable heirs in the future—Andrei being the oldest son of a wealthy merchant, Anoushka, the youngest child of an official. After they were wed, under pressure, Yelena was born.
On the other hand, Djamila married to an older man who promised her the world. Being a women who emigrated from a country riddled by war and colonization efforts,
That's when the young woman's hell began.
Her husband, thirty years her senior, drank, as if the wines and liquors were escaping him. If he wasn't out drinking, he was home, furious about insignificant things. For the first time he attacked her, she fought back in a frenzy. Then, eventually, she gave up. Two daughters bore from her pain. She often hid her children away, taking the brunt of the force from their father's torment.
Oh, but did she love her children. Their smiles pulled her through the most agonizing days. No matter how much society saw her as an "evil stepmother" her children saw how much she cared for them and how much she endured.
Six years passed, with her husband taking out his grievances on her, physically and mentally.
After a night of drinking, he died while stumbling in an alley.
The next day, Djamila made her departure with bruises still on her body. Her feet lead her to the place where her salvation resided—Andrei's estate. She wanted nothing more than for him to hold her in his embrace.
She arrived at his residence, with her two children wearing their nightgowns as it snowed. The two hadn't spoken in years since they were forced apart by his family. A maid, who had recognized her from his days at his family's residence stared back at her wide and ushered her with haste as the night grew older.
Andrei, who had still been working in his private quarters and had been notified of their arrival, quickly ushered them downstairs--far from the rooms of his family. After putting the children to bed and discussing their grievances, they held each other under the moonlight. As they began their affair, Anoushka's resentment grew.
To Andrei, their love was an arranged affair, but to Anoushka, he was her first love.
For the man she loved to hold another, it was too much for her.
Before things came to a head, Anoushka disappeared. And, despite the circumstance, Andrei took this as an opportunity to marry Djamila, officially. However, because of their class differences, their situation became complex. She grew with the need to show that she and two daughters were good enough for high society after marrying him.
After their marriage, Andrei, at every step, had protected her and her children from it all...until one day he had not arrived after doing business in another city. Days turned to months--those months turned into a year and eventually, a distraught and heartbroken Djamila has presented the lost diary of the man who brought light back into her was gone by travelers. She was left to take care of his twelve-year-old daughter, in addition to her daughters who were ten and eleven retrospectively.
She had admittedly paid more attention to her children. The case for mistreatment regarding Yelena was that her stepmother never hit her or berated her but instead acted as if the girl had been air. She was the daughter of her beloved, but also the child of the woman who had his child. Her feelings towards it were complicated, so complicated that she declined to deal with them and focus on her children.
The first night after the search for her father stopped, Djamila entered Yelena's room while she slept, saying gravely, "Poor child, I cannot fault you, but I cannot bear seeing this beautiful face without thinking of my dear Andrei..." with tears graining her words. She had made sure she was properly fed and clothed but could not bring herself to glance at her.
The girl, young Yelena who had been raised by her caring mother was, in her eyes, stripped of that gentleness and the love of her father by a vile woman. The girl, whose room was in the furthest home grew a fermenting resentment towards her evil stepmother and her pampered stepsisters.
One day, the king who was pressured by nobles to take at least a queen consort, sent out letters to all families of the nobility and their daughters to a ball. Then, of course, Djamila and her two daughters Nadia and Zariyah had received one--however, Djamila who at the bare minimum had provided shelter and substance for Yelena had not looked for an invitation for her--Yelena instead found the letter that had not even been open, and while gripping it in anger decided this was her chance to escape her neglective household.
Armed with an aphrodisiac drug and her mother's old, yet somehow still fashionable dress, she attends the ball a week or so later with intention of drugging and seducing the King--though, to her surprise, after their first night together, she became falling for the King who seemed to be obsessed with her at first sight.
Declaring, "Will you not take responsibility for stealing my heart?" The two, through misunderstandings and conflicts, eventually confess their love and go on to live and happily ever after.
In terms of plot, it was like any other romance story of a girl from a desert falling in love with a king.
But, where the story lacks, Mariam noted in her review the detailed smut makes up for it. That was something Mariam did not have complaints about.
The one thing that deterred her from fully enjoying the story was the protagonist. Instead, she had a hard time liking the heroine and leaned more toward liking the characters who were seen as the antagonists—her feelings towards those characters was driven deeper when a co-author wrote short stories written a few years later after the novel's original publication from their perspective--particularly for the youngest stepsister, Zariyah.
The addition was unexpected, novel forums theorized why an alternate version of the story was posted in full--Mariam told her thoughts in a video on her YouTube channel in her review of it,
'Perhaps the two authors did not see eye to eye with the story's plot line. There are many theories and mixed feelings about this alternate POV--I, however, enjoy a look into the lives of the villains of this steamy romance.'
The youngest of Djamila's two children. The novel, written from Yelena's perspective, was painted as a spoiled harlot with a body akin to that of a glorified swine. The girl was the exact opposite. With her despised plain looks and pursy figure, she was a rarely seen reserved girl born . In fact no one aside from her mother and sister. Unlike her beautiful sister, who adored being and looking flamboyant, Zariyah spent most of her time inside, reading and occasionally being her mother's dress-up doll.
However, outside the small, protective bubble of her family. Her mother, sister, and herself were foreigners in a land with nothing to stand on but a dead man's name and wealth. The only illegitimate daughter being bullied for her beauty and status. The women of a lost nation, clinging onto a world that was not theirs.
There was not a thing to like about her, or what she represented.
Scenes from Zariyah's perspective were not dialogue-driven but simply silent recounts of her thoughts, her fears.
Everything, up until her death by hanging. She was such a mousey, scared little girl who often wrote in a journal, sharing the torment she fell at the hands of her step-sister. A step-sister, whose tears carried more weight than her life could ever be worth in gold.
After being interrogated after her sister had fallen sick due to poisoning and miscarried her first child. Zariyah, who had no way of refuting, therefore her silence was accepted as guilt by the King and the citizens. Their poor Queen was still being abused by her 'evil' family and their executions became a spectacle.
On the day that she was hanged, she was the last to perish--one after another, she watched the defeated and contorted faces of her family as they were hung like criminals. In her final moments, she could only wordlessly call out to the one man she saw as a father, along with her mother and sister in heaven.
Her death was unfair, unwarranted--nevertheless, because she was a 'villainess', it was what she deserved, from Yelena's perspective. .
When the woman read the first novel, Mariam could not see how Yelena wasn't the villain of the story--and even more, after reading Zariyah's story. She died at the young age of twenty-four, unable to prove her innocence.
After finishing her story, the main story, and all of the other alternative stories, Mariam could not but feel wronged on the behalf of her character. But what frustrated me the most about the series, aside from the treatment of the 'villains' or the female, was the treatment of her beloved male lead. Her capable (novel) husband was reduced to some lovesick fool without a mind of his own.
In the story, Anastasije was a twenty-seven-year-old man who became the King through familicide. With the identity as the son of a small country's princess and the least favored consort, he was the youngest prince. His mother, who had a weak body already, died giving birth to her only child.
Only with his mother's wet nurse and her husband who worked as a servant, he grows up in an abandoned wing of the palace. As he grew older, his resentment towards his 'family' grew as well. He eventually grew up to take the throne after slaughtering his father and brothers.
As for his sisters, he did not have qualms with them and let them live in the palace as well since they did not cause trouble for him.
He was a handsome, powerful man who did not have many people close to him aside from his advisors--he was untouchable—it had Mariam wondering how did the heroine get close enough to stupefy him?
A man, even without his secret guards, could take on a group of men himself if you wanted to.
Perhaps, something about her aroused his interest...
Still, in any case, wouldn't he have tried to silence her?
As Mariam is lost in thought, she hears a knock on a door.
"Come in." Her voice, driven raspy from age and years of smoking cigars, called to the presence behind the interruption. Behind the door had to be a small child, not that much bigger than five years old. It had been her nephew, Zain. Trailing closer was a baby girl, his sister Sofi.
As they grew, they looked more and more like her sister.
It had not been long since she lost her. Her pretty, doe-eyed sister. Even the Goddess' smile did not compare to hers.
And then a man took away the girl who had been her sunshine. A woman who'd just had one child and was raising the other.
The man who vowed to love her, and build a life with her, murdered her in cold blood.
Gripping the book in her hand, despite resurfacing memories she smiled softly at the young boy.
"Auntie?" The boy called out, with a voice that was soft and curious.
"Yes, Habibi?"
She sighs—perhaps it was time for her to go to bed instead of contemplating over fiction.
"I cannot sleep, Auntie. May I sleep with you tonight?" Mariam smiles, putting down the door in her hand, motioning for the boy to come before scooping up the wandering infant from the floor.
"My little Sofi, always following after big brother, aren't you?"
The small baby grinned at her, with pink, tiny gum on display. She held her close to her chest, caressing her curly hair while she quietly rocked her to sleep. As she ushered her little ones to bed, she seemed to be up, awake and pondering about the book she had just read.
Gently getting up from her bed, she takes heed to not wake the toddler cuddled up in the bed or the infant sleeping softly in her basset. She quietly made her way to her desk and looked through the book again.
She was not the first woman brazen enough to drug him--but then again, for the plot's sake, she was 'different' without reason.
After meeting Yelena, Anastasije became a shell of his former self as a lovesick man in power who would do everything and anything to make Yelena happy, whether it was not taking in concubines or killing off her 'evil' family.
Looking at the clock, time being eleven at night, she begrudgingly closes the book and climbs into bed, feeling her son's feeling her Zain's feet hit her face as he sleeps on the opposite. Stifling a laugh, she closes her, putting her difficult relations with the book on her desk aside.
The next morning, Mariam wakes up to the crying of her baby niece. Her short coils fall slick against her forehead, her small, brown eyes squint. It is summer, the cool air of spring weather covers her body, she stares at the ceiling, her belly feels empty, and her body is particularly groggy. Rolling over, sitting up, and wiping her eyes, she glances over and finds herself with a tired smile on her face.
Eventually, the woman quietly got out of bed.
She slowly makes her way from her bed, to where her little one sleeps. Sofi cries up a fit until she comes into view--then she's babbling, spitting up bubbles, and with tears staining her little face. Mariam smells the comfort of milk and the faintest hint of rose from her daughter as she picks her up.
Sofi reaches for her mother's face and Mariam couldn't help but indulge her, taking her little hand and covering it with smooches.
"My baby, why are you crying? Are you hungry?" She coos softly holding the little person in her arms. She redirects her attention to waking her son, but not before grabbing a milk bottle for her mini-fridge.
Balancing the baby girl in her arms, she pressed a hand against her nephew's cheek, gently calling for him, "Zain, open your eyes. The sun has greeted us and it's time for us to greet her. Come on, up, up." Slowly but surely, he wakes up. With big, deep-lidded sleep-ridden brown eyes, and asks "Auntie, what's for breakfast?" she chuckled, holding the bottle in her hand to Sofi's mouth.
"Let's get you washed up first, yes?"
After cleaning the two children up, she whipped a simple breakfast for her and Zain. As minutes go by, with a Sofi in a stroller, she and Zain make their way away from their small home in the countryside.
Suddenly, a popping sound filled her ear, and she felt a burning sensation on her side. The sounds of the cicadas outside filled her ears and the pain she felt became she fell to her knees.
She'd been shot, and she didn't know by whom.
It'd all happened too fast, and her nephew who was curious as a young boy was, asked, "Auntie, auntie what's wrong?"
Her flesh-toned hand was covered in her blood, and when she began to cough out blood, she knew that it was the end for her.
So, with her last breath, she guided the children she cared for the most, to safety.
"...run." With fleeting breaths she continues, screaming at the top of her lungs, "TAKE YOUR SISTER AND RUN, RUN TO YOUR GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE!"
Her pleads come and loud, raspy gasps. Splayed out on the dirt, on the warm, summered ground. Mariam felt sleepy, trying to keep her eyes open as she watched her nephew run with his sister in her eyes.
Mariam drew quiet, slowly succumbing to her wounds, with that ever-close buzzing in her ears.