Chapter 38 - The Confrontation

After the long conversation between the queen and the maids, she then made her way towards the chamber of the princess in other to confront her over the same issue. This time, the queen is more determined to get all the necessary answers she would need since it is beginning to create worry in the palace and among the slaves and to satisfy her curiosity. In this way she would know how best to help the situation if it appears to be true of what Amari and Zibo have said to her. The princess seems to show less concerns whenever the queen or her maids try confronting her of her sudden changes happening to her physical body and attitude but turns to worry more in their absence. The princess is much aware that whatever her mother and her maids have observed is beginning to be true as she could not even understands those sudden changes happening to her body.

What the queen fears the most is everything getting obvious in the kingdom since that stands to jeopardize with the legacy of her father, the king.

Princess is found sitting outside of her chamber on a stool that seats right at the door. She is getting herself ready for her daily routine activity when she sees her mother coming towards her direction. As smarts as she thinks she is, she began drifting away as if she has noticed nothing. With the speed and the kind of look the queen is approaching her with tells a lot that all is not well nor is it going to be well. She starts to call out to her maids as to drift away from her mother. upon the reach of the queen to her daughter's chamber, she began to pull her by the hand taking her inside the chamber for questioning. Amari and Zibo came rushing to their mistress since she has summoned their presence. The queen dismissed them to come back later as she was already there with her daughter. The queen starts to interrogate her the princess but with some willingness to know the truth of her situation. The princess begins to stammer as the look on her mother's face was not so pleasing and already says a lot, but she kept denying the fact that she is pregnant and has not met a man who is well fit to deflower her. The queen made it know to her that if she does not say the truth of the matter, there is no way she would be able to help her if things get in the hand, and the kind of consequences that awaits her regardless of being the only princess of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. The queen also reminded her that nothing could be kept from the sun forever. There will surely come a day when everything will be exposed under the light of the sun, and there will be no way for redemption.

The queen left the chamber of her daughter very angry and walked straight towards her own chamber. Amari and Zibo quickly rushed in to attend to their mistress as they are also met with a devilish look from the princess. She is beginning to guess if she went to the queen to complain to her about their so-called observation just as they did by going to her father. She starts to ask if they had gone to the queen to summon for her audience so as to talk about her, but they also denied the claims maid by the princess. Amari then gathered the courage to ask the princess if she has not been going through any changes herself, since her present look isn't how she normally looks. Everything about her is changing swiftly and it has started to raise alarm amongst the women slaves in the palace. The princess quickly changed furiously and begins to talk harshly towards them, ordering they stay out of her issue and do what they are there to do, to serve as the slaves that they are. Amari and Zibo apologized and left her presence, leaving her to contemplate all by herself.

The king and the rest of the cabinet are still on the debate on to what next to do regarding the comeback of the Punt army, and as he is preoccupied with a disturbing like this, he has no time to attend to the issues surrounding his daughter. The has even forgotten he once had a talk with his daughter about the changes in her. He is more preoccupied with the matters pertaining the lives of his people.

Akinidad is yet to return to Carthage as he is keen to helping his mother protect her village, and fight along side her in any given circumstance. He is doing so well and has already gained so many skills after living and taking lessons at the palace of his uncle in Carthage, and he is even becoming more resilient as compared to his mother. he has really taken after her, the untamed attitude and lionhearted personality. He has grown really handsome and strong and will definitely be expected to make is cousin his queen when he finally assumes the throne after his uncle. Amanirenas has advised him to take his leave back to Carthage, but he would not adhere to her advice, since his determination is to fight side by side with his mother in defeating their enemy if they attempt attacking the village again. She continued to find ways and means in convincing him to go since she has already been assigned some strong soldiers by his uncle. Her fears of wanting him to go back to the palace of her brother the king is that she is scared of losing him to the enemies if they are likely to attack again, which will make all her plans null and void. She is too ambitious of getting him to sit on the throne and will do everything it might take her to ensure that happens.

Hakeemi is back to Carthage since he was sent to escort the warriors take the captives from Azurethra to the king for questioning. The princess is aware of his return to the town and has been finding ways to meet up with him so they can both deliberate on the issue at hand. He has been finding ways in getting to her but wouldn't want to do that soon right after his presence in the kingdom. He does not wan to sight any wrong signal to the king just because he voluntarily took part in the battle against their enemy in Azurethra. He has to take his time until things seem to take positive turn before appearing the princess. But the princess is growing a bit impatient as the situation at hand is getting serious by the day. Having her mother the queen questioning her all the time with the slightest change she sees, and not wanting things to get too obvious as it will spark too many concerns even among the slaves serving in the palace. She is left to weep all by herself in her chamber as she sees no way out of the situation she finds herself into. The worse that could happen to Hakeemi is to be banished from the kingdom while she will be made to live with the shame of the dirt she has brought on the throne and might not get the love of her father back again. This automatically make her lose her seat as the next queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom after the ascension of her cousin to the throne.

On the other hand, emissary Boateng is beginning to lose patience as he observes life getting back to its normal pace in the kingdom. He is beginning to see himself as a loser in the battle and a failure to the promise he made to his mother. he is beginning to wonder why it is taking the punt army that long to put together themselves and make the next attack. He assumes that their comeback should be faster since they are having more of the men as compared to the warriors that their opponent is having. They are already in control of the Mapungubwe kingdom and are expected to train more of their men in other to resume on their next attacks. It is not a mere task to just attack the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Kitara Kingdom without any proper preparations. That means you are actually planning to fail if you refuse to strategize properly. As some of their men who are held captive by the kitara army are being questioned, it does not stand well for emissary Boateng as he stands of the chance of his identity being revealed this time around, and this will surely bring his honourable end to a disgraceful one, as a trusted traitor. He will not only be made to face the punishment or the consequences alone, but his whole family who had absolutely nothing to do with his plot would have to take their share of the cake.