NOVGO.NET Chapter 425: Ensuring Hatred
Chapter 425: Ensuring Hatred
***
{Outside The Projection}
No one really bothered to mention Noor’s and, eventually, her guards’ disappearance.
They rather focused on how they hit the nail on the head last time.
Malik’s punishment, this Golden Throne, was truly a prison.
One that he was stuck in till the day he was finally freed.
…Finally dead.
It was the symbol of Malik’s rule and the price of it.
A crown’s weight they could almost feel on their own heads.
It didn’t matter whether they loved him or feared him; they all understood that no one sat there without paying for it in blood, years, sanity, or all three at once.
…How ironic was it that the warden was also a prisoner?
Sure, he was one of his own choice, but the end result was much the same.
The empty hall before them, the cold one, made for a tough watch.
It hadn’t exactly been warm for the past nine days, but…
This was too much.
Its image lingered deep, ingrained into their minds.
A place grander than any other, yet it was only a tomb.
This tomb held Scheherazade’s presence even after she was gone.
No one asked how she’d known what she knew—not out loud, and barely even in their own heads. By now, all of them knew that that kind of curiosity was dangerous.
To question even internally felt like inviting her gaze, and no one wanted to be seen by her.
She was something of a bogeyman to nearly all of the crowd, scaring them half to death.
After all, only she, besides Layla, was on a first-name basis with Malik.
Only she stood completely on even ground with their Lord.
And only she, unknown to them, dared say his name even now.
***
{Inside The Projection}
Malik was back on the throne as if he had never left it, its gold flashing against the black of his robes, making his presence fill the hall many times over without him having to move an inch.
No longer was he alone, for before him was a crowd, one of two very different people, separated by the quality of cloth.
There were those of the Council, standing behind them all with careful faces, while in front of them were merchants with stained hands, farmers with Shamsburned necks, and mothers with children clinging to skirts.
With them came the murmur of a thousand lives folded into one.
Malik’s gaze wasn’t on the well-clothed among them but on the citizens of his Holy City.
To anyone walking in, it seemed obvious that he had taken control over one Council department’s duty for the day.
Such an act could only be described as… peculiar, outlandish, and maybe even deviant, yet at this point it was something that they almost expected of their Sultan.
He didn’t care about their rules and traditions, not one bit, walking all over them.
Of course, his doing this wasn’t anything random, and it certainly wasn’t just to waste time or to abuse his power, as many of his subjects believed.
Every other time he tried to go to his people or make any sort of public appearance, there was an attempt at his life, poison, explosions, and even honey traps.
So, for once, instead of going to them, he had Azeem make them come to him.
It was a good plan, killing two Zaqqums with one stone, as Malik could now keep his people’s hate of him alive and well, knowing that this little stunt of his today would ensure that.
For the first time in his very long but short life, he was going to do something purely wrong.
A necessary evil. One that reminded him of that lesson he was taught.
It was somewhat funny; the answer, or at least the only ’good’ one, was to walk away if faced with the choice of the devil and the deep, but Malik now became both.
The ’lessons’ hadn’t defined him.
None of them did.
“…You may begin.”
Azeem nodded once at Malik and stepped forward, gesturing toward the first petitioner.
The man who came up was small and trembling. Sand crusted the hem of his robe; the white of his teeth showed whenever he stuttered.
He kept his eyes down until the pressure of Malik’s gaze forced them up.
“M-M-My Lord.”
One could see him shrink under it.
“I—I want a divorce. My wife and I—we quarrel every week. The home is ill. She burns the bread and shouts at our son. I cannot—”
He swallowed.
“I cannot live with her anymore.”
Malik nodded.
“Have you asked three times?”
“Yes—yes, my Lord. Three times on three different occasions.”
“You understand that you won’t be getting back the dowry, correct?”
“Y-Yes, I don’t care for that.”
Nodding a second time, Malik tapped his right lap.
Just then, Sinbad suddenly appeared, floating down from the ceiling and landing on it, a coin tucked into his beak.
Without a hoot, he dropped the coin into his Elder Brother’s palm, and under everyone’s surprised gaze, Malik twirled it once, twice, then flicked it up and pressed it flat against his other hand.
“Crown or throne? It’ll decide your Fate.”
The man looked baffled.
“…C-C-Crown?”
His answer came slow, searching for whatever this all meant.
Moving his left hand away, Malik slowly revealed the gold.
The object stamped into its face was unmistakable.
It was a throne.
“Unfortunately for you… You won’t be divorcing her.”
Before the poor man could complain, Azeem gestured him away and ordered:
“Next.”
The guards, seemingly stunned themselves, moved quickly, ushering the man back.
His pitiful sobs could be heard as they dragged him away, making the crowd murmur, their surprise turning into shock at the pure, unnecessary cruelty on display.
No one even thought of complaining.
No one wanted to risk ’the flip’ on their lives.
What followed became a grim litany; people stepped forward with problems small and large; each one ordinary in the way tragedies were ordinary.
A lean, threadbare merchant bowed, hands shaking.
“My caravan was taxed three times over at the Southern port. The portmaster says the coin has been paid, but the manifest—”
He showed Malik papers with smeared stamps.
“I’ll lose everything if I—”
“Have you appealed to the portmaster?”
The man nodded, and Malik, without saying anything else, flipped the coin.
“C−crown.”
Dreading what came next, the merchant’s voice had gone thin with hope.
“Hm.”
Malik showed the face; a throne, and the merchant’s shoulders collapsed as the guards quickly took him away.
“Next!”
Today, there was no mercy.
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