The Sultan's Daughter (Princesses Uncovered #5)

Epilogue: A Sweet Ending and Sweeter Beginnings

Cemal put his hand on her belly, smiling. He kissed his lovely wife, elated with the news. “You’re pregnant?”

She nodded, a big grin on her face. “For a few weeks the nurse thinks…”

He let out a whoop, twirling her around their chambers as she laughed. Then he set her down, kissing her sweetly and gently again. “That’s great news… I wish we had some way of knowing if it was a boy or a girl… Which do you want it to be?”

“A boy.” She answered. “But which do you want?”

“A girl…” He whispered. “And if it is a girl, she’ll look just like her beautiful mother, I’m sure…”

“Well… We wouldn’t want her to have your looks, love… She’d be the laughing stock of the whole court.” Yaz teased.

He rolled his eyes. Waving a hand down the length of his lean, well-muscled frame, he murmured in her ear, “I’m not at all ugly, as you know perfectly well… You’ve even admitted you think I’m handsome. You can’t go back on it now.”

She blushed furiously. “I should never have told you that… It only enlarged your ego further!”

He laughed. “Not really, but I do enjoy teasing you about it, my love. In all seriousness, though, I want it to be a girl… And I think she’ll look like you, too.”

Yaz sighed. “Well, I hope that if it’s a girl, she gets your eyes. Have I ever told you that your eyes are like melted butterscotch? They’re your best feature, I think…” She admitted.

He raised an eyebrow. “At least a million times… But I don’t get tired of hearing it…” He smirked.

She huffed. “You… Always fishing for compliments… What should we name the baby?”

“If it’s a girl, I think it should be named Fariah.” Cemal murmured.

She was silent, understanding the significance of the name.

Fariah had been his mother’s name.

She nodded after a moment. “I’d like that…”

He smiled. “I chose the girl name. You choose the boy name.”

She cocked her head, thinking. “I think we should name it Wahib because we will raise him to be a forgiver, one who knows how to let go and when to let go. One who is tolerant and understanding of others…” She explained.

Cemal nodded. “If it is a boy, Wahib it will be… It holds great significance, you know… After all, much of these last months has been spent on learning forgiveness, has it not?”

She looked at the floor in their bedroom then shifted her gaze out across the desert where the sun was setting in a flaming ball. “I understand that… And I’ve finally learned how to forgive. What forgiveness means… It isn’t so much forgetting as it is choosing not to blame that person or hold them guilty for what they have done. It’s showing mercy to them even when they don’t deserve it.”

He smiled. “I think that’s a very good summary, love…”

She sighed, leaning into him and putting her hands on her stomach, though her pregnancy wasn’t yet showing. Another baby on the way. And this time, she would have the ability to care for it properly without any evil, scheming magicians stealing her child’s life from her or having to worry about how to handle the fact that the father was a man she despised.

“This is the sweetest ending I could imagine…” Yaz whispered.

He laughed quietly. “It isn’t an ending, my love… It is a beginning… But I agree… It is the best beginning to our lives together that I can imagine.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I wouldn’t have it any other way…”

She smiled.

His words and hers… They were both true.

It was both an ending and a beginning.

An ending of the suffering. A sweet one, but an ending nonetheless.

And a beginning to her life with Cemal. A beginning sweeter than any other beginning she’d ever known.

What a blessing it was to have it.

***

Akila kissed Fath softly for a moment before pulling away and staring out the doors to the gardens. “I find myself relieved that this is over…” She murmured.

He stared at her, a confused frown on his brow.

“All the suffering is done now, though life has its way of bringing suffering once more when it is least expected, and we can move on with life. We have a new beginning…” She sighed. “So perhaps it would be better not to call this a sweet ending, but a sweet beginning…” She smiled at him. “And what a sweet one it is.”