The Switch

Yekmeni

"That is correct." Hayati answered.

"Since I know that you are a master of medicine and poison alike. I know you must have tested it thoroughly and found quite a number of poisonous substances in the mixture that I take as medicine. Violet Eye for complexion, energy and also for warding off pregnancy..." You began as you listed off all the ingredients since you had studied and knew each one by heart as the Queen and her attendants just frowned deeper and deeper at you.

"If you knew what was in it, why would you take it?" Queen Audravienne asked.

"To hide this." You answered as you pulled the face mask off to reveal your true self to her as she and her attendants gasped softly.

"Your Majesty, this is not how I wanted our first meeting to go. I was hoping it would be under much better circumstances. But maybe it's best that our first meeting is as what we really are. You are a Queen of Yekmeni, and I- am just a desperate woman who is dying of cancer and side sickness and trying to hide that fact from my husband and his family and the rest of the world. A few months ago, I was diagnosed with very advanced side-sickness and a cancerous growth that is- as we speak- eating it's way through my abdomen and has already eaten most of my liver and my side. Even now you can touch it if you were to touch my right side, as excruciating as that is for me to endure since any touch there is extremely painful for me." You confessed.

"My father is a Duke of Solowards. And has many businesses and is quite wealthy compared to most. But even he- could not buy a cure for me. He inquired of the collared mouras in Dorierra how much it would cost to cure me and they answered back with a million gold bouillon. Which I've come to know that a gold bouillon is the same as one of your gold drakars. If my father sold every business he had, every inch of land and every house and every jewel from every girl and woman in my family owns- he would not even be able to come up with a quarter of such a sum. And no bank in the world would have given him the rest on loan for anything. When I was diagnosed, I was only given a few months to live. And I'm already past that. So every day that I wake up is on borrowed time already. To keep my father and my family from ruination- I told my father not to sell everything to try to cure me. Which even if they did, I doubt they could fully cure me, even for such a sum." You began as Queen Audravienne and her attendants breathed in sharply and their eyes went wide at the news of such a high price even though they could understand that such a high price would be warranted to heal such a severe ailment.

"Since I was two- I have been betrothed to a man I hated, who hated me just as much. But because of the nature of our betrothal, it might as well have been written in stone and neither of us could break out of it. Solowards is a primogeniture patriarchal society your Majesty. Women are the property of their fathers until they marry and then are the property of their husbands once they do marry. My betrothed had already served me with an ultimatum when I was 15. Either I gave him two sons within the first two years of marriage to him when he would finally marry me- or he would divorce me and publicly shame me to the point I could never return home to my family. And I would live only off of what jewels I could sell after the fact and that the moment the sons' umbilicles were cut- the sons would be removed from me to be raised by his favorite mistress instead and all of his bastards would be considered legitimate and have an equal standing in his house. If I ever talked back to him or argued with him or outsmarted him or embarrassed him in any way, I would be put out into the street immediately. And his wealth, and station, even though he is of a noble title less than my fathers- still eclipses my father because he and his family have been in the nobility for the last several dynasties from Solowards." You explained as Queen Audravinne's eyes blazed with anger as a scowl was on her face and her nose flared as her breasts ached to be nursing Ahi right now and wanted nothing more than Lukher's arms around her at such a horrible prospect while declaring war and executing such a horrible man.