My Mother Died Three Years Ago—But Every Night She Appeared in My Dreams Begging Me to Find Her in a Forgotten Village Called Medanna… Then I Discovered the Truth
Chapter 8
With a voice like thunder, he said, “He’s the one. Arrest him.”
The king arrested me. He said I was the one planning to poison him, all because he was angry that I was trying to be with his daughter.
“You dirty small boy from the city!” the king roared, shaking the pillars of the palace with his voice. “The goddess has exposed you today. You came into my kingdom pretending to be an innocent security guard, but your mind is full of evil.”
“I am innocent, your highness!” I screamed from the floor, trying to lift my heavy chains. “I don’t know anything about poison. I came here to work.”
“Shut your mouth!” the king barked, slamming his fist on the arm of his chair. “You think I don’t know your plan? You are trying to use jazz to catch my daughter’s heart so you can kill me and take over my throne. Guards, throw him into the deepest pit.”
The king locked me up. To be honest, he would have executed me, but his daughter threatened to hurt herself if he tried it.
Kitorrah stood like a lioness in front of her father. She told the king that if any weapon touched my neck, she would use a knife on her own body too. Because she was his only joy, the king was forced to keep me alive inside the dungeon.
But Kitorrah did not stop there. She went back to the main palace hall, crying bitterly, bowing before the throne.
“He can’t do such a thing. I know who I’m dating. Please release him. Don’t punish an innocent soul.”
The king stood from his throne, his face turning dark as he stared at his daughter with disappointment.
“Shut up! Why can’t you be smart? Why would you be having a relationship with a slave? Don’t you know he means bad for this kingdom? He can’t love you, no matter what. If anyone wants to poison me, it’s one of the slaves, and since he’s close to you, he’s the one.”
“But Dad!” Kitorrah screamed, standing to face him. “The goddess said someone among the servants. It could be anybody. It could be the people working in the garden or the laundry. Can’t you suspect another person? Why my Joshua? Why?”
“Because he is a stranger who came from nowhere!” the king shouted back, his voice cutting through her words like a razor. “He volunteered to work for nothing. Who does that unless they have a hidden agenda? I am protecting your head, foolish girl!”
He pushed her hands away, gently but firmly, stepping back onto his royal platform. “Daughter, I have made my decision, and it is final,” he declared, waving his hand for the guards to carry her out. “He stays in the pit until the gods demand his blood.”
That night, the princess secretly came to check on me. We really talked.
She had used her royal ring to bribe the guard at the door. She rushed inside, dropping her small lantern on the floor, and threw her arms around my neck, holding me tight despite the dirty chains.
“Joshua, oh my God, look at your body,” she wept, touching the bruises on my arms. “I am so sorry for what my father is doing to you. He is blinded by fear and pride.”
“Kitorrah, you shouldn’t be here,” I whispered, glancing at the door in panic. “If your dad catches you inside this cell, he will increase my punishment. Just leave me.”
She gripped my hands tightly.
“Just relax. I’ll release you. I’ll do all it takes. We are meant to be for life.”
The princess promised she would do all it took to release me. “I won’t let them kill you, Joshua,” her voice trembled with pure emotion as she held my face. “My father thinks he can control everything, but he doesn’t know how far I can go for the person I love. Just hold on. By morning, you will be a free man.”
It was in the deepest part of that same night, sitting alone in the chains after Kitorrah had slipped back out, that something happened I never expected. The chief guard himself, the same man who had gripped my collar and threatened my whole generation, came quietly to the bars of my cell, glancing over both shoulders before he spoke.
“Boy,” he said, low and urgent. “Listen to me carefully. I am not your enemy.”
I stared at him, too stunned to speak.
“Fifteen years ago,” he continued, “my own younger sister was lured into this same palace, the same way your mother was lured. She died in that laundry yard, worked until her body simply gave out, and nobody in this village was ever permitted to properly mourn her, because mourning a slave’s death would have meant admitting the slave system existed at all.” His jaw tightened in the dim light. “I took this position as chief guard the year after she died, not because I loved serving wicked men, but because a chief guard sees everything that happens inside these walls. I have been waiting fifteen years for someone brave or foolish enough to actually try what you are trying now.”
“Then why,” I whispered, “did you drag me here in chains?”
“Because if I had shown you any kindness in front of the other guards, we would both be dead before morning,” he said. “I have been protecting you the only way I know how — by appearing harsher than any other guard, so no one would ever suspect I was the one who told Baba which nights the king’s food tasting rituals were weakest, or which guard shifts left the kitchen door unwatched longest.”
The revelation hit me like cold water. Baba’s information, the details that had made our plan even seem possible in the first place, had not come purely from sorcery at all. Some of it had come from this very man, standing in front of me now, finally willing to admit it.
“I could not move against the king alone,” the chief guard said. “Fifteen years of watching taught me that one man’s anger changes nothing in a kingdom built this deep on fear. But I could watch, and wait, and quietly point the right people toward the right doors, until someone with enough reason and enough courage finally walked through them.”
He unlocked the cell door.