Cultivating Plants

The news came as quite a surprise, but at the same time, she should have expected it. What person could have brewed such a potent and useful aphrodisiac if not an assassin? That left the question of why an assassin would deal with the sultanzade unanswered, but she had other preoccupations in mind.

Fatima Asina wanted more of that liquid gold.

"Would you believe me if I say that this is the first time I've seen little Aya?" Zain, her older brother said behind her. He was an expert of the stealth stance, so it took her a while to notice him even after he spoke.

"Not really, no," Fatima responded with a sigh. "It is also my first time seeing the babe."

Before them lay the newest inclusion to the imperial family, Aya Asina. Little more than one year old, and still uncorrupted by the hands of the Sultanah. Fatima had heard that mothers never unlatched from their babes, but since the birth of the creature, she had yet to see Aaliyah-al-Ydaz and Aya in the same room.

"And why are you seeing her right now?" The male sultanzade asked with only the most basic curiosity imaginable. He was just bored and wasting time instead of training or whoring.

The latter could be considered the same as training for her family.

"Her birthday was a few days ago, so I guess I was curious. Is it not sad how there is only a maid to worry about her?"

The maid in the room, Aya's wet nurse, shuddered at being mentioned. People didn't like to have the attention of sultanzade, even if the wet nurse was a noblewoman of a somewhat reputable noble house.

"We all had just a maid to ourselves when we were little. Only those who were ill-mannered were given a guard too." To keep them in line, Zain left unsaid.

Fatima chuckled. "I guess you are right."

She offered her finger to the creature and the little ball of fat started suckling on it and giggling. She hadn't ever known the taste of maternal milk, of her own mother that was.

"So why are you really here?" Zain lazily supported his back on the door of the newborn's room.

"Curiosity, same as you." Fatima stood up and retracted her hand.

Being deprived of her suckling toy, Aya started crying which made the wet nurse rush toward her and soothe her.

"You know, there is a warrior's tradition of comforting the little ones before leaving for war." The stealthy sultanzade voiced out.

"We are warriors all," Fatima said as a matter of fact. "But what frankly has me weirded out is how Mother is not pregnant. I have seen her pregnant – in one stage or another – every day of my life for more than two decades, and now she has been without a child for more than a year."

"Maybe she has become barren already." Zain jested.

"I would like if that were the case, but you can never know with her."

If Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had truly become barren, then that meant she was becoming old. And an old ruler was weak.

But that was hard to say when half of her children looked older than her.

"True, true." He added. "But I do not think you are here for anything related to Mother."

"Really? Then enlighten me, dear brother." No sultanzade ever meant the word 'dear'.

"I think this has to do with that scribe I heard so much about." Zain snickered.

"A guess as good as any." Fatima refused to elaborate and left the room. Her brother stayed behind apparently already border of her antics.

If there was one person she suspected of being an assassin, it was Zain, not Aloe Ayad. She already had that discussion with her sisters and the woman in question, and she honestly didn't believe the commoner to have the guts. But if the Sultanah had publicly denounced her, it was for something.

Something smelled afoot, nonetheless.

And to check that, she readied herself for departure.

Whilst she wasn't the sultanzade with the most vitality – not by a long shot – nor the one with more mastery over the speed stance, Fatima trusted herself in being perfectly average. It was infuriating, but being average at everything had its perks, unlike those who only exceeded at one thing and had no hope at anything else.

Unfortunately, free time wasn't in abundance as of late, so she would have to go to Sadina on her own feet.

Sultanzade were not unbeknownst to the harshness of the desert or high speeds, so Fatima donned a racing attire. It was a one-piece closed garb that protected every part of her skin from sand and the elements, beyond a pair of skin-tight glasses to also protect her eyes.

That was definitely the most important part of the outfit.

No one gave her weird glances as she left the palace, anyone knew better than to gaze at a sultanzade like that, but she certainly was the center of attention before she left the walls of Asina.

She made some distance before assuming the speed stance as the initial dash would blow quite the dust cloud and she was under orders to limit the exposure and knowledge of Nurture as much as possible. Though those were suggestions more than rules.

Fatima put on her skin-tight glasses and rushed for the dunes.

There was something liberating with the speed stance, and that wasn't only the vertiginous movement or the feeling of air caressing her body, but also the danger.

The knowledge that one single misstep without enough reaction time could kill her.

That was exhilarating, exciting even.

Not many sultanzade shared her feelings toward the stance, but she knew her half-sister Naila did. That was a speed djinn through and through.

One had to train the speed stance not to just survive or respond to such speeds, but also to increase them. Fatima hadn't indulged much in the latter, but her Nurture compensated for most of it.

Her speed was so high, in fact, that she was skipping through the dunes. She was stepping on the crest of one of them, and because her momentum was so elevated, with the next step she could jump and reach the next one.

Unfortunately, such speed couldn't be maintained for long.

She didn't understand the full logistics of the stance, but the more physical speed the stance boosted, the faster the body would get tired.

Resistance training was one of the most overlooked parts of the speed stance.

A person couldn't survive running with the speed stance for long periods; the higher the vitality, the shorter the time.

Even if she trusted her body and trained it to parahuman levels, Fatima couldn't hold her dash for more than an hour. Not that it mattered much when she could rest with a single breath after donning the regeneration stance.

That stance alone was the reason why battles of attrition were impossible against Aaliyah-al-Ydaz. Even more so when taking into account that the creature that was her mother defied logic and was able to wield two stances.

After a few rests and dashes, Fatima made it to Sadina at the beginning of the afternoon. She was a bit tired and short of breath as the regeneration stance, no matter how high she put it on a pedestal, wasn't omnipotent.

She removed her glasses and didn't need a mirror to know that there was a very defined line between her covered parts and otherwise as the sand had incrusted on her skin.

Making it to the palace of Sadina didn't take long and she could have had a bath before visiting her half-sister, but she didn't feel like it. She would need to be back at Asina tomorrow, so bathing now would make no sense, it would be just a waste of time.

The sultanzade wasn't surprised to find both of her half-sisters together in the same room.

"What brings you here, Fatima?" Rani-al-Sadina, Emir of Sadina, didn't bother hiding her animosity. Which was unexpected as she breathed masquerades.

"So, is it true?" Fatima sat down and exhaled, everyone in the room knew what she was talking about.

"Ayad is gone, that much I can tell." It was Naila who responded. "Apparently she had asked for a short vacation to go to her greenhouse, but the day after that our mother gave us the same news as you."

She wasn't talking literally, as the Sultanah hadn't left Asina.

Her greenhouse, eh? Fatima kept her thoughts to herself. I did ask her for more of my aphrodisiac so it makes sense she would go to her greenhouse, but they don't know that, do they?

"Was it not weird to you that she went for a holiday to her greenhouse?" Fatima inquired.

"Do you believe that I am a dimwit?" Rani scowled. "This is not the first time she has gone to her greenhouse before on a leave. Not before nor after her hospitalization on Asina."

"I cannot know that, sister." The words 'sister' and 'brother' meant nothing to them. "So was she really an assassin after all?"

"I…" The emir gritted her teeth. It was weird for 'Miss Perfect' Rani to lose her composure. "There were never signs of it. I never smelled any drugs from her, and I smelled her very close."

Fatima snickered at that admission and Rani shot her a glance.

"The only plants she has are either the pots of very normal flowers and herbs in her office and the greenhouse, which she inherited from her grandfather," Naila reported, acting as the neutral party.

"Hmm…" Fatima did know that Aloe Ayad was dealing with drugs in one way or another. Otherwise, she had no explanation for that aphrodisiac. Naila's words did bring a question to her mind. "What about the greenhouse? Can we expropriate it?"

The cultivator wasn't interested at all in the land, but in the plants the scribe may have grown. With luck, she could have access to the plants Ayad used for the aphrodisiac.

"Already done so, but it is useless," Rani explained.

It didn't surprise Fatima that her half-sister had already taken over the lands. The law allowed governors to expropriate the lands owned by criminals, though it needed either the approval of the majority of the local noble houses or the sultanah. This last clause was because it otherwise made it easy for the governor to fabricate charges against landowners.

The problem wasn't that sultanzade abused their power, though, but rather how many people they made angry through that abuse. And the outcries of the people pestered the sultanah.

"What do you mean it is useless?" Fatima said.

"The greenhouse and the house next to it are burned to the ground," Naila revealed in her monotone voice.

"To the ground, ground?" The sand-covered sultanzade asked.

"To the ground, ground." The youngest sultanzade confirmed. "There are many weird things with the scene. Not only two structures have collapsed from very potent fire, but we have seen traces of blood, a dead dweller that we presume was Ayad's, and some sets of footprints in the nearby perimeter of the oasis where this happened."

"So there was someone else?" That was all Fatima took out of the explanation.

"Perhaps." Naila shrugged.

"It must have been the assassins." Rani howled. "They stole my Aloe and then hid it with their trickery, telling Aaliyah that she was the assassin herself."

There was something wrong with her half-sister.

Possessiveness.

Her eyes shone in the rage of a possessive person who had been stolen from. That was dangerous as sultanzade couldn't be tied down with people. They were superior and everyone else was just a target of their reaping. Even their own blood were targets, just ones that had to be erased instead of pruned. Fatima didn't know if that possessiveness was born out of romance or simply fury at being stolen, but it was a weakness.

And weakness had to be purged.

"Either case," Fatima started, "this outcome is massively disappointing. I enjoyed my conversations with Ayad." She really hadn't, but the scribe offered her a great chance at being the next ruler of Ydaz. Having her out of the game this soon was problematic. "So what are you going to do, Rani-al-Sadina?"

The emir placed her hands on the roots of her hair and pushed it down, letting her mane flow. Her eyes shone purple with an uncontrolled flare of charm.

"Aaliyah herself has said it before," she started, her composure restored and dignified, "assassins are a scourge upon these lands. We do not negotiate with them like the fool of Hassan. We exterminate them."