Chapter 2: The Price of a Daughter

Aneesa dragged her finger along the margin of an ancient manuscript, her lips moving in silence as her eyes traced the delicate Arabic script. Sunlight filtered through the carved latticework of the study's windows, casting delicate patterns across the manuscript. The peaceful hush of the room contrasted cruelly with the turmoil in her chest. Outside, life bustled forward, vendors shouted over one another, and bells chimed from the minaret as the sweet scent of orange blossoms floated on the gentle breeze. But inside, a quiet dread pulsed beneath her skin, growing heavier with each turning page, casting intricate shadows across her lap.

She read to escape. She always had, and now she wanted to escape more than ever.

A knock broke the stillness and sent her heart into her stomach as she jumped out of her chair.

"Sorry to startle you, Aneesa, but your father beckons you," Mariam, the housemaid, said without looking her in the eye. Her voice was tight, almost as if she were in pain—an unusual tone from a woman who watched over Aneesa for her entire life.

Aneesa set down the manuscript carefully. "Did he say why?"

Mariam shook her head and then raised it to meet Aneesa's, a look of worry on her face. "He's in the salon. With your stepmother."

A dull weight settled in Aneesa's stomach, and she smiled at Miriam to comfort her before exiting.

Her father, Omar ibn Saleh, once a bold-eyed trader of exotic books and foreign dyes, sat with a tired elegance, his robe folded too neatly across his lap. Beside him lounged his new wife, Safiya, too young to be a second wife, and too calculating to ever replace Aneesa's mother.

Safiya's eyes flicked up as Aneesa entered, her gaze sharp as a dagger cloaked in silk. Her lips curled into a smug smile, as if she had been waiting for this moment to wield her quiet power. Aneesa straightened her spine, refusing to flinch under the weight of it, her voice clipped with defiance as she stepped further into the room.

"You look like a servant, girl. At least wear silk when you come into company."

"I prefer cotton when I'm reading," Aneesa replied coolly.

"Enough," her father said, not harshly, but not softly either.

The silence stretched. Safiya wore a self-satisfied smile, the kind that said I've won.

"We've received an offer," her father finally said, clearing his throat, "from the palace."

Aneesa's brows lifted. "For what?"

Safiya's smile sharpened.

"For you."

The words didn't land at first. They simply hovered in the air, like a moth unsure where to land. Safiya stood and stepped closer towards her stepdaughter. 

"The palace's harem master has requested new girls to serve at court for the Emir**," Safiya explained. "Your beauty has not gone unnoticed."

Aneesa stared at her father. "You're selling me?"

He flinched, unable to make eye contact.

"It's an honor," Safiya cut in. "The Malika chose you herself. This is a chance to live in silk and gold, to catch the eye of royalty. And your father needs the favor."

"You mean you need me out of the way?" Aneesa growled, the fire in her voice barely masking the hurt pooling behind her eyes. For a moment, the words felt foreign in her mouth, as if speaking them made the betrayal more real. How quickly her home had become a place of strategy and sacrifice, with her cast as the offering. She turned her gaze to her stepmother, wishing she could strike her down with just a look.

Safiya stood, brushing invisible lint from her sleeve. "I suggest you pack the things that matter to you tonight. A carriage will come first thing in the morning to collect you."

Aneesa looked at her father. The man who once read her stories of Egyptian queens and scholars who mapped the stars would not meet her gaze.

"I'm not some goat in the market, you cannot just sell me like something in your shop, father," she said defiantly.

"But he did," Safiya said sweetly, "and your refusal to comply with the Palace's wishes will not only end with the destruction of your life, but also your father's and all he has built here."

The room fell silent as Aneesa's eyes began to well up with tears. She clutched her mother's pendant and muttered, "It can't be." She was almost on the verge of crying when her father broke the silence.

"Aneesa, it is better this way. You will be taken care of, you will be able to see a world I could never show you. Isn't that what you have always wanted?" Omar said, trying to convince himself.

The sorrow Aneesa felt suddenly turned to anger as she pushed down the pain and turned it into determination. She would comply with her family's wishes, but she would never forgive her father for his betrayal.

"As you wish," she answered coldly before walking away.

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That night, Aneesa did not sleep.

She sat at the edge of her small bed, staring at the old pendant that had belonged to her mother. Her room was filled with scrolls, trinkets, scraps of faraway worlds. They were all useless now. Books could not barter her freedom. And knowledge, no matter how wide, could not shield her from her father's silence and stepmother's ambition.

At dawn, she was dressed in crimson silk, her limbs guided not by her own will but by the gentle, ceremonial gestures of the maids. Each fold and tuck felt like a closing door. The fabric was heavy, not from weight, but from the meaning it carried. A veil over her girlhood, a ribbon tying her fate to someone else's design. It was the attire of an offering, not a bride, not a scholar. As they oiled her hair and fastened the gold threads, Aneesa could feel herself vanishing, her body adorned like a prized possession, while her spirit retreated into silence.. Miriam, the maid who had cared for her since her mother's passing, wept as she tied a final sash around Aneesa's body and fashioned it into a bow, much like a gift.

Aneesa stared at herself in the mirror, something she rarely did, and took notice that she was no longer a wide-eyed child but a woman in a body that now belonged to a prince she had never met. She turned and hugged Miriam, who was now weeping, until she heard the shop bell signaling that the royal carriage had arrived.

Outside, an ornate carriage waited at the door, pulled by two black horses. Her father and stepmother stood at the door with their heads bowed. Aneesa could hear her father sniffling as if he had just finished crying, as she exited the shop and entered the carriage. It sent a jolt of pain to her heart, but her anger forbade her from looking back. No one said goodbye.

As the city receded behind her, Aneesa held her mother's pendant in one hand, and in the other, tucked inside her sleeve, the only book she dared bring, a book on the empire's lineage.

If she was going to be traded into a cage, she would not enter it blind.