You let silence sit between you.
Then you say, “I hope you learn what it feels like to be kind without needing a reward.”
Aminah’s breath catches.
She nods once, and you can tell she wants to say more, but shame is a locked door.
As for your father, the court doesn’t give him your life back.
He tries to appear, to demand, to claim you now that you’re “valuable,” but the palace guards turn him away.
He shouts your name once, and the sound echoes in the courtyard like a dying habit.
You don’t go out to him.
Because you finally understand: you can love the child you were without returning to the cage that made her.
Your mother’s absence still aches.
Some nights you lie beside Yusha and imagine what your mother would have said if she could see you now.
Then you remember you don’t need her eyes to know her love mattered.
You carry it in the way you refuse to become cruel.
One evening, you sit by the palace balcony.
The city below hums, alive and restless.
Yusha sits beside you, and for a while you say nothing, letting the wind touch your face.
“Do you ever wish you could see?” he asks gently.
You smile, thinking.
“Yes,” you admit. “I wish I could see your face.”
Then you turn toward him, fingers finding his jawline, tracing the shape like a map you’ve memorized with love. “But I also know something,” you add. “Seeing didn’t save the people who looked down on me. Love did.”
Yusha kisses your fingertips.
“You saved me too,” he whispers.
You shake your head. “No,” you say softly. “You saved me first. Every day. With tea. With words. With respect.”
Then you laugh lightly. “And you did it while pretending to be a beggar.”
He laughs, and the sound is warmer than any gold.
“And you,” he says, “became a queen without ever needing eyes.”
You don’t know what the future will bring.
Power attracts new enemies, and peace is never permanent.
But you know this: you are no longer the girl your father shoved into darkness.
You are a woman who found her worth in a hut and carried it into a palace.
And when the world calls you “the blind wife,” you let them.
Because you know what they’ll never understand.
You didn’t need sight to find the truth.
You needed someone who finally treated you like you existed.
