She sat down with a cold body and stared intensely at Ammi, her eyes beginning to get misty. But she wasn't going ot cry yet, Ammi knew of that too. She heaved a sigh and palmed her face with both hands. Ammi was hurt beyond words, and Fatima Zarah could tell that by looking into her eyes. She was a painter when it came to emotions,  but whenever she was hurt, Fatima Zarah always knew.

"There's something I want you to understand about life, Fatima. You can't always get what you want or what you think you deserve. Life doesn't follow that path, it's cares about nothing and no one. It just reads what's written in your book of destiny and then you can't unleash the hatred and grudge you hold against other human on innocent beings. I know what Al-mustapha did to you was uncalled for, but what you did to him wasn't right at all. I'm not saying this to give you my reasons why you must marry him, but it's just a lesson you should take. Had it been you let it go, Fatima Zarah your life wouldn't have taken this turn. Learn to douse the fire within your soul, not everyone needs to be burned by you, okay?"

Fatima Zarah felt tears pooling the brink of her eyes, and if she truly understood what Ammi meant, this woman meant business. She meant she had already gave her consent. What should she call this? An arranged marriage didn't stand on the way. May be forced marriage? She didn't even know. But she couldn't even imagine herself being married ot this guys, whatever the hell was his name, she didn't want to remember.

"Ammi, so you're telling me that I have to get married to him, in a month? Ammi, why? Because he comes from a royal family or what? His mother is the Mama Fulani of the sokoto? Don't you think that even if I get married to him they're just going to revenge on me and that's all? Ammi why would you do this to me?" She couldn't hold the tears back anymore, so she let them flow freely down to her subtle cheeks.

Ammi stood up from where she sat and sat down beside Fatima Zarah, she held her hands tightly and smiled, in a consoling way. "It's something I can't fight with too, Fatima Zarah. If Mama Fulani wants something, especially for her son, she can trade her life for it. She can make me lose my job, lose everything I attained, and might even make me lose my life. After all the hassles are settled, she'll forcefully get you married to him, and you have to obey to save your own life. No one judges her, because she do all that in a discreet way. Fatima Zarah, do this for Ammi while she's still with you, do it forcefully when she's buried depths beneath the earth."

Fatima Zarah stared into Ammi's eyes with more tears rolling down her cheeks, "But Ammi you know I don't love him, right? I can't even love him, Ammi."

"Love is merely a feeling, it can come to you at time you don't even know it would. it's just a feeling, it fluctuates in our hearts Fatima Zarah. I'm sure it'll come to you too someday. But you have to let the fire in you melt down that iceberg you have in your heart, it's not worth it."

"Ammi that's something I can't do, and you know it. I'll keep this iceberg for hundred of years to come, unless I take revenge or you tell me the full story and I'll figure out if it's not worth for me to keep anymore. And for the idiot, I'll think about it."

Ammi laughed, the kind of humorless laughter meant to console both her and Fatima Zarah. "You need to work on your anger issues, Fatima Zarah. You can't be like this in the royal house. Stop calling him an idiot too, he's going to be your husband soon."

"He's going to get married to me, because I can only regard to him as my husband when I feel the need. There, I rephrase your sentence. I pray we meet again in the court, hmm." She titled her head to sideways, as if she was cooking the kind of humiliation she would cause on him.

"Don't even think of doing anything to him, dan wanga ya hiki hauka wallahi. (That one is crazier than you.) Unless you want to spend the rest of the month in the cell you'll get released on the nikkah day." Fatima Zarah groaned and pouted her lips, Ammi laughed freely this time.

"I told you, my beautiful daughter either marries a rich tycoon that'll travel with her in the world. Or someone from a royal family, a prince, the successor of the seat of the caliphate. I need to call Hajjo and tell her this news. My beautiful daughter can't settle for less." Ammi yodelled and Fatima Zarah blocked her ears and groaned loudly.

"Will you please stop this, Ammi? I'm sick already. I'll go visit Hajjo on Friday, I'll spend my weekends there Insha Allah." Ammi nodded, because she knew it's only Hajjo that sometimes set her brain to the setting they all wanted.

She stood up from the chair and began walking to her room, muttering, "I need some time to think, Ammi. Goodnight."

But Ammi's next words stopped her right in track, "I'll call Mama Fulani and tell her that you're going to Tambuwal next tomorrow Insha Allah."

She did a 360 turn and her hands rested on akimbo, "Ammi! When do I have someone to report what's happening in my life to? Ammi please..." she let her words trailed off and watched as Ammi walke towards her until they stood facing each other.

She placed both hands on Fatima Zarah's shoulders and smiled, "You're now in the royal family, Fatima Zarah, and that's how things are done. She can't stop you from doing whatever you like before you get married to him, she just has to know, okay?"

Fatima Zarah slowly took Ammi's hands down from her shoulders and sighed, "Goodnight, Ammi. If there's Baba Fulani, call him too." Her annoyance was clear, and Ammi only smiled before she stood there until Fatima Zarah entered her room and she turned to hers as well, after she turned all the lights off. She prayed this would be something good for Fatima Zarah.

❀

The mess he made was cleared, but there were certains things that he felt he had crushed. Because seeing things now was hurting him more and he wished he could do something about it. But he couldn't, because he knew Umma had placed ears and eyes on him, whatever he did was being reported to her. Al-mustapha clutched his hands and let his thoughts wandered to what Umma had said, the decision she had taken.

He had never imagined this would happen to him, Acp. Al-mustapha Muhammad Maccido. The air in the room began to suffocate him, and he put on his sleepers before he walked to the garden, that was his favorite place to be. He sat down on an ottoman, staring at the rise and fall of the pool. Umma told him he would get married, in a month, and to no one but that girl. What's her name again? Yeah, Fatima Zarah Tambuwal.

"Get into the water, bring your phone out and then after it gets back to life, call Small and tell him that you have a lady he might kill for you, since you're a coward that can't act up to his problem, always hiding under the thick flesh of your khaki!" Those were the exact words she threw on his face after he lost his phone to the pool in the palace. Now that he thought about it, Umma's decision will be the right way to show her that he could do everything he wanted, without hiding under the darkness of his khaki.

Why not take this as a game? To show her that he could do anything, he didn't have to punish and lock her up in a cell. Marrying her alone would show her that he could do whatever he so wished. There won't be khaki between them anymore. He'd go to her as a prince, and she'd know wether he can or can't do it without his khaki. He'd make her life a living, and he feared nothing, because she can die right before his eyes and when he lay down to sleep at night, he could do that without feeling an ounce of guilt.

He smiled, knowing he had finally found a way to avenge on this girl. A part of his brain knew that Umma got her married to him to he could take his revenge in the most easiest way possible, but he brushed that off. No matter what is it, he didn't, all he was ready to play was a game. The brutal kind of a game, and he was sure he would come out of it unscathed. Without an inch torn from his flesh.

He took his time in the pool, and the soft melodic sound of the water soothed his mind while the cool night breeze made sure he was embraced at every flimsy corner of his soul. It was getting late, and he stood up while he watched the trees moving softly, rhyming with the wind until he reached his room. He did all his night traditions, and before he slept, he remembered to himself who he was and the battle he had to fight in his life. He was, Al-mustapha Muhammad Maccido, the only living soon of the late Sultan of Sokoto, and he had to fight for the seat of the caliphate, to bring back what was once his. He had to be the Sultan of Sokoto.

A call from his phone woke him up and he squinted his eyes softly, seeing it was Umma that was calling him, he wanted not to pick, but he remembered her warning the last time she came. He picked it up and placed the phone on his left ear.

"Hajia Hadiza Maiturare speaking," she said, and the moment he heard her called her name and the tone she used, he needn't to look into her eyes to read her expression. He knew she wanted him not to act like a son but one among the thousands living in the palace, and whatever it is she would say, he had to do it.

"Good morning, Mama Fulani." He greeted, but when she did, for him to call her Umma was a crime.

"Fatima Zarah would be going to Tambuwal tomorrow to visit her maternal grandmother, and you'll be the one to take her there. Her family needs to know you, and we'll send all that tradition requires next week for the date to be set. You'll go there as a suitor of their daughter. You can't greet them looking into their eyes, Al-mustapha. You'll have to squat down, and ..." The list goes on as she told him all he need to do and not do, he only listened with keen ears, because he knew whatever he wanted to say would not be heard by Mama Fulani.

"Do you all get this or I need to send you a pdf of it? Because your brain is proving to not be functioning these few days."

"I get it all, Mama Fulani. I'll go there after juma'at prayer, Insha Allah. And I'll wear one of the royal attires as you ordered."

"I'll know even if you don't, Al-mustapha. Try and not get into my bad list, because wallahi you must suffer." She ended the call without waiting for him to say anything. And after she was done, Al-mustapha stared at the black screen of his phone and wondered what he would do or how he would tame down his anger, because he must do as Mama Fulani ordered. Had it been she called him as Umma, he can do whatever he liked. But this, was the untouchable Hadiza Muhammad Maiturare.