Aveline’s eyes widened. ‘With whose baby?’
Saba closed her eyes and leaned in to whisper in her ear. ‘Zolan Asivan’s.’
Her hands flew up to her face as her face fell into shock. ‘Nada!’
Saba nodded. ‘Believe it. So you see why I had to do what I did.’
‘He’s Mak’s cousin!’
‘State the obvious, why don’t you?’
‘He’s also Mak’s foremost enemy.’
‘Tell me something else I don’t know.’
Aveline jiggled her head, hand over her mouth, as her astonishment rolled on. ‘What was Shiloh thinking?’
Saba huffed. ‘She wasn’t. She met him at a neutral place, on one of the party ships in the flotilla, and he swept her away. I think he seduced her, perhaps to spite Mak, but she insists they both fell in love in an instant.’
Aveline shook her head in shock. ‘Did she know if the Akkadian elders find out, she’ll be roasted? Breaking a sacred engagement to marry another is taboo. Also, being pregnant with her lover? She’ll be excommunicated because she flouted a core marriage tenet involving theŠarhimself. There’ll be no room for her in the community anymore.’
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ Saba groaned.
The reality of Shiloh’s situation was very real to Saba. ‘If she married Mak, announced her pregnancy, and he’d found out the child was not his, she’d have been killed. It’d have started a war with Zolan. She chose to flee and begged me to take her place. I had no other election. I could not let her suffer alone for the consequences of her actions.’
Aveline studied her, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘What do you plan to do, Saba?’ she asked, her eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight that cast shadows across their secluded alcove.
‘I had to support her in the only way possible,’ Saba declared, her resolve unwavering. ‘I’m taking the heat for her; she’s my twin. I had to defy the traditions and expectations of our family if it meant protecting Shiloh from the harsh judgment of our community.’
Aveline reached out to grasp her hand in a gesture of solidarity. ‘You were always the stronger one.’
‘Or the stubborn one, according to my uncle.’
‘I admire you, risking everything for her,’ Aveline murmured, her voice filled with pride and worry.
‘She is my sister in blood,’ Saba replied, squeezing her hand in return. ‘I had no choice, unable to do anything less than help her get away. Do you know how hard it is to hide a pregnant woman and spirit them off an ark ship?’
She raised a brow. ‘Tell me.’
‘I had to help her pack, which was a nightmare for Shiloh, who owns too many clothes and shoes for her good. Then I took her in the dead of night to the ark ship’s port, where she had a pick-up location. We were met by an Asivan contact who smuggled her out on one of their vessels.’
With each word that fell from her lips, a burden lifted from Saba’s shoulders and was replaced by a sense of liberation that came with sharing the truth with someone who truly understood.
‘Were you scared?’ Aveline asked.
‘I was shitting myself every single passing moment with the dread of being found out. But somehow, I managed to hand her over, and she was off, slipping through the shadows like a ghost in the night.’
Memories flooded in of waving to her twin, her eyes brimming with sadness as she disappeared into the sleek cruiser bound for her lover.
She’d returned home under the cover of darkness, her soul heavy with the burden of the unknown future ahead.
The following day, she walked down the aisle in Shiloh’s stead.
Her heart and veil were belabored by the subterfuge, sacrifices, and choices that had brought her to the precipice of defiance in the face of tradition and expectation.
When she finished speaking, there was a moment of silence between them as Aveline processed it all.
‘Does Mak know?’
