Roksna looked at Lady Miriam feeling confused. She looked around the hall and saw the rest of the women having the same confused looks.This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.


    “I said which one of you stole it?” She asked again. This time, her voice was a little raised than proper.


    “What is that, Lady Miriam?” One of the concubines asked.


    “My golden bracelet. The one the Sultan gave me himself.” She answered with a loud voice.


    “What’s going on here?” The Sultan’s voice sounded at the door.


    Roksna looked as Lady Miriam ran to the Sultan’s side. She began to exin with tears how someone had stolen her bracelet. Roksna wondered why the woman was always dramatic in everything she did. Roksna was sure that the concubine or one of her maids had probably just misced the ornament she was shedding crocodile tears for. After much insistence on Lady Miriam’s side, the Sultan finally agrees to let her search each one of the chests of eachdy in the harem. The search for the bracelet began from the room of a concubine who looked half afraid and exhaled when it wasn’t found in her room. And the search progressed from one room to another until it got to Roksna’s room. She let them in and watched as Lady Miriam ruminate through her things, then eximed in surprise when Lady Miriam lifted the supposed bracelet from the chest Ayesha had brought earlier. Lady Miriam walked up to Roksna and pped her.


    “Exin how this got into your chest of ornaments,” Lady Miriam barked at her.


    Roksna looked at the bracelet again to be sure that she hadn’t imagined it, then looked back at Lady Miriam. How does she exin how an object she had no idea about had gotten into her belongings? She looked at the otherdies of the harem and saw that they all looked anywhere but at her. None of them were ready to defend her. Roksna turned to the Sultan for help, saw the disappointment radiating from his face and she stepped back. The Sultan believed that she had indeed stolen the bracelet.


    “Why did you do it, Roksna? If you needed something like that, I would have given it to you if you asked me,” Jamal spoke up, confirming her thoughts.


    “But…” Roksna tried to defend herself but got cut off by Lady Miriam.


    “I want her punished.” She said.


    “I didn’t do it. Please believe me,” Roksna said, holding Jamal’s hands.


    “You got the bracelet back, so I think it’s enough,” Jamal said.


    “I am the harem leader and I want her punished. Otherwise, the others will start stealing too,” Lady Miriam said.


    Roksna looked as Jamal sighed in surrender, before removing his hands from hers.


    “Guards.” She heard the Sultan call. When the men arrived, he continued. “Take Lady Roksna out and flog her ten times.” Hemanded.


    “No. I want her flogged in front of everyone standing here,” Lady Miriam said.


    “Flog her in front of everyone,” Jamal said, conceding to his favorite mistress’s request.


    Roksna let the tears threatening to fall from her eyes fall. She felt like she was making a fool of herself and giving Lady Miriam and the others the chance to think she was guilty, but she didn’t care. More than the wrong usations and the punishment, the Sultan’s disbelief in her hurted the most. She thought that the Sultan should be able to know that she was stubborn but never a thief. Why? She had even been thinking about returning the chest before Lady Miriam came in. Yet, the Sultan seemed to believe the words of another over hers.


    Jamal stared in amazement as Roksna began to cry silently while looking at him in contempt. When the guards strapped her onto a long chair, she didn’t make any sound. When the first strokended, she didn’t flinch. By the time the second strokended, it killed Jamal not to stop the guards. But Jamal knew that Lady Miriam was right about her words if he let it slide this time, there was a chance the act would repeat itself among the others, and it would be toote to take action about it. Roksna should havee to him, and he would have dly given her three of the same bracelet. By the time they were done with the beating, Jamal walked away from the kafes without even a backward nce.


    Roksna looked at the disappearing form of the Sultan and fresh tears began to flow. Lady Miriam bent over and whispered words into her ears that she should just go back to being a maid. Roksna looked at the woman, saw her smiling in a devilish manner and she realized that she had just been set up. Lady Miriam had definitely set her up with the bracelet. She stood up and walked away from the hall into her room as quietly as she could. She removed her dress andy down on the bed on her chest. As sheid down on the bed, the Sultan’s betrayal shed through her mind and she began to cry again.


    Roksna felt someone’s touch on her and woke up. She saw princess Azeezat applying something from a bowl to her wounds and winced. When the princess was done, Roksna began to feel some relief from her wounds. She smiled her thanks at the woman who sat down at the edge of her bed, staring at her with strange eyes.


    “You should be careful.” The princess said momentster.


    Roksna felt the tears threaten to fall again and she sniffed to suppress them. She wasn’t going to cry some more over the injustice she had suffered at the hands of the Sultan and his favorite mistress.


    “Didn’t you check the chest to see if they had only the things you ordered?” The princess asked.


    “I didn’t order the chest. A maid brought it over and I thought each concubine had gotten one, I was going to…” Roksna exined, cutting short her exnation as things began to clear up.


    Lady Miriam had been able to frame her through the chest Ayesha brought. The woman had used the maid she trusted to set her up. Roksna finds it hard to believe that Ayesha could deceive her that much. When she had met Ayesha on the ship about seven months ago, she hadn’t struck Roksna as someone who would betray her loved ones and that was why Roksna had taken a liking to the other woman. But all in all, Roksna wasn’t about to let go of the notion that Lady Miriam had lost a bracelet and found it in the chest Ayesha had brought in for her the same day. If she wanted to know the truth, she had to look for Ayesha.


    “Looks to me like you are hurted more by the Sultan’s action than the beating.” Princess Azeezat said.


    “What do you mean by that?” Roksna asked the princess.


    “I just guessed that you are in…”


    The princess was cut off by a man announcing the arrival of the Sultan. Princess Azeezat quickly covered Roksna’s body with her clothes before rushing out of the room to greet the Sultan. The Princess looked at Roksna who refused to get up from her lying position and shook her head. As she turned at the door, she collided into the body of a man, who quickly held her steady.  She looked up to appreciate the person and saw the Sultan looking at her with curiosity in his eyes. She also saw that the women of the harem and Aabdeen were with him. The princess shook the Sultan away from her arms and stepped back from him.


    “Sultan.” She greeted, bowing slightly.