TAKEN BY HIM

CHAPTER 15

"You knew!" Ebedmelech spat, storming angrily back into the seeing room. The little old croon knew and she was just pretending all along.

It was just like when he was younger and she had lied about or at least not told him what was in the bowl. He was very sick and ten years old. She had brought a bowl full of dark liquid and lied that it was sweet. Believing her he had downed the entire bowl and become feverish for days.

Vomiting at every interval, he had cried and cried for days and finally he had gotten better. That had been the first and last time he fully trusted her and she knew it.

Till today,every bowl she gave him was met with a skeptical look and cautiously raised eyebrows.

"Knew what?" Yeye asked calmly, staring at the eye of the storm as if it did not matter that he was as angry as a bull. She was sitting on a chair, white hair piled up on her small head with chieftaincy tattoos running round and down her arms, and reading a scroll.

"You knew," he accused her once again, snatching the scroll from her hands as she narrowed her gaze at him.

"You knew when the stars said 'it is done' that, that! Was what they meant!" He barked and Yeye sighed heavily, she smooth down a ruck in her wrapper, which was tied round her chest and stood up, heading to the far end of the room to pick a jar from the shelf. She walked back slowly to his side and pointed the jar at him.

"Open it," she commanded.

"What?" He asked as his attention skimmed from her narrow slim white hands to the jar and back up to her pale face. She looked slightly sick.

"I said open it," she repeated and he grate his teeth together angrily, eyes wide open and nose flared in anger, a vein ticked in his jaw and he would have slapped her at that point in time, if not for the fear of isham and his parents. It would have been a whole new story.

"I have no time for your wise words and your evasiveness, tell me what is going on right now!" He ordered and her head shot up, eyes almost as red as her famous tomato soup when it was being cooked over a flaming fire. Who was he to raise his voice at her? He was barely a youngling and a disrespectful one at that.

"You do not read your past nor your future, you do not pay attention to your present. You ask the stars what you want to know and they will tell you what you need to know, sometimes they tell you what you want to know."

"But-" he started,

"But no!" She barked hands akimbo, "all you love to do is chase tight, alarmingly short, cheputa (short native skirts) all around the kingdom, if you had been a little serious maybe you would have found out their plans for you and averted it, maybe you would have changed your destiny, your fate, so do not dare raise your voice towards me young man, you may be the acting king but I am a Queen and I will not hesitate to put you in your place!" She finished breathlessly and his mouth was left open, shocked at her outburst.

She hardly ever shouted, and when she did it scared him and even her but he was beyond reasoning, she and her stars pushed him, so this was him pushing back.

Hard.

"My past!" He shouted quickly wiping off the shocked look on his face and replacing it with a livid one. "My past, my future and! My present should not be dictated by the stars, I make my own story, I design my own fate, why would they plan such-"

"I have no idea-" she cut in.

"Well you should," he snapped and she slowly reached forward for her stick, leaning by the side of the chair and held on to it tightly, his eyes trailed down to her stick and he would have laughed if not for how angry he was. She looked ridiculous. Holding the stick to her chest as if she could do a lot of damage to him.