***
{Outside The Projection}
Those in the hall were both confused and in disbelief.
Every man and woman, even the ‘named,’ turned to the leader of Al-Sayf, their gazes asking one single question:
“Do you remember any of this?”
Huda, who looked the most surprised out of them all, just shook her head slowly.
She was silent for a beat longer as if processing the memory for the first time, but then she dropped her gaze and muttered:
“I think… I think I was knocked out the whole time…”
Admitting that made her wince, like a fresh wound she could feel but didn’t want to touch.
“The last thing I remember is sleeping on that bed… Then, I woke up in my uncle’s arms… he… he told me that I was abandoned.”
A few of her followers looked like they might explode from frustration.
“He saved her again?! How is this the first we’re hearing about this?!”
“Don’t we look like such assholes right now? Killing the one that saved our Lady?”
“You can’t tell me you’re forgetting what he did… This Villain even massacred some of our families!”
They looked at the girl, whose eyes were welling up with tears just at the thought of her loved ones, all killed by Malik’s merciless hands.
“I… we know, but still, you can’t deny that if not for him, then our Lady wouldn’t have been with us today.”
One man scoffed, clearly unimpressed.
“I can’t believe he brought them there if he knew his roommates were scum! What was he thinking?”
Another person, one with a brain inside his head, shot back:
“Shut up, dumbass, you know damn well it was a last-minute decision. And he obviously didn’t think they’d be back here today. Plus, where else could he take them? He was barely surviving himself.”
Huda didn’t say anything to them.
She stood there, eyes focused on the projection, her thoughts swirling.
Her posture, once full of pride, anger, and hurt, began to falter as the weight of what Malik had done—not once, but twice—started sinking in.
The mood in the room was shifting, and it wasn’t going unnoticed.
Zafar tried to seize that moment and make it his own, raising his voice to drown out the crowd:
“Everyone! It’s only natural that you feel empathy for his plight. That is a sign of a good person! You are good!”
The people quieted down, listening to their “hero” speak.
“But he isn’t! As one of Lady Huda’s attendants put it, the young Sultan could be seen as a wholly different person. You can root for him if you wish, I see no problem in that, but be sure to prepare yourself for what’ll happen later.”
Many nodded their heads at his words, agreeing with most, if not all of what he said.
And that was to be expected, after all, he took a neutral stance that held out its hands to every opinion.
“Wise as always my Lord!”
“I expect nothing less of you, my Lord!”
“I agree wholeheartedly with you, my Lord!”
While his yes-men complimented him none stop, Azeem glanced at Huda and sneakily said:
“Isn’t it funny? The Devil Sultan’s, the so-called Villain… here, playing guardian to children. Tell me, Lady Huda, how does it feel to know you were in the hands of someone so… benevolent?”
His words were meant to cut, to provoke, but instead, Huda’s expression softened.
The harsh lines of hatred that had been etched on her face for so long were starting to blur.
She couldn’t hold onto the anger anymore.
Not after everything she had just seen.
And she wasn’t the only one.
Those who had only been the victims of his ‘evil,’ seeing the Sultan as entirely heartless, were murmuring in disbelief:
“…Is that really the Villain?”
“I thought he was a monster. He wasn’t supposed to care, not about anyone.”
Another voice, this one confused to Hell and back, echoed:
“Yeah, but… after seeing this? He’s not what I thought. He’s… just a kid. A really messed-up kid, but still…”
Some, unable to let go of their hatred, not even for the kind little boy in front of them, opened their mouths to protest, to dismiss his kindness, but nothing came out.
No words felt right anymore.
They’d never thought they’d see Malik like this—protecting, caring, doing something good for once.
And as for Zafar? Though he spoke well, he could already feel the cracks forming in his coalition.
More specifically, Huda.
Zafar didn’t know what she was thinking anymore.
He looked at the paused projection and then at her, his smile faltering.
It was the first time he didn’t have any semblance of control over the narrative.
The young Malik wasn’t the monster he wanted him to be, he just wasn’t.
And worse, the world was starting to see him differently, realizing that he was never the devil spawn they made him out to be.
“Enough…”
Huda finally said, looking around the room, her voice frustrated to the extreme.
“I’m done with this. Malik’s actions don’t need explaning. I know what he did for me… for Sinbad. He doesn’t have to be some… hero for it to mean anything.”
Slowly, her gaze shifted back to the projection, and her loyalists, the ones who’d fought and bled for her, fell silent.
This was new. Uncharted territory.
Huda had finally acknowledged it.
The Villian, the one who ruined her life, had also saved it, twice, and likely many times more before she had awoken.
Even if she didn’t remember it all, she knew it was real.
She could feel it in her heart.
And despite the cracks, his later actions, the unforgivable ‘evil’ he’d commit, she had to admit something to herself she hadn’t dared before:
“Maybe… maybe he wasn’t so bad.”
Her whisper seemed to echo in the minds of everyone present.
Even Zafar, who felt the shift but couldn’t stop it, let out a long breath.
He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but one thing was clear—tides were changing and he wasn’t confident that he could calm it next time.