“What was that about?” demanded King Dante.
“His arm was not as badly injured as he first believed,” lied Princess Soraya.
She was not yet ready to tell her father about her growing power, but she was eager to try it on something else – on someone else, her mother.
“And how did you come to that conclusion, young lady?”
“I shifted the arm slightly, and he felt better,” she explained.
“Mm. I did not think him a young man who would wail too much unless he had broken something. But I guess I am wrong,” the king considered.
Then noticing his daughter’s restlessness, “What is it?”
“I need to use the privy chamber,” she said, making a show of shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“Oh, oh! Go on, then,” the king seemed embarrassed, and also disappointed in his daughter for be
