The sun never truly set on the empire my grandfather built. It simply slipped behind oil rigs and gold-plated pipelines, then rose again on my name.
I was twenty-one when he died. The desert winds carried the call to prayer and the news of the Emir's final breath in the same breath. They said he died peacefully. But I knew the truth: he died leaving a storm behind—and I was its center.
Because the day after my grandfather was lowered into the earth, a letter was delivered to my estate in gold-trimmed black:
"By the Emir's private decree, the oil mines of Wadi Al-Qamar, the jewel of the kingdom's wealth, are henceforth the legal property of Her Royal Highness, Salma bint Kareem."
---
The oil mines weren't just wells. They were legends. Stretching from Al-Khayma to the southern dunes, they pulsed like veins in the body of the nation. For decades, the royal court pretended they were state-owned. But deep within secret contracts and ghost-written deals, my grandfather made his own choices—quietly securing them under my name.
He once told me, "You're the only one who listens with her whole heart. The rest of them only hear the clinking of gold."
And now that gold was mine.
The court was scandalized. Cousins sent flowers dipped in sarcasm. Aunties sent silence. The ministers panicked.
My name wasn't spoken at the funeral.
Not once.
Not by the nobles in their embroidered thobes. Not by the mourning chants echoing from the Grand Mosque's towers. Not even by my own uncle Faisal who claimed he loved me so
And when the coronation came—a dazzling affair of lions, ivory, and twenty-seven royal drums—I wasn't invited.
Yes, I—the eldest. The firstborn. The princess who knew the palace better than the throne room's guards. I watched the celebration from a flat screen in the Khasims mansion, sipping cardamom coffee on a gilded sofa embroidered with the family crest I was no longer welcome to wear.
They crowned my uncle Faisal.
But the gold was mined from the lands I now own.
He wore the robe of kingship.
But I inherited what keeps his throne standing.
Funny how silence becomes expensive when a woman owns oil.
But I didn't need a throne to be royal.
---
Let them have the gold crowns.
I own the black rivers beneath them.
My uncle—newly crowned and still smelling of throne incense—did what frightened men do.
He tried to bury me in marriage.
The Abdul family of London—oil tycoons with tea-stained smiles—were sent an offer. My hand, in exchange for convenience. A quiet, elegant exile. One less rival at the negotiation tables. One less woman in the boardrooms.
I played the part. I dressed for the engagement parties. I smiled at the princes with Harvard accents. I toasted with rosewater.
But what they didn't see was the portfolio I was building behind their backs.
I met with Norwegian energy experts under the guise of afternoon tea.
I struck a deal with East Asian refineries while modeling sapphire hijabs for "charity galas."
And at night, I rewrote the oil contracts myself—redlining clauses that had enslaved the kingdom's economy to the old council.
I became fluent in fuel.
---
They called me a princess.
I became an empress of energy.
---
The royals whispered that I was dangerous now. That money had made me arrogant. But it wasn't money. It was freedom. It was the first time I could breathe without asking permission.
I returned to the kingdom months later. Not to kneel before the throne—but to walk past it.
When I arrived at the annual economic summit, wearing a crimson dress sewn with verses from the Quran in golden thread, the cameras turned.
My brother looked away.
The Prime Minister stood and said, "Princess Salma, owner of the Wadi Al-Qamar mines, we are honored."
The air thickened with jealousy.
I took the microphone and said:
"Wealth does not obey titles. It obeys vision. And I have never lacked that."
---
I no longer ask why they hated me.
They hated me because I wouldn't vanish.
They hated me because I smiled after betrayal.
Because I turned exile into empire.
But most of all, they hated me because I didn't sell my soul,
even when the price was a crown.
—Salma