The Zodiacs

43. Willingness To Face

A weak groan slipped through her lips as Zahra pried her eyes open in the hot afternoon sun. She ran her tongue over the cracked dryness of her lips, feeling the burns all along her exposed arms. She'd been laying in the desert for too long -wait. How long had she been laying in the desert?

She sighed, lifting herself weakly off of the ground as the sand pasted all along her black clothing and hair moved with her. One inhale allowed the blown sediment on her face to slip into her nose, scratching the back of her throat, and forcing themselves back out with dried coughs. The dust flew out of her mouth as a light cloud in the desert air.

Zahra winched with the uncomfortably ache that built into the bottom left side of her abdomen with each convulsion, but the moment of pain reminded her of the few moments before every one of her senses slipped away like the dried blood stains around the outline of her body.

That's right, she'd faced the Pharaoh and his men. Master Omari had been there, watching her in silence as she helplessly tried to defend herself but failed.

She'd failed the moment she allowed the queen into her mind to see the suppressed trauma she'd kept herself from confronting for so many years before. When she'd tried to keep herself from coming to peace with what he'd done to her father; Zahra should have faced it. The queen wouldn't have expected that. It would have given her a few more moments of power over the army before her.

Master Omari... he'd been the one to finish her. He'd told her to never put themselves in the position she constantly seemed to find herself in: the one where he'd hurt her. But she'd done it.

Did he hate her now? Were all the feelings he'd just confessed to her a short time before all gone by her inability to keep a basic promise? The thought of it seemed to hurt her more than the physical ache present in her body where he'd driven the sword into her abdomen.

Right!

Zahra quickly sat up, looking down at the dried dark red stain that dyed her black shirt an unusual color. She looked around to see the large pool of what had been her pouring blood... how was she alive after losing such a large amount of her inner contents? If anything, she should have never woken up in such a state in the first place.

She breathed with the discomfort that came from the muscle aches, warm burns, and complete dehydration of her body. Everything seemed to hurt, but the stab wound was the least of her pains.

Sliding her hands into her pants, Zahra pulled the base of her shirt up to reveal her lower torso so she could finally see the wound that knocked her to the ground. Her movements were slow and cautious, worried that a single mistake would draw more blood from the large wounds that were present on her abdomen and back.

The sword had gone right through her.

But there was no wound, no bloody opening... nothing but a thin line that seemed more like a stray hair than a scar. A dark blue liquid stained her pale skin around the injury --or what used to be the injury, anyway. No sign of the puncture remained aside from the dried blood on her shirt and skin.

Zahra slid her finger over the thick blue liquid around her wound, cautious not to wipe any blood with the movement as she brought it to her nose for a curious sniff. It held a strong smell of honey, but it also smelt hot... like somebody had heated up honey until it grew dangerously close to burning.

She pulled her index finger away to blink at the dripping liquid as it slowly slid down her palm. It looked weirdly familiar.

Then the possibility cleared in her mind, and Zahra turned slightly to smear it over the length of a healing cut along the inside of her elbow. It burned painfully, making her lean forward and bite down on her lower lip to keep from crying out at the audible sizzle it created on the surface of her skin --it must have been from the unclean sand and dust pasted all along her cuts.