The Sultan's Daughter (Princesses Uncovered #5)

Chapter 16: Trapped

Fath walked down the tunnel, feet feeling bruised and battered. When would the tunnel end? How long had he been walking through this place anyway? He sighed, the sound echoing through the soundless space before him.

The torch sputtered, threatening – for the second time in the last few minutes – to end. He walked a little faster, glancing at the torch he was holding and then back at the dust-covered, sandy floor before him. He forced himself to stumble onwards when all he wanted was to collapse and die.

Thirst consumed his thoughts, and he wondered again how long he had been down here. Had Hashim given up on him – believing him to be dead – and left. No! Hashim wouldn’t do that… He wouldn’t. He wants to get this lamp, and anyway, he’s become my friend over the last few week or so… He wouldn’t do that to me. Fath chanted in his mind.

The torch guttered again, the flame causing crazy patterns to leap to life on the rock walls he passed by. He spared little thought for them, pressing onward. He couldn’t afford to have the torch go out. If it went out, he would be trapped down here – trapped in the inky blackness – and he would never find his way back out. He would perish beneath the surface of the sands.

He shivered. That was not a comforting thought.

His eyes struggled to shut while his burning legs continued to carry him towards the place he hoped would be an exit. His tongue was sandpaper in his mouth, and he longed for a drop – even just a drop – of wetting water to sooth his roughened breathing and dehydrated mouth.

It couldn’t have been that long since he had left the gold room – as he was now calling it – but his lungs burned from breathing in the dust and sand that he kicked up as he shuffled along, and he hadn’t had the foresight to bring water along. What had he been thinking? Why hadn’t it occurred to him that he might need food and water?

At the thought of food, his belly rumbled ominously, reminding him that he needed to eat too. If I ever make it out of this infernal tunnel and back to the surface, I will never set foot in another cave! He swore silently.

The tunnel came to an abrupt end then, and he stumbled over the threshold of a tiny room. He almost banged into the wall of the small space, but just in time, his bleary eyes connected the image to his brain, and he avoided the collision. He stopped, staring about the room.

Where was the exit?

The walls were seamless on all but one side, and on that one side, there was a landslide, which had covered whatever had been on that wall. Had the exit been behind that gigantic pile of rubble? It must have been.

Either that or there was a tunnel behind it that continued to the exit.

But whatever the case, there was no escape from the room.

Except that a large pile of drifted sand was sitting in the center of the room with no apparent point of origin.

Looking up, Fath saw a large, gaping hole in the ceiling of the room, exposing the night sky above in all its starry glory. He frowned, flicking a strand of sweaty hair out of his eyes.

Then he glared up at the hole. Hashim did not appear, and he had no way to get out of the small room aside from the hole. Curse his luck! Why did everything always go wrong for him?

He glared down at the pot clutched in his right hand. All of this for an oil pot that was fabled to hold a djinn. He was beginning to believe his mother was right. He was beginning to believe he was crazy.

“Why did I agree to come on this stupid mission instead of taking the Sultan up on his kind offer of work?” Fath muttered. “What a fool I am.”