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SHE COULD FEEL NOTHING. For the rest of the night, Azade laid on the floor next to the dead. Her body shaking rapidly, the smell of flesh and blood overwhelming her. She felt broken, she felt hollow.
In her mind she repeated the memory of Rukun tearing out the girl's heart. His hand swiftly diving into her chest, a red mass in his grasp—
Sunlight streamed into the room.
"Azade?" She could hear Vardin's soft voice as if it were a dream. Her body stayed covered on the bloodied floor, eyes clamped shut. It was only until she heard the rapidness of footsteps did she realize that she wasn't dreaming.
Everything that happened last night was real.
"Help me pick her up." Vardin shouted, another clamour of metal footsteps melting into the room. She could feel his warm hands hug her to his chest, softly rising her shaking body.
And with all the pain possible in his voice Vardin whispered, "What did he do to you?" She could feel the coldness of his armour touch her skin, her body present but her mind-
'Not human. Not human. Not human.' Her last bits of sanity repeated.
"Azade?"
His voice was far.
"Azade?"
'Not human. Not human. Not human.'
"Azade!"
And she couldn't feel anything anymore.
..
HE WAS IN HER DREAMS. Sometimes he was standing over the girl's dead body, his golden eyes void of humanity. Other times, he was standing over her own body or Ehsan's—a knife angled towards their throats with a smile covered in blood.
The worst however, was when she felt herself back at that wretched slave camp. Back in that hut; her mother's flesh tattered on the floor from the bloody whip. She could still hear her mother's screams sometimes, most times her mother was there too, eyes glazed over with her body dripping in blood. Azade could hear a laugh too, his laugh. Suddenly, invading her dreams Rukun stood there over her mother's dead body with a whip in his hand. He was always smiling.
"Scheherazade." His voice would whisper, a lovers tone; like a soft wind caressing her cheek. His lips would be mere meters from her, a hand placed on her chin. She would try to recoil slightly but for some reason the dream wouldn't let her; she stayed glued to him. Rukun would move closer and closer, until she could feel his cold lips on hers. Until she could taste the blood on them. Her blood.
