Dead Girls Tell No Tales

t w e n t y - t h r e e

He hesitates, reluctantly taking it before tying her wrists in an agonisingly slow but cautious process, loosening it to allow regular blood flow. "Are you sure about this, Malika?"

"I am," she reassures.

"What of akh?"

"Tell him that I have a tale for him," she says softly, irises clouding, "And if I survive the night, I will be engaging him with it."

Shahrazad's chest thumps, empty with the inheritance of loss, and the gaping void craving a darkness to consume her. Fleetingly, she wonders if Shahryar is waging an internal war within himself, seeking answers, rethinking his words. 

But this, this is not the moment.

Anwar's rugged face seems fatigued, as if the night has worn it into a mask of rough stone. Another twinge of guilt rakes her conscience. In many ways, he resembles the man haunting the remaining fragments of her soul. 

He bows, almost unoticeably, but she catches the light slump of his shoulders. Then, without another word, he leads her closer, closer, closer towards the circle of tents. 

As they near, the sheer number of rebels sends a shock of panic coursing through her. She had underestimated the forces.

"Let go of me, traitor," she screams, struggling through the restraints that barely bite through her skin. 

Their attention is alerted.

The men stationed outside of the camp catch sight of them, the intruders, and they quickly draw their weapons, swords for most part. "Aye, it is the Malika of the land," a pallor faced youth mocks, "Our King seems to have caught the little spitfire."

Her nostrils flare at the distasteful comments and the laughs that echo in succession.

She is aware that they were formerly fooling Anwar into believing that they would reinstate him as the ruler, but as she glances at him, his features are unmoving. "I demand to see the leader." 

The band of men crowd around her, eyeing, leering, cruelly grinning, and finally part as Anwar shoves through their grime, dirt and sweat lined bodies. "Where is he?"

"I am not going anywhere with you," Shahrazad furiously stomps her feet, stilling such that he has to resort to dragging her, albeit carefully. "Pretending to be his brother when you are a--"

"What on earth is the commotion for?" 

The curtain of cloth covering a tent, one strategically positioned in the middle, is pushed aside, and the angles of a face she despises peeks from within. His eyes first meet Anwar's before settling immediately on her, dragging across her length. "S-Shahr?" 

Afshar's stutter and his initial astonishment fail to evoke her sympathy. All she views presently is the face of her father's murderer, a snake clothed in human skin, a liar, a manipulator, and a man she loathes.

The rage curling in her chest snarls, fighting to unfurl onto him, to slice his head clean and send it to his rebels on a silver platter. But she simmers it, quenches its thirst. "I should have known."

"Bring her in," he commands then, and she is pushed into the folds of the tent. 

Stumbling, she glares at him fiercely. "How dare you."

The boy she knew disappears, contorting into a man she does not. "Now, Shahr, is that the proper way to greet an old friend?"

Beside her, Anwar tenses. Her own anger rushes in.

He killed baba, he killed baba, he killed baba.

His arms open, the endless sleeves of his crimson robes sweeping the rugs placed over the bare sands. "Ah, forgive me for forgetting," he hisses, taunting her further, "Your arms are tied."