Alara
The girl screams to me—telling me to run, but it is muffled by the muzzle. She squirms in their grip, but it's too late.
There is no way to un-see this, and from the way the Hakeem has his jaw set and his gaze unblinking, he knows it too.
Maybe I should have brought a weapon. Maybe I should have thought this through.
The door slams closed and the prince takes my face, making me look at him in the darkness of the room. "That was really stupid. You have to go. Now."
But the door slams open and two guards grab me by my arms. Their grips are painfully strong, their fingers digging into me so hard it starts to ache. They shove me to my knees.
I try to pull back, away from them, but it's too late. From the way Nawaz's face has fallen, he knows it too. My eyes try to find his, to ask him the silent question—what are they going to do to me? But he refuses to meet my gaze. That says enough.
"What are you doing outside of your quarters?" The Hakeem asks. He steps in front of my kneeling form, looking down at me from the tip of his nose. "The least you could do as a guest in my home is mind your business, girl."
He says the word girl, as if it is intended as an insult.
I say nothing, because there is nothing that needs to be said. If I ask more questions, I will only make things worse.
He sighs. "Where is your guard?" The question is resigned, filled with disappointment, as if he doesn't want to do whatever he is about to do.
"I snuck off when his back was turned," I lie. Zayen has had my back while I was here. The least I could do is not get him in trouble for whatever it is he is doing at night. "I just wanted to walk around, maybe find another garden."
"And you thought that there would be a garden behind this door?" He gestures to the secret door, that is most definitely not leading to a garden.
"No, I just heard screams and I thought someone might need help."
"You're a royal, not a superhero." I am neither. But what use is it to be alive, to survive, if I can't help others when it is needed? "Put her in Aleamiq."
No.
I've heard stories of Aleamiq before—all of them horrible. All of them based on myth. The meaning of the name is 'the deep'. People say that it is named to represent the bottom of the ocean, a place where the darkness is so haunting that people see more than they wish; where the pressure is so intense that it can crush bones.
They drag me back up to my feet, and I try to push backwards, to get out of their grasp. I turn my head back to Nawaz, silently pleading with him to help, even when I know he won't.
He won't defy his father. He doesn't have any reason to protect me, a stranger. Plus, there is no guarantee that a man like the Hakeem would not put his own son down in the prison.
The walk down to the prison feels endless, each step seems to go in slow motion. My body feels as if it has been filled with lead. The sound of the guards shoes against the floors echoes in my ear, like the beating of drums before an execution.
That's what this is. An execution. I am never going to get out, never going to escape whatever it is that is waiting for me.
I am never going to see my mother.
When she kneels down on my sleeping mat and wonders where I have gone. When my neighbour walks out on her, realising that I am not coming back. When she stops eating, stops caring. Stops breathing.
Because of me.
I am lead down a steep set of stairs, taken underground. There are crackling fires lit against the walls between each door. It seems to be the guards quarters. Zayen might be somewhere down here.
The sounds of people groaning in empty, helpless desperation, comes from somewhere further down the passage. Each step forward makes the sound clearer, until it's all I can hear. It's in every breath, every blink, every move. The sound of pain.
Another set of guards wait at the entrance of what must be the prison. It is sealed with a humongous wooden door that does nothing to block the smell of death and rot.
It is exactly as the stories make it seem. People who have lost their minds. Darkness that makes one see things that aren't there. A cold that seeps into bone marrow and does not leave.
A recreation of hell.
~~*~~
Large hands wrap around the bars of the cell. "What the—?"
Before he can get more than a word out, I jump to my feet and rush up to him. The cold down here has numbed my body. "Zayen, did you know?"
"What are you doing in here? I wasn't even gone for an hour? All you had to do was not leave your room." I can barely see him, except for a slight outline in the darkness.
"Do you know?" I ask again. I need more information. "Inside the walls. The people. What they're doing." That woman. The muzzle. The screaming.
His eyebrows crease. "Did they lock you up for reasons of insanity?"
"No, you're not listening to me." I lean my head against the cold bars, slowing my breathing. "I found a door in the wall, like the one that you were smoking in." He tried to hide it, but I saw. "There was a woman that was crying for help and the Hakeem was there. They were torturing here. Why? What do you know?"
He steps back. His head turns as he checks to make sure there is nobody in the hallways, before stepping close again.
The smell of his cologne surrounds me, giving me an escape from the horrid smells in this place. "Which door? What else did you see?"
"Nothing, but Nawaz knows. He tried to get me out of there but I couldn't leave that woman. You need to find her. You need to help her."
"Why are you so worried about saving a woman you don't know?" he asks.
I glance back up at him, his face is covered in shadows. "Because that could be me. I would like to believe someone would have the decency to help me if they saw . . . that happening to me." The device, that looked like it was made in a rush with a a few pins and some wood, being dragged against her skin.
In the silence between us, the wails of people in the cages around me seem to reverberate in my ears. The sounds of their pain and suffering so clear that it makes me wish I could hear nothing at all.
"Listen, I'm going to get you out." His voice is calm, pensive. The rough, deep sound of his accent is yet another escape in this place. It makes me wish he could stay. "You saw more than I did. What do you think I should do?"
It's a long shot, but . . . "Nawaz." He was the only one who has a morsel of concern on his face as I was being dragged off by the guards and left to rot down here. He is the only one that that has a chance of getting through to the Hakeem. "Talk to him. Try to reason with the Hakeem. Convince him that I won't say a word."
"Nawaz." His voice lowers, his hands dropping to his sides to form fists. "That's the only option?" He seems to be detaching from the thought, from the idea of helping me.
"You don't have to . . ." I know he hasn't been particularly fond of me. If he did absolutely nothing, it would be understandable. I am nothing but, as he calls me, a sariq.
He huffs, seemingly frustrated that I told him he doesn't have to. "I'll talk to him."
My heart picks up it's pace, leaving my lungs filled with the old, murky air down here. He doesn't have to do this. But I am grateful that he is. "Why are you helping me?"
He raises an eyebrow, surprised by the doubt in my question. "Because I would like to believe someone would have the decency to help me if they saw me rotting in a dark cage." I open my mouth to say something, but he continues. "And what use is my position as a guard, or even as a relatively decent human, if I can't help those who need it?"
A sigh comes from behind me—barely a whisper of air—followed by a muffled voice. "Hal yumkinuni musaeadatuk." هل يمكنني مساعدتك. ًI can help you.
~~*~~
There are so many languages I want to learn.
T w i t t e r : xPineappleGirlx
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