Zayen
The area we are about to pass through is dangerous. We are going to have to keep our guard up.
Many people spread rumours about what happens to those who go through Ardifa. It's an abandoned land that not many people come back from, between Wadi and Diyar.
The rumours are as bad, if not worse, than the rumours about the prison in the palace. All taped about people getting captured, tortured—their fingernails being removed from their hands and shoved into their eyeballs.
Told in jest, but certainly not a joke.
The woods here are thick with trees, so closely huddled together that it is hard to see a clear path. Their leaves create canopies above my head that dance in the breeze.
The lack of birdsong rings alarm bells in my head. There should be signs of life, but there isn't.
My legs have begun to feel numb. We have been riding non-stop, because Akilah is relentless. It's been hours, but it feels like weeks. My back needs to be twisted and massaged by one of the royal servants. The cuts and bruises lining my body don't help.
But I won. They had tried to drown me but, this time, I won. My jaw clenches at the reminder of what it felt like to lose. I just want to go to war—I want to fight over and over in order to prove myself again.
My grip tightens on the reigns and my horse, irritated, nods it's head to try and get me to loosen up. She's a beautiful horse—her brown and white coat shines, reflecting the love and care given to her.
I wonder if this horse belongs to that little boy. If he is the one who took care of her. He must have walked into the stables, searching for his brother and found—
How would their mother feel, knowing she couldn't protect her children? Knowing that it could have ended much worse if I had twisted my dagger a little deeper—
I left coins behind in exchange for their horses, more than enough, but damage has been done in ways that can never be reversed. All because I thought, stupidly, that I'd try and be a hero.
A deep, throaty groan leaves my lips. I hate the feeling of frustration and anger building in my chest.
The thief doesn't even know me and yet she is right, my calmness is an act. Beneath the surface I am bubbling with a rage that unlocked the moment I lost that fight. It has never happened before.
I thought that maybe flirting with her, getting some sort of reaction, would take my mind off things. But it didn't.
"Are your wounds still bleeding or causing pain?" the thief asks, her head turned back to look at me.
She shows genuine concern for me, and I am not sure why. She even cleaned up, albeit roughly, my wounds for me. Nobody has done that before. I've done nothing but gamble on her life and degrade her.
"I'm fine." At least I am good at pretending to be. As long as I can keep going without blacking out, I will be fine.
A growl pierces the air.
Not now.
All three horses come to a halt, their hooves knocking against the ground in anxious anticipation. Air blows out of their nostrils, filling the eerie quiet. They're not sure what to do or what direction to run in.
"Akilah, what do we do?" Nawaz asks. His green jewelled eyes are assessing, like a leopard's, for further signs of movement.
"There's only one thing to do." She knocks the stirrup against her horse's side and holds onto her reigns. "Run."
Her horse is gone in an instant, rustling bushes are the only remnant of her. Nawaz and I take a second before we are close on her tail.
But there is a heavy thumping behind us. Something that I hope we never see, because if we do we would have to fight it off. Fighting wild animals has been a part of my training as a royal guard, we had to practice on wild cats. It was the hardest training of my life.
I might have given up, if my father wasn't watching me and waiting for me to prove myself as a disappointment.
Fighting an unknown wild animal while injured and barely armed would be a disaster.
I dip my body forward, avoiding low-hanging branches that threaten to hit me in the face. A couple of them catch my bare arms, causing my previous wounds to burn.
It's hard to gallop when feeling so tense. The art of riding a horse at full speed is to let go of control completely, to let the animal do what it does best, but it's much harder when there is the high chance something will go wrong.
I glance back over my shoulder to see if any hint of what is chasing us could be seen. The bushes and trees are still, only gently swaying.
It only heightens my unease, not knowing where it might have gone.
My horse snorts when I knock stirrup against it's side. Reluctantly, it speeds up and soon I find myself riding beside Akilah.
She glances over at me. Her straight, dark hair creates a shadow behind her as it dances with the wind. Sweat beads her forehead. Her eyes remain fierce and unreadable.
I find my gaze wondering down to her chest which rises and falls with the movement of her horse. Tearing my eyes away, I ask, "What now?"
"There's a house," she explains, not looking at me. Her guard is up as she searches for the creature.
That doesn't sound like a good idea in a place like this. Not with all the rumours here. "How do you know that?" I don't trust her for a second.
Especially because she doesn't sound breathless either, which indicates she is fit and trained. It only further proves how little I know about her.
She shakes her head, speeding up to stay ahead of me. "Follow me or keep running until you find somewhere better to stop. Your choice."
This could be a set up.
If I had to choose between death and being captured, I will always choose death. Just like I told the thief, there are things much worse than death.
But Akilah is right. What other option is there?
My eyes meet Nawaz's over my right shoulder. The thief is holding onto him, so tight that it seems intimate. But it's more likely fear. She's the only one that seems out of breath.
The image of her holding onto him brings back memories of Nawaz earlier in the year. He had figured out who it was that I found attractive, and made it his mission to win her over. Arayana. She was more kind than she was beautiful, and she was strikingly beautiful. He was successful, and made sure to time it so that I would walk in at the moment she was unraveling.
That anger only spurs me to go faster, until I can't think about anything except the sting of the wind in my eyes.
We come to the end of the tree line, with Akilah in the lead, where green hills roll out and nothing but a sprinkling of trees and tiny yellow flowers can be seen.
We make it only ten or so meters out when that same animalistic roar follows us and the bushes part. My horse is going so fast that it is impossible to turn around and see the creature, not without throwing off my balance.
Akilah begins to swerve her horse to the side, going at an angle towards a large hill. Nearing it, a cave-like hole becomes visible. It's not very tall, and I'd likely have to duck against my horse to fit in, but it seems like our only shot.
Akilah ducks, holding tightly against her horse as she disappears into the darkness of the cave.
As soon as all three horses are in, Akilah throws a leg back and slips off her horse, her entire body slamming against the dirt wall and she pushes a button and a large cage-like gate slams down.
A loud scream follows a thump. Through the gates, two shadows struggle. One is much larger than the other.
"Who—?" I slip off my horse and search for Nawaz, but his eyes are wide in fear and directed towards the two figures outside the gate.
"Alara. She . . . She fell." He doesn't blink. His body is still. "I . . . It was too late. The horse wouldn't—"
Alara's screams fill the air, drowning out any excuse Nawaz was about to make.
One thing I know is that he didn't push her. He wouldn't purposely kill anyone he has a chance of sleeping with.
I can't let her die. "Open the gate." The creature seems to be dragging her limp body. But the lighting inside the cave makes it too dark to confirm.
"No," Akilah says, moving her body to block the button. "There could be more of them."
"It's my duty." I have to protect her. It's what I was raised and trained to do.
I walk up to Akilah. My body towers over her. I have the advantage of height and strength. Nothing is going to stop me.
She stares up at me, her body automatically preparing to fight. She positions one foot in front of the other, her stance seeming to have admittedly good form. "I'm not going to let you be an idiot."
"Don't act like you care about me." I pull out my dagger. The promise I made to myself is that I would not lose another fight.
I won't.
~~*~~
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