One Night

Chapter Eleven

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.