One Night

Chapter Eighteen

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.