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— "ARE YOU ALRIGHT, MY LADY?" A maid asked from the other side of the door. Her screams echoed off the walls of the palace.
Azade watched as the gashes on her arm, shrank—leaving a pattern in the shape of a star. 'What is happening?'
She rolled in the sheets of her bed, a cold sweat of fear rising on her body. Her arm burned, the pain a thousand times stronger than every minute before.
"Azade?"
The clink of armour rushed in, the tall stature of Vardin; who's feet carried him to the doorway. He stood there, his eyes glancing at the girl who was dressed only in her night robe and screaming while clutching her arm.
"No, do not!" She screamed, the wretched sun creeping into the previously dark room as Vardin walked in from the hall. He ran to the edge of her bedside; grabbing the crazed girl by the shoulders and turning her over to him.
"Let go of your arm!"
"It hurts!"
He pulled her arm out of her clutches, Azade screaming even louder as he pulled it away from her. "Let go!"
"No—no look! It's—"
Nothing.
Vardin pulled her arm, letting the arm that was caressing it drop. He practically had to pull her fingers off one by one, but when he did—
"Azade, nothing is there."
"What?"
She looked back at her arm, the searing pain subsiding as Vardin held her forearm with his palm. "There's nothing, no blood. Nothing."
He was right, her skin was empty. No scars or star-grazes to be seen, only her flush skin held against his own. Azade took back her arm in bewilderment; 'she could've sworn she saw a star-graze!'
"I'm going insane." She whispered, looking back at the solider with alarm. She traced the skin and wondered if it was Sian'Ki again, cursing her with her magic.
"It's alright, maybe you should simply rest to—" Vardin stopped as they both heard a shout.
"Where is that bitch!"
A voice hollered from the ends of the hall, rushed footsteps arriving from the doorway and into her room. A disheveled, no— dead looking Fazad came running into the room.
"What happened to you?" Vardin whispered, his hand immediately covering the hilt of his strapped sword. He was right to ask, the noble looked inhuman. He usual long hair was now torn into uneven cuts, lengths spilling out from atop his head. Cuts, fresh with blood still on the horizons kept from his entire face.
