For the first time that evening, the reality of the situation was sinking into her, and nervousness was beginning to unravel in the center of her chest. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding for hours, and the suffocating drumbeat in her throat felt like it was going to swallow her whole. It had been hours since she had had that conversation with the man, and with every passing hour, she felt herself become more agitated. Was she really going to go through with this? She had already been caught for trespassing upon palace grounds. What if his plan didn’t work, and she was accused of flat-out treason by attacking a royal guard?
She didn’t know if she could do it.
Lira closed her eyes and breathed out a deep sigh.
The alienness of her surroundings was making her grow more wary by every passing second. There was a foul smell in the air, the amalgamation of sweat from prisoners that had spent decades down here, the putridness of human waste, and the decay of the earth around them. Despite the chilliness of the underground air, every breath felt filled heavy, and filled her lungs shallowly. The ground felt wet underneath her but there was no water in sight. The walls felt hard, as if of stone. The dungeons were an unforgiving, callous place.
What choice did she have? With every passing hour, Ayesha’s chances at living were slipping further and further away. It was as if the devil was waiting for her on the other side of the bridge, and his evil son was standing at her back with his pitchfork against her neck. It felt like a lose-lose situation, whether she went along with him or didn’t.
The kingdom wasn’t kind to those who betrayed the palace’s rule. She had grown up hearing about Huma, Apa’s cousin who had supposedly slept with a royal. He had accused her of thievery, and she had been sentenced to death shortly thereafter. She didn’t even know if the story was true. She had simply heard it over, and over again as she had grown up in the bathhouse. The tale had been a folk story of sorts, warning the women of the bathhouse to keep their guard up against those who lived behind the palace gates. There was a clear divide between the wealthy and the poor, and to confuse the boundary was foolish.
The man in her cell had ended his persuasion once two guards had arrived to tell the prisoners in the hall to quieten down for the evening. They had hit their batons against the iron bars, shouting at everyone for silence, threatening the removal of their breakfast if orders were disobeyed.
“Can I count on you?” He asked stoically, as the guards retreated. He had given her his instructions on what to do.
She didn’t respond. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know if she could trust him. She didn’t even know who he was. Shackled to the wall, awaiting the gallows? It didn’t sound like someone she wanted to help. Even if helping him was a means to an end.
As the hours slipped by, she began to lose feeling in her arms and hands, and her shoulders began to ache with tension from the discomfort of being tied. Her mouth was dry, her skin clammy, and her stomach uneasy as she listened to the whispers of the underground tunnels of the prison. There was still only darkness around her, and had she not heard his voice earlier, she would have assumed she was alone in the cell.
She only realized she had drifted asleep when she jolted awake to the sound of footsteps in the tunnel, and the sound of a gate clanging open. Feeling disoriented and panicked at how many hours she had lost, she looked around for any indication for how many hours she had lost to no avail. It was still pitch dark.
“Time for a decision, sweetheart.” It was his voice again. “Are you with me?”
He was still here. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. What he was suggesting was blasphemy. She couldn’t do it.
Before she could reply, two guards came upon the iron gates of their door. The one with a lamp stood back, casting ghoulish shadows into the tiny cell Lira was locked in.
“Ah, you’re the foolish woman,” said the guard unlocking the door, “There’s at least one a week, who trespasses.”
“Let me speak to-.”
The guard cut her off, “your trial will be held at the summer, along with the other trespassers.”
Her mouth went dry. At the end of the summer? In three months? “You can’t be serious -.” Her response was met with the edge of the baton, which struck her head. Lira gasped as she felt her head hit the side of the cell, the force of the strike reverberating through her entire body. The guards said something to her, but she barely heard as the pain sliced her head, warm blood trickling down her forehead. The metallic taste of the hot liquid tinged her lips, and she spat out the blood which made its way into her mouth.
Just like that, any and all hesitations she had had disappeared.
Fuck this.
“You have to help me, it’s against God’s law to treat a woman like this.”
The guards barely heard her, but she could tell both had their back to her in the moment, even though she was seeing double, and were focusing on the man who was chained up. The man had told her to get their attention. There was only one thing she could think of, that would work. If there was one thing she still had in her power, it was utilizing the archaic laws that governed their land. She spoke louder. “I’m with a child. You need to help me, it’s the law. I can’t give birth in here”
“For Heaven’s sake.” This time the guard heard her, “You can’t be serious.”
“It would be just like Rashid to throw a pregnant woman down here.”
“Help me,” Lira crouched over, pretending to be in pain, “I need help. I think I’m hurt.”
“Go on,” one of the guards shouted at the other, “take her to the infirmary!”
Lira held her breath as one of the guards turned around. Bracing herself for shit to hit the fan, she took a deep breath, leaned back and struck her leg forward as hard as she could the moment he drew near.
The impact of her foot against his chest sounded like a loud thud in the cellar as he exhaled sharply in surprise and stumbled back. Not wanting to lose momentum, she scrambled to her feet and kicked again, this time knocking him back into the second guard.
“What in God’s -.” Was all the second guard managed to exclaim as the impact of the first guard hitting the second sent both to the ground. Adrenaline surged through her as the impact of her kick had knocked the torch out of the first guard’s hand, the flame surging as it fell on the ground. Focused directly on the first guard, as she had been instructed, she immediately dropped her knee down to his neck, cutting off his oxygen supply.
It was the first time she saw the man in the chains, though she was barely able to process what she was seeing in the chaos. His wrists were chained above his head in iron-clad locks, but his legs were free. He had locked the second guard in between his knees, and from the light of the flame, she could see the guard struggling to gasp for air.
It passed by so fast that Lira could barely comprehend what was happening. One moment, the man was grasping at her body to throw off, and in the next, his body had gone limp underneath her. She immediately scrambled off of him, “how do I know I didn’t kill him?”
“That’s the least of your concerns,” the man let go of the unconscious guard in between his knees, his head dropping to the ground with a heavy thud. “Find the keys.”
Lira could hear shouting from the hallway, coming from the prisoners who had heard the commotion. The sound of their voices, combined with the unconscious guards in their cell, paralyzed her with shock. What was she doing?
“Focus,” he spoke again, “It won’t be long before others come our way.”
This was the first time she saw him, properly saw him that was. And what she saw terrified her.
The light coming from the fallen torch cast its glow on his sharp features, that were definitely not human. His large frame, shackled by heavy chains, was undressed save for a torn shalwar that hung at his waist. The left side of his brown chest was tattooed with black archaic symbols that seemed to move along his skin, disappearing beneath the cloth encircling his hips. Claw marks, seemingly from an animal attack, tore down the right side of his shoulder, trailing onto his back. His hair was thick, black and framed a set of unnaturally grey eyes. What concerned her most, however, were his unnaturally sharp ears.
“What are you?”
His eyes narrowed, “the keys.”
“This isn’t just treason against our state,” she had a sinking suspicion she knew what she was looking at. “I would be committing a crime against -.”
“If they find you now, they’ll kill you either way.”
Shit, shit, shit. She felt like she was hyperventilating. “You’re Idrisi.”
“Get. The Ke-.”
Her heart felt like it was in her mouth “I could just run -”
“That wouldn’t be smart- .”
“- and leave you here.”
“You can’t get out of this palace without me.
“How do I know you won’t kill me first?”
“I have more important things to do.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
His eyes glowered, and for the first time, his thinning patience began to show, “if they discover I’ve been set free, they won’t care about some woman trespasser who managed to get away. I’m your only chance at escaping.
God damn it. She wanted to scream. Closing her eyes, she began to pace, not knowing what to do what think. The prisoners from the other cells had begun to rattle their chains and bars, shouting at her to run and help them as well.
Lira groaned, her survival instincts taking over, “promise to me that you won’t kill me.”
“You can’t be serious right now.”
“Promise me.”
He growled, “I swear I won’t hurt you.”
Lira nodded, not knowing at all if she believed him but dropped to her knees anyway. Using her teeth, she pulled off a set of keys that hung at the unconscious guard’s waist and spat them on the ground. A dozen or so hung from the circular chain, and she pulled one into her mouth at random.
The first one barely fit, and the second was too thin. It was on her third attempt that the key she held in her mouth slid in completely to the locks at the base of his chains. Using her mouth in an incredibly uncomfortable and awkward position, she turned it until the click of the release sounded.
He immediately pulled his hand free and used the key to unlock the second one.
Lira’s heart jumped to the base of her throat as he immediately pulled free and stood in front of her. He was taller than her by at least a foot and was clearly stronger. She turned around, hoping he would hold true to his word.
He did. Without speaking, he ripped apart the ropes on her wrists. Her hands fell to her sides and released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Good luck,” he said. And just like that, he dashed into the hallway.
It took her a moment to process what had happened. The moment her brain kickstarted again, she picked up the fallen torch, and sprinted.
Lira had never run so fast in her entire life. So much for being discreet; her feet were pounding against the dirt ground underneath her and she was sprinting through the corridors. She had managed to run through a twisting set of underground tunnels until she found what a winding stone stairwell. It was then that she heard a massive commotion behind her. Second later, a sharp, wailing bell sounded.
If there was any doubt that the palace knew the Idrisi had escaped, it was gone now. She didn’t stop. Breathing heavily as she raced up the stairs, she tried not to think about the repercussions of what she had just done. Politics could go to hell. If she had to choose between her own life and the state, she was going to choose her own.
Dashing behind a nook in the wall as the sound of guards filled the hallway, Lira crouched into the shadows as a platoon of twelve guards marched down the staircase. Whoever that man was, that she’d set free, he was important.
It took her an agonizing amount of time to find the right passage to leave the dungeons, and when she exited into the palace courtyards, she nearly faltered.
It was absolute mayhem. People were running everywhere, guards were swarming the gardens and the palace walls, archers were positioning themselves at the buttresses near the palace gates, and there wasn’t one person who was giving orders that wasn’t shouting them.
A guard bumped into her shoulder as he ran past, and he barely looked at her.
Lira stopped to a halt. Everyone was so panicked about the runaway Idrisi that nobody cared about an errant woman wandering the palace courtyard.
Acting before she could think about it, she looked around the courtyard she had exited into and spotted the familiar dome of the palace mosque in the near distance. She hadn’t gone through so much to leave here without the medicine. Changing her route, she ran towards the gardens.
It didn’t take her long to reach the apothecary, which was unlocked when she reached it. Whoever had been inside was gone, and the quaint hut had been left abandoned. Bottles, vials, and herbs lined the shelves of the circular room, and she began to ransack whatever she could find. Filling a pouch, she found near the front door, she shoved in potions, roots, leaves, and bottles of whatever could fit. She had no idea what eucalyptus or kava root looked like. She just hoped something here would work.
Filling the pouch until it was completely full, she tied it shut, slung it over her shoulder and turned around.
She felt it before she registered what happened. A slicing pain in her stomach, searing outwards to the rest of her body in a hot flash. She couldn’t even cry out; the pain took her breath away. Looking down, she saw the hilt of a dagger buried deep into her stomach.
She looked up to meet a pair of blue eyes, set into the face of a fair woman, whose mouth was masked with a black cloth. The woman said something, in a language Lira couldn’t understand, before she slipped out of the door.
Lira groaned in pain, doubling over as her fingers fell forward to graze the hilt of the dagger. Holding in a scream, she pulled the blade out and dropped it to the floor. Blood gushed out to pour over her hands and splatter the floor. Wincing, she unwrapped her chador and pressed it to her stomach. Holding the cloth there, she picked up the pouch, held in her scream, and ran.