Shakti came to, surrounded by darkness. Memories flooded into her, becoming clear out of the blurs in her mind. This wasn't her first time waking up tonight. She'd been woken and knocked out.
Shakti struggled against ropes tied around her wrists. She tried but failed to speak through the cloth gag in her mouth and see past the bag over her head.
A tough arm pressed her into a seat. From the way the surface beneath her was rumbling, she was in a cart or wagon of some kind.
A man muttered a complaint in Nikan which, in her panic, Shakti couldn't quite understand.
Shakti, in a moment of clarity, stopped her struggling, deciding to save her strength for a future opportunity.
She tried to listen in on the conversation in Nikan around her, but the bag's muffling and her own panicked mind made that incredibly difficult. When she finally heard a sentence clearly, the man was complaining about his superior.
For what seemed like an eternity, she was pinned down in that cart. She could barely stand when it finally came to a stop. Her captors dragged her out onto tough dirt and grass. They were still on the steppe.
That fact shouldn't have come as a relief to Shakti, since the steppe was a massive landmass, according to Jambudvipi geographers.
The sounds of campfires, laughing men and sharpening of steel reached her ears. The air smelled of sweat and grime from a long march and the putrid stink of nearly rancid polishing oil.
Her stumbling and staggering feet eventually hit wood. Light pierced through the bag over her head, if only slightly.
They forced Shakti to her knees as the bag was taken off her head. Firelight seared her eyes with its brightness.
"You evaded us for so long, princess...and here you are, right in my backyard. Who would've tho-" a sneering voice cut itself off.
Shakti's eyes adjusted to see a Qahtanad man in immaculate white clothes, looking at her with a furrowed brow, sitting atop a wooden throne next to a Nikan woman who looked bored more than anything else.
"You boneheads!" the Qahtanad screeched, "You went through all that trouble and you got the wrong one!"
"Pardon, sir?" a Nikan soldier asked from behind her.
"This isn't Princess Shahla, you idiot! This is some peasant girl she's picked up to be her handmaiden or body double or something!"
"Quiet yourself, husband." the Nikan woman said. She was calm, yet commanding with her words and the Qahtanad sat back as though he'd just been scolded.
The woman took a sip from a golden chalice, smacked her lips, then told an attendant to throw it out before turning to Shakti. "Who are you, girl?"
A soldier behind her untied the gag. Shakti worked her jaw to ease an ache before answering, "Certainly not a handmaiden."
"You checked for Plague Scars, didn't you?" the Qahtanad asked.
"Yes sir. She's got them on her hand." the soldiers said.
The man pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Princess Shahla is rumored to have scars on her eyes." the woman said in fluent Nikan. She turned back to Shakti, "If not a handmaiden, who are you to Shahla al-Samara."
"Have you heard about the siege of Xinhou at all?"
"Yes, it was rather embarrassing for my dear brother and sister." the woman chided.
"Why did I know you were Nikan royalty the moment I saw you?"
"Because I bring my air regality with me wherever I go." the princess sighed.
YOU ARE READING
The Call of Crows
FantasíaBjorn Stormtamer's world has been turned upside down in more ways than one. His shipmates have left him for dead on an island for quarantining victims of a disease that he now has. His partner in battle despises him, his family thinks he's dead and...
