Zainab bint Farouq
Thirteen years ago, a girl with fire in her eyes and love in her heart escaped the clutches of war.
Thirteen years later, she brings war.
***
Asad ibn Malik
It takes him ten years to learn of the Great Betrayal. Ten years of bl...
And when the heart loves something, the eyes see it as paradise.
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Commander Asad ibn Malik was a legend on the bloodied plains that had witnessed ruthless battles. His presence, some said, was enough to change the tides of a war, turning an army drowning in their own blood into a tempest to be reckoned with. Courage rivaling the beasts he was named after and skills rivaling those of mystical warriors from campfire legends, he'd looked death in the eye more times than he'd counted and bestowed it through his weapon more times than he could remember.
Yet even his enemies on the battlefield weren't stolen their dignity.
For that, was something more precious than life.
Seeing the slavers treat the newly awake girl as a commodity they could manipulate to their whims had lit the embers of deep seated fury in him.
'Go fuck yourself' he'd growled and something in him twisted at the surprised look on the girl's face. It shouldn't have been surprising he was angered by the slavers' crass mannerisms.
But the surprise was snuffed out as the girl's green-gold eyes took in the red crusting his tunic. Something shifted in her gaze and those eyes sprinted back to meet his own before returning to his own.
'How old is that?' She asked.
'It looks worse than it is' he deflected easily.
'How old?'
His dark eyebrow arched perfectly against his light skin at the demand and dominance in her tone.
'A day' he conceded.
She cocked her hair to the side, her gaze unfocused while she pondered something for a moment before quickly taking in the rest of the cart.
'Do you have any wounds?' She asked Faris and he shook his head.
'What about her?'
'Nope'
'And him'
'Nothing leaking blood, bruises plenty but nothing that could kill' Faris answered.
She nodded before slipping something out from the unassuming folds of her cloak and tossing it at him.
He caught the compact, disc-like container deftly, the chains shackling him clanking as they met, his eyes met hers again and she answered his unvoiced question.
'It's salve, it'll keep away infection' she said, a brief smile accompanying her words and everything sharp and cold in him softened while he nodded gratefully at her.
Ya rabbi, let her smiles never cease, he prayed within the confines of his mind, surprising himself.
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The Shadow hadn't survived for so long had it not been for the skills shr had accumulated and the aid of her Lord.
Now, as the famed commander of the Revival Forces, the princess of the rebellion, sat in a creaking wooden cart, sharing her space with barrels of wine and four strangers, she drew upon the former and pleaded with her Lord within the confines of her heart for the latter.
She counted four slavers riding ahead, and six bringing up the rear. One rode on either side of them. Their formation was loose and the riders lost themselves to hideous conversations and drunken smugness.
The ancient trees of the forest they had entered stabbed the midday sky, casting them and their surroundings in a haze of green and yellows. Small flowers pricked through the earthy browns and greens in vivid shades of red and oranges.
Such beauty soiled by the presence of her captors, she thought. Her traitorous eyes drifted again to a man on the other end of the cart, a king despite the iron around his wrists and the blood on his clothes.
He's not that beautiful, she thought.
'Liar' whispered a voice in her head.
The boice had no mind, she convinced herself. It had no mind and no eyes.
'We stop here'
A rough voice brought her back to her ugly reality where she was a captive not a captor.
Not for long, she vowed.
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'We stop here'
A glorious smirk conquered his lips at the words.
Fools, he thought to himself, you shouldn't have been so careless.
He locked eyes with Faris who nodded silently. The men rolled out hides and settled down, drunken ignorance hindering their better senses.
Asad was a man who'd spen the better half of his life shoulder to shoulder with death. He wasn't new to those who concealed poison in rings and amulets to gift themselves an easy death were things to go south.
He was new to people carrying narcotics in what looked like a belt button to subdue their opponents.
He found this novelty in Faris.
'Fate is a wondrous thing' he'd said 'My friend was supposed to deliver this to someone before I was captured. An extremely strong narcotic that can be effective if it is diluted in four barrels of wine. The friend broke his leg and I had to deliver it instead. I'll get hm another vial later'
And so he had discreetly emptied the inconspicuous vial into the wine.
The ice in his eyes eyes met the fire in another.
Something told him they wouldn't be captives for much longer.
'Get down'
The chains were yanked and the five stumbled out, their limbs protesting the movement after their prolonged period of inactivity. They were led unceremoniously towards a cluster of trees, the men leering at the females in their company, their eyes like rabid dogs.
He saw the slaver from before approach Zainab.
Something cracked. Callous laughter erupted around him. Searing pain shot across his back.
He gathered himself in time to see Zainab yank her arms from the slaver's grasp before landing a kick to his most prized possession. She spun around just in time to shove her iron bound hands in another slaver's face.
