The Sultan's Daughter (Princesses Uncovered #5)

Chapter 43: Didn't You Hear?

Cemal moaned, tossing on his straw, attempting to sleep despite the uncomfortable situation.

It wasn’t the smell. He’d grown used to those in the last two or three weeks.

It wasn’t the pervading damp. He barely noticed that anymore because he always felt cold no matter what. He was used to that too.

No. It was the burning in his skin and the hardness of the stone against his bruised flesh.

A soldier walked in, carrying a bucket of slop.

Cemal would’ve flinched away, but he could barely move. So he lay still as the soldier slammed his foot into Cemal’s side over and over.

There was nothing Cemal could do.

Once he would have caught the soldier’s foot, pulled him down, and had a knife at his throat in moments. But not anymore.

Not after three weeks of near starvation, pain, and fever.

He was rarely lucid anymore. But unfortunately for him, today was one of the rare days when he was.

The soldier sneered down at him. “Hey! You!”

Cemal moaned again, opening his blood encrusted eyes.

The soldier’s face lowered into his view, the scraggly, unkempt beard and the piece of some unidentifiable substance stuck between his teeth sickening Cemal. “Guess you didn’t hear, did you?”

Hear what?

Cemal didn’t answer, remaining quiet and hoping the man would continue.

Fortunately, the man was the gloating type.

He crouched down on the floor just out of reach, staring at Cemal with laughter in his hooded eyes. “The Princess married Gafar, and she’s pregnant now…”

Cemal felt a wave of dizzy sickness wash over him at the news. Why? Why did he have to be lucid to find out that the woman he loved had wed his archenemy and was now pregnant with that monster’s child?

But was it even true? Perhaps the soldier was saying such cruel things just to hurt Cemal further.

Cemal didn’t want to think otherwise.

The soldier laughed at the despair in his face. “Poor assassin… Got tossed out and cast off like an old blanket… Shunned by the woman you loved… Serves you right.” The soldier spat. “It would be better if you could see her too… Have her confirm it for you. But… That can’t happen… So you’ll just have to sit here, stewing over it on the days when you’re lucid enough to think, and wondering if I’m telling the truth or not.”

Cemal squeezed his eyes shut, bile rising in his throat.

The soldier stood, walking over and kicking him viciously in the side again. “Well, it’s true, you lousy excuse for a man… Some assassin you turned out to be. Look at you. Lying here in your own filth and unable to speak.”

Cemal’s temper got the better of him. Though he couldn’t move, he could still talk. “You know what… The only lousy excuse for a man in this cell is you, you coward. Beating a man who can’t even fight back. Is that how you feel good about yourself? Beating those who can’t do anything back to you?” He hissed.

The man punched him in the face, causing blood to drip from his broken nose.

Cemal coughed. But he continued – though in a somewhat more nasal tone. “I bet you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if you thought that I would ever be freed or survive to come hunt you and your good-for-nothing master down.”