Beyond the Stories

The Faces

I saw the faces. All of them, changing, swapping. Each had hollowed out eyes and a drunken smile.

Bahi, Ranaa, Imin, Shira, Hala, Noorsham, Sam...

They spoke words that didn't belong to them, words that the Sultan had spoken, words of harsh judgement and disappointment. He was disappointed in me. I felt bad. And then the feeling was gone, replaced with a fiery anger, a roaring flame in my chest. I would burn the Sultan, he would feel the fire, the heat of what I could bring. My power.

But it wasn't the Sultan. It was my allies, my friends. As my anger died at their anguished faces, the flame continued on, hurtling towards them. They burned.

As Ranaa let out a heart wrenching cry, someone said my name.

"Amani?!"

Jin.

I screwed my eyes shut, not wanting to see the burning bodies any longer.

"Amani..."

My eyes shot open and I sat up suddenly, my head spinning and cheeks wet. I curled my hands around my knees as I felt another set of hands wrap their way around me, holding me tight.

I lay back against his chest.

We stayed still for a few moments, allowing my breathing to slow and my tears to dry. I felt Jin press gentle kisses into the back of my neck and my collarbone, his hands rubbing small circles under the hem of my shirt.

"Another nightmare?" His voice felt loud after the long silence, a low, tired voice in my ear. I only needed to nod for him to kiss my cheek and pull me further into him. "Come back to sleep, I've got you."

I turned in his arms and we manoeuvred ourselves under the thin blanket, our legs tangling together as I slotted my head in the crook between his shoulder and his neck.

Eventually, his breathing slowed. I watched his head tip slightly, now resting against my own, his breath cold as it blew my stray hairs away from my scalp. My heart rate calmed to match Jin's and I felt myself tire, my eyes were dragging themselves closed but I forced them open. A girl can walk into the crossfire and dance with death but can't even fall asleep.

I shifted but Jin's arms tightened around me. Even in unconsciousness, he didn't want to let me slip from his grasp. I prised his hand carefully from where they lay and slipped out of the bed. I found some trousers and Jin's shirt and headed out, only lingering for a moment to kiss Jin's forehead as he slept, unaware that I wasn't beside him.

The palace had always seemed large to me. It wasn't surprising given that I was from the smallest, most dead-end place in all of Miraji. But it felt like it had grown while everyone had slept. The cold of the floor under my bare feet reminded me of the last time I'd been in this palace, sneaking out of that bedroom and out to the gardens, where I was headed now. Back then, Sam had been alive. My heart felt heavy in my chest as I walked outside.

There was only a faint light given off by the small, candlelit lamps that hung from the palace wall but I ventured out of their reach and I sat, restless under the large tree that Shira had once used to call Sam to the harem. But they were gone. And I was alone.

I heard the distant sound of footsteps on the stone pathing in the direction I'd been stood moments before. So maybe I wasn't quite as alone as I thought.

"Hello?" I called out quietly, scared to wake anyone from the nearby rooms.

"Amani?" Delila appeared from out of my sight. "What are you doing awake?"

"I could ask you the same."

Delila came and sat beside me, her knees curling up to her chest. The dye from her hair was almost completely grown out now, considering she'd last dyed it hastily a few months back to cover the bright purple that was so clear tonight.

"I couldn't sleep." Delila had always looked young, yet now, in the dim light of the candles, her eyes glistened and she seemed a decade younger than she was. "Bad dream, nightmare."

I nodded. "I'm the same. I keep seeing it all again, everyone's faces..."

She looked at me. "Have you told Jin?"

I shook my head. "I didn't need to, I've woken him up enough times tonight alone. He should understand."

Delila bowed her head a little, her hair creating a barrier and hiding her eyes from me.

"My dreams take me back to Eremot." With that one sentence, I knew what she meant. The poor girl had been trapped for too long in that forsaken place, slaving away for fear of the Abdal's that marched among them.

She let out an exhausted sigh, a weak attempt at a laugh. "I used to talk to myself all the time, under my breath. Listing people's names, telling myself they're still alive. After a while, I couldn't do it. I couldn't say it, not because anyone had died, but because I was too scared to check. I didn't want to know. If I was going to be trapped there my whole life, I just wanted to believe that everyone was out there somewhere, happy, not fighting and dying in the war we were locked away from."

I laid my arm across her shoulders, feeling a responsibility to protect her despite her being little under two years younger than me. She wasn't my sister, she was Ahmed and Jin's sister. But in this moment, she was my sister too.

It was like one of those times where soldiers declare themselves brothers before marching off to war together, something we were all too familiar with. Maybe the war was over, but the battle was still in our minds. A battle that might take a while to win.

But we would survive.