"It was pure luck, really, that this hadn't happened sooner. Two years of keeping out of his reach had really been testing the limits of fate, and the sane voice inside her head kept telling her she would have to face him eventually. The world was b...
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Five years ago
Buried under darkness, glowing lanterns and the twinkling of candles illuminating the silhouette of cottage windows was all that remained of the view of Mahallat. It had been her home for nearly twenty-two years; a life that had begun so happily. Playing in the overgrown fields, along the docks overcast with chattering birds, in and around the golden beaches - all only a short distance beyond the village. Until necessity had brought her into her father's bakery where the rest of her childhood had slipped away working next to the heat of the ovens and the smell of freshly baked bread. She was well aware it could have been worse. Her parents had only ever done what they had to; now, Sanem was doing the same.
She walked until her feet hurt, and considering how much walking she'd already done that day, it happened far sooner than she would have liked. Gypsy trotted along beside her, ears pricked and tail held high, eyes gleaming under the reflections of the stars; it was not the first time they'd walked together from the house. But it would be the last.
Gypsy was without a doubt the scruffiest cat Sanem had ever seen. Not only because of her unkempt, bi-polar coat colour but also due to the myriad of scars she had been cursed with after an unfortunate encounter with a pair of excitable farm dogs. Sanem had been returning from visiting Leyla and her new husband at the farm when she had found the little cat, bloody and wobbling, at the edge of the property.
That had been nearly four months ago. Sanem had washed the blood away to reveal a black and ginger face that was actually quite endearingly cute. But the war wounds would remain forever - rips in her ears and a kink in her tail that couldn't quite agree on which direction it wanted to go in, so had formed a haphazard lightning bolt shape in compromise. Gypsy was remarkably friendly considering the trauma she'd been through, and the only real companion Sanem had since Leyla moved out. She'd been worried even that would be taken away; her parents had threatened to leave Gypsy in the river too many times after vehement arguments over when Sanem would finally marry. The scraggly cat was not helping with the rumours, or her prospects, Sanem was well aware - maybe that's why she'd been so insistent to keep her alive.
Sanem sighed. Wondering if her mother would be feeling guilty like she often did after their rows, if she'd be waking up to a cold, empty house with an apology heavy on her heart that she might never be able to give. Sanem shook her head, it wasn't even worth thinking about.
Her feet, having given up on her worn-out shoes, carried her barefoot towards Laes, a large town half a day's walk away. The port there was big enough that it prided its own trading route with Katiket - Ikara's capital city. Where she hoped to find her friend.
Sinan had a big family name, people would know him, all she would have to do was ask around, pretend to be a maid in his service or something. She could find him. Though what would happen when she did, she wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps she could permanently take up the disguise as a profession, not that she actually had any experience with being a maid but it seemed the only way she could gain permission to stay at his house long enough to recreate everything her mother had destroyed.
