THE MONARCH

CHAPTER SIX

Makiya awoke, tired, thirsty and starving. Her muscles were sore and her head ached. She lay face up on the floor. The ground beneath her was uncomfortable causing an ache in her back. Her eyes fluttered open and was met with darkness. It took a while for them to adjust to the poor lighting. Her vision was blurry, she blinked a few times to clear it. She could make out indistinct shapes in the dark.

Makiya tried to sit up. She gasped as a searing pain travelled from her aching head down to her smallest toe. Every muscle in her body seemed to hurt. She let out a cry and fell back. Footsteps approached her rapidly from her left. Her eyes shot open and was met with a wide-eyed face looking down at her. The young boy retreated. She heard muffled voices in the distance but couldn’t make out the words spoken. A heavier set of footsteps approached.

“Mâiràm? “ The voice sounded familiar. She tried to recall exactly where she’d heard it before but her brain wasn’t complying. The pounding in her head had increased when she’d tried to sit and every muscle in her body felt stiff and sore. Hands gripped her shoulders and she was lifted into a sitting position. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was until a bowl of water was pressed to her lips. She gulped it down quickly and immediately, regretted doing so. Her throat was parched and dry and it hurt to swallow.

“Slowly mâiràm. You must drink slower, you have swallowed nothing for days.” the same voice called out. She complied drinking in small sips.

After she’d had water to drink, her mind was beginning to settle. The blurriness in her eyes cleared a bit and she could see where she was.

A cave? she thought.

The walls of the cave were wavy and appeared to have a smooth surface, intricate lines ran across them as though they were carved by a sculptor. Dust danced in the moonlight seeping through openings in the roof. Her forehead creased into a frown, why was she there?

To her left, the voice called out once again. She turned sharply, she’d forgotten there was someone else with her. The face came into focus and like a revelation, it all came back to her. The memories flipped through her mind one after the other. The attack, the desert, the hunger, the storm, she remembered it all. Her eyes instantly filled with tears.

“Yuram?” Her throat was still sore and her voice came out raspy but that didn’t matter, not then, not anymore. All the pain she felt could not compare to the relief, the joy that coursed through her. She was alive. She’d survived, after all she’d been through, she still prevailed. True, the vast desert still awaited her outside but, it seemed so trivial then.

“I feared you would not wake. You have been lost to the world for two days and nights, mâiràm” Yuram spoke.

Two days? She felt like she’d only closed her eyes for a minute. A smile lit up her face, she let out a laugh as tears rolled down her face. Her laughter turned to sobs. She allowed the tears to fall without a care for the man sitting before her. She hadn’t shed a single tear since the night she’d lost everything. The tears fell with ease. It was the release she had always needed but never wanted because, it meant admitting and accepting the pain, the loss.

She let out a sob that shook her whole body. The tears continued to fall and she couldn’t find it inside her to even try to stop them. She shut her eyes tightly. Her mother’s smiling face came to her, a face she’d always envied. She could hear her mother’s voice in her ears, the soft songs that were once her favorite sound. She claimed once that she’d outgrown them. What she wouldn’t give to hear them once more.

She thought of her father, her loving, caring father. He taught her everything she knew. After the death of her brother, her parents had tried to have another child. Three babies had been born all of whom had died in infancy. Only Makiya had survived. Her father had spent as much time with her as possible. He taught her to ride horses and camels, to fight and wield a kàshágàr. And then he was gone, her mother too. Her home was lost and she had become a desert wanderer, forced to seek asylum in another land.

Yuram sat silent as he watched his liege. His heart broke to see her this way but it was necessary. Days past, he’d watched her retreat into a shell. She’d become monotone, unfeeling. He feared for her sanity. She pulled away from everyone else, built a wall to keep all out. It seemed she finally realised the wall only kept her locked in a prison of her own making. He had watched silently as she closed herself off. Now he would watch her pick herself back up and when she was on her feet, he would be there, by her side to help her walk the path of her choosing.

The tears stopped falling after a while. Makiya mused that her eyes had run out after she’d cried for so long. She felt relieved, as though her grief had been released and she could finally breath. The hole in her heart remained, she feared it always will but at least now she was not constantly aware of it. She felt lighter.

“Are you well, mâiràm?” Yuram asked after a bout of silence.

“I have been much better but worry not, all will be well.”  She answered with a smile.

“I will bring you something to eat.” He stood and walked away before she could think to say anything. Makiya’s stomach let out a loud growl at the thought of food. Her body was still weak. She knew most of it came from the overwhelming hunger she felt. The rations they’d been having had also caused her to lose weight rapidly. She would need to build up her strength.

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