Chapter 208: An Ocean Of Sorrow

Huda’s eyes never left his face.

They never left his golden eyes.

The beautiful orbs were half-open, glazed with dust, staring straight ahead at nothing, locked forever.

She looked at them for the whole of the march.

She looked until the shape of them was burned into the back of her skull; she felt, in some small, silent corner of her mind, that they were looking back.

And in all that time, she had never stopped crying.

It did not even feel like crying anymore.

The tears simply ran down her face, hour after hour, without a sound, and the dry wind licked them away from her cheeks as fast as they came.

Eventually, night arrived once more, and the caravan made camp.

They set the tents in a ring on a stretch of flat ground.

Fires were lit, meat was cooked, and they tied Huda to the center pole of the largest tent with a short length of rope, so that she had to sit with her back against the wood, her chained legs stretched out in front of her.

The dirt beneath her was cold.

Around her, the men sat in a circle and began to eat.

They did it on purpose.

She understood that... from a long way off.

They ripped bread apart in front of her face and held flat cuts of roasted lamb up to the light, chewing them slowly, with great noise.

The smell reached her in warm waves.

It was obvious what they were doing.

They wanted to starve her out.

They wanted her to beg.

She had not eaten in four days, and now that she was temporarily made mortal, that mattered quite a bit.

But Huda did not see any of it.

Her eyes were fixed on the long spear that had been driven into the ground at the edge of the firelight.

The head on its point was taken away, but even now, she stared at it as though nothing else in the world existed.

For her, nothing else did exist.

The men grew bored.

A little of the laughter died.

One of them stood up, scratched his beard, and muttered something she did not hear.

Then another man came towards her.

He was a plain man, with a face only a mother could love.

The man carried a covered plate in both hands, a silver dish with a lid, and he walked carefully, as if it were very hot.

He crouched in front of her and looked, for a moment, almost gentle.

"Here."

His voice was quiet.

"You haven’t eaten in so long. It’s only right."

He set the plate on the ground in front of her knees.

Huda looked at it.

She did not want it.

She did not want anything from these bastards.

But some small, tired animal part of her woke up, hearing the word food, and her gaze flickered down for the first time in four days.

The man smiled.

He lifted the lid.

Food wasn’t on there.

No, they weren’t so merciful.

They would never be to her.

A head sat atop the plate.

Malik’s head.

Her big brother.

It had been cleaned.

Somebody had washed the dust from the face, combed the hair back, and laid it down on the silver dish.

They prepared him to be presented.

This cruelty was planned.

’...’

Malik’s golden eyes stared straight up into hers.

His lips were slightly parted, as though he were about to say a word.

Was he about to say a word?

For a long time, Huda only looked at it.

She was so thin.

She had no Rukh.

She had no strength left in her body to hold up her own head, and now...

She looked at her brother’s face with an expression that did not move.

The men leaned forward around her, waiting for the scream.

This was fun to them, a joke perhaps.

But this was her world.

Huda threw herself across the dirt with all the weight of her body.

The chains snapped taut, the iron cuffs biting into her wrists and ankles, tearing the skin open.

Incredible pain went through her in a flash, but she did not feel it.

There was only one thing on her mind, and it had them dig in deeper.

She had dragged herself forward on her elbows, her fingers clawing at the silver plate, and her arms closed around the head, pulling it against her chest.

Huda held it there.

She held it with everything she had, rocking it, pressing her cheek against the cold hair.

A sound came out of her then, and it was no word at all.

It was a ragged wail that rose and fell and rose again.

A howl that made the men flinch back from her.

This, she had learned from the lion.

"Ugh..."

The ugly man clicked his tongue.

"She’s so annoying."

Without pause, he grabbed the head by the hair.

He all but ripped it out of her arms, making her scream even louder.

Then, before she could reach out for it, he tossed it to another man, who quickly carried it off.

Huda lunged after it.

She ran.

She ran as far as the chains would let her, and the rope on the center pole snapped tight and threw her back to the ground.

Yet, once more, she scrambled up and ran again.

She ran until the cuffs cut deep enough to hit bone.

Huda ran until her legs gave out.

Until her mind no longer held.

No one was laughing.

Their joke didn’t turn out to be as funny as they had expected.

Because, in those unfathomably long moments, Huda did not think of revenge.

She did not think of the men or the caravan or the rope or the chains.

There was no hatred in her.

There was no plan.

She was utterly lost in sorrow, drowned in an ocean so wide that it had no shore, and she sank into it right in front of them.

...

Oh, brother... my eyes.

Would you let them humiliate me?

To the Order they are sending me.

The Invaders have won...

They gawked and cursed our names.

But that was so far from what hurt me.

This is your Sun... now broken, O sons of Layla.

Oh, how I wish to be in your embrace again...

But there I was, with your head on my lap.

Oh, how I wish to have my head in your arms.

In your warm and gentle embrace.

But there I was, with your head...

On my lap.

...how alone you were on the day of our Fall.

Yet I am sure you were never more dignified than in that moment.

Even as those demons trampled over your body.