1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Dagher

Name: Helene Dagher
Genre: YA Fantasy
Title: Reborn


Ever had it been that the young woman knew darkness. She was hardly of age; bony, bare legs sticky with blood. It had trickled into the chamber pot below, and melded with the stench of her prison. With her neck chained to the wall, her flea-bitten hands grasping at air and feet teetering on a splintered beam, she could not adjust her position without penalty of death. She would suffocate on her collar, the fate that had befallen the four rotted men decorating the cavity where she hung.

The choice was hers.

Memories were her familiar diversion until the rusty door squeaked open. She threw an arm to shield her eyes but lost her balance and flailed like a newborn still attached to its cord. Hands restored her to that damned perch, and searched her person. Had her mind the focus to attack, she would not. She shivered. Her throat had dried in the empty cold.

When the iron clanged free, she hesitated; her jailer did not. He lifted her to the floor, wet with excrement. They had given her food and water, yet her legs wobbled from her weight. A headache threatened. Her heart beat much too fast. He manacled her wrists and ankles, and circled her along with nine guards. Swords drawn, spare daggers hidden. Her past was well known.

"If you would follow us..." The jailer paused; he was unsure of how to address her. She would smile if those muscles were not as stiff as the rest.

Light split the crest of dancing lions on their plated armor. A royal contingent. She followed the soldiers and clanked past the moaning of other prisoners, the criminal stacks of hardened bread and shriveled dates. Several times they had to stop so that she could catch her breath—and sneak glances at their surroundings, though her aching joints and throbbing blisters were a distraction. Her training had not conditioned her to the pain.

Her exhaustion wore when they trooped through the courtyard. Atop the four massive towers flapped woven banners. Immaculate grass crunched beneath their boots and stabbed her feet. A sea-breeze whipped through the ivy and reed ridden walls and into pine trees, their leaves blooming in the recent spring.

It was chilly. Her tunic barely shielded her knees. Over the murmur of water, the slap of sandals on stone from those noble gossipers, the jeers echoed. An officious gaggle of veiled women and men in coats of mail laughed from beside a fantastical marble fountain. There loomed a statuesque dragon. Its eyes scorched with fire.

She stared. It held her gaze while she was dragged past cultivated gardens and stationary knights. Featured in her nightmares: another lavish room.

The morning glinted through the stained-glass windows, a mockery of all that she had lost and would find in these sun-favored faces. Intricate arrangements of bluebells draped the long chamber, leading to a stately man with blonde hair fresh from a chamomile oil wash. Robed in red-and-gold, he was strongly perfumed with hyacinths.

Ibn Ash'ab al-Fat'h, dubbed Al-Hashim by his enemies, had led several of his father's campaigns. Before she had been imprisoned, he was known to have journeyed to the farthest edges of the country where the borders were not enforced. Villagers had whispered of his adventure and the treasures he would bequeath to the masses upon his return, earning their loyalty without the conquering choke-hold that Ash'ab had embraced. Certainly his soldiers looked well-fed and unwavering beside the north exits, stairwells and alcoves tucked twenty paces beyond their arches. Al-Hashim leaned forward so that his curls concealed his broken nose while she stood on her cold feet, waiting.

"What do you know of Ibn Shaddad?"

Someone had shown her kindness in the dungeons, but that had not involved sharing information. She shook her head.

"You have no knowledge of the thief?"

Gold flashed on his hands. The foreigner and his trinkets. Albinar natives disliked the impermanence of jewels; their commitments were made with firmer means. She looked into his dirt-colored eyes even while her own watered from the hyacinth-heavy air.

"Why, just last night the rogue raided the castle and pillaged the kitchens." Al-Hashim watched her face. His expression hardened. "Well then, tell me of my sister."

"What of her," she croaked, "O wise and generous prince?"

"King. I am king, thanks to you." So his father had finally passed—and still al-Fat'h had not summoned her. She might not have helped, but he would suffer for such ill-advised stubbornness. "And," Ibn Ash'ab said, "impudence will not aid your cause. Where is she?"

Like his son, Ash'ab had been displeased with her answers; yet he had not been able to control his tremors and had entrusted her beatings to Zayn al-Kindah. She was only sorry that the steadfast emir had not died with al-Fat'h. "Rue for both of us, my most merciful king." The young woman lifted her chains. "I have been dancing with death myself. Al-Qais may have drowned in the Faraway for all that I know."

"You dare—" He clutched the knobs of his elaborate throne, studded with sapphires and rubies. "And what of your brother?"

An involuntary shudder. Al-Hashim smiled. "Shall I burn his remains? Will that ensure your cooperation?"

Had the king not intervened, she would have joined Khalid. She could never forget how his cheeks had puffed, his arms had flailed and his bulging eyes had met hers across the putrid prison air: green slashed with red. Staring at his body was revenge perpetrated by an invalid; and always the thought of al-Fat'h would push her to fix what she had started.

Al-Hashim gestured, rings gleaming in the shards of light. A new memory: the soft feel of jeweled hands when he snuck into the dungeon with additional food and water. He was the gentle whisper of fingers that erased the trace of tears on her cheeks, and the one-two echo of fine boots on the floor of a cage that she could only hope to forget.

"How may I please you, O compassionate crusher?" She looked away, confused that her one visitor, aside from the guards, had been the son of her enemy. The darkness had been so thick that she had not known his identity, nor would she have accepted his presence if she had that privilege. "I am your servant."

Like an eagle among rukhs, he floated toward her in a monstrosity of trailing cloak. He had the muscles of a military commander but the finery of a fat sultan. "I want peace. I want my sister returned. Most of all, I want to know the extent of your foolishness. My father locked you away. Perhaps that is not the answer."

He examined her left hand. Between dirt and scars lay an eye tattooed in purple. Al-Hashim smiled before digging his nails into the talisman. The pain was as if he had pushed her forefinger back while holding her wrist. She collapsed onto the marble floor, inlaid with an imitation of the sea. His silhouette was a blurry halo against the domed ceiling. Glancing at his guards, he grimaced and looked more frustrated than before.

Forehead creased, he rubbed his own hand while she curled her fingers to protect the reminder of what she once had. They had both lost their families because of her action, but hers had not deserved its fate whereas his continued to profit on the blood of Albinar. His lips flattened.