Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Adelasia
The Cambouri Desert stretches endlessly before me, in a shade of vivid orange sand bleeding into golden skies just as my father once described it.
So much beauty and crisp, fresh air, and yet I still find it hard to breathe.
The heat of the day kisses and clings to my skin, and the sand falls softly through my toes, and yet I can’t shake the harsh cold lodged inside my chest.
It’s been three months since it went quiet. Since Rowan and Kaius. Since we traveled to the Well and foolishly thought we could best a Goddess and her servants.
The Desert is a place where the air smells of smoke and spiced meat, where music threads through the streets well after sunset, and where the lives of the al-Abadi people carry on with their simple, complete lives while I remain suspended somewhere in the crushing darkness of my past.
Saddiq and his family opened their doors to me without hesitation when I showed up at their home, distraught, tear-stricken and broken beyond repair.
No matter how many warm smiles Anya offered me, no matter how many late-night talks I shared with Saddiq, and no matter how many times I watched Habiba show me her dances, I’ve remained hollow.
I silently earn my keep folding silks and hanging them to dry outside, fetching water from the small oasis that serves the region, and watching over Habiba when Saddiq and Anya are busy.
Habiba…gods I love that child. She’s sometimes the only light in my life.
Her laugh is unguarded, untouched by the horrors of life.
As Saddiq suspected, she took to me like she’d known me her whole life–like I was a sister.
She tugs on my hand until I join her games, insists that I help her with her school lessons, and asks me to teach her to dance like a real ballerina.
Sometimes, when I spin her through the kitchen while she giggles, I almost remember what it feels like to be alive.
Almost.
I don’t use my magic anymore. The thought of it makes me sick. Remembering what the thirst for power did to me and the Priestesses, and what it did to the people I love. It’s taken everyone from me. My family, my mates, even my own life.
Since Kaius and Rowan were my only source of sustenance, adjusting to life without them was hard.
The Cambouri Desert is far from the Blackwood where most demons live, so I can only survive by stealing vials of demon blood from the back corners of the market.
If anyone here found out I wasn’t fully human, they’d kill me.
Not even Anya and Habiba know, and it staying that way was the only condition Saddiq had when I showed up at their door.
To them, I was just another prisoner of the vampires that helped him escape, and we got separated in the Blackwood. Not entirely untrue, but it still feels like I’m walking a line that puts them in danger every single day.
While Saddiq’s family treat me as one of their own, the rest of the al-Abadi people are still somewhat wary of me. My pale skin, bright-colored eyes, and the way I tower almost all of them all mark me as different. Other. Foreign.
Still though, they are not a confrontational people, and since I mostly keep to myself, the stares and whispers have mostly stopped. I don’t believe any of them realize that I am curse-kissed by the magic they rejected long ago, and it’s another reason why I am careful to never let it slip.
Anya has tried her best to be a friend to me, but she does it out of pity. I can see it in her eyes.
But as my lover once said, I do not want pity.
I want Kaius and Rowan.
Some nights, I long for them so bad that I swear I can hear their voices on the wind: Rowan’s velvet-smooth purr and Kaius’ soft accent whispering sweet nothings into my ears.
Other nights, I can feel them holding me…
only to wake up and find that heavy sand has simply gathered on my body after I fell asleep outside on a windy night.
I’ve come to regretfully accept this as my life now.
That no matter how many times I close my eyes and reach for them, all I have is sand and emptiness.
Half-alive. Half-devoured. If there’s anything left of me at all, it belongs to Eternity, and she will not give it back to me. A punishment for defying her will.
Two Goddesses, forced to share the same heart, the same soul, the same mind. Two estranged sisters.
Two monsters.
At night, when the desert cools instead of burns, and the winds bring the whispers the songs of the al-Abadi people across the sand, I sit atop the highest dune overlooking the town and let myself come undone.
I cry until my cheeks are wet and the sand under me turns damp, until my chest is unable to stop aching.
Tonight is no different. The stars are endless above me, a mist in the air from the tears in my eyes, and I hear footsteps in the sand behind me. I turn to find Saddiq climbing the dune, pausing for only a breath before taking a seat in the warm sand with me.
He knows that silence is the only language I can speak now, and so when he takes a seat, he simply begins talking, never expecting a response in return.
“You remind me of a Cambouri legend, of a queen that once ruled these sands. When the men from the West came to conquer the desert, they thought us inferior because we led simpler lives than them. They tried to impose on the Cambouri people a new order, to govern us in the ways of their lives instead of allowing us to live ours. There was a woman, named Abadi who stood between our sands and the western soldiers, refusing to let them enter our homes and churches and markets. They pushed past her at first, even so much as imprisoning her. But instead of giving up, she helped the prisoners escape and established her own rule, challenging the western ways of life. She learned their languages and war strategies, she enriched herself with philosophers and scholars from across the desert and stood unmoving in the sands with her people at her side. With the exception of a few small battles, Abadi never fought for her people with violence, but was silent and listened where others spoke. Eventually, through her endurance and patience alone, the westerners eventually left to cross the Endless Sea in search of new lands to conquer. That is why we are called the al-Abadi people. Because we endure.”
When he finishes his story, I pull my headscarf to the side and look at him. “Why does that remind you of me?”
He gives me a soft smile and reaches for my hand, still touched by Eternity’s rot at my fingertips that I hide with black Henna paint and intricate designs on my palms and wrists. “Because here you are, enduring.”
A few more tears escape my eyes and I turn away again, because this feels nothing like endurance.
The only reason I still live is because Eternity will not let me die. I’ve tried, more times than even Saddiq knows, to chase my lovers into the afterlife.
But I can’t.
So this isn’t endurance. It’s…a pathetic attempt at survival.
But how can someone survive without a heart?