The Bodyguard
Farani stilled, the blood draining from her face. She sank down beside Samir’s form where the guards deposited him on the floor. She stroked his face with shaking fingers. I was disgusted at the care she showered him with. How had she managed to grow so close to him?
“No,” she cried. “No! What have you done?”
I heard the low rasp of a weapon unsheathing and glanced at Dayyan.
He gripped his dagger with practiced ease.
His eyes flitted to mine, and he withdrew a knife, slipping it to me.
He nodded his head toward Eskender and Bahir, voicing his intention without words.
I dropped my chin in response, signifying my understanding.
His lips thinned as determination took over.
“You monster!” The scream echoed throughout the pass.
Farani shot to her feet, her bloodshot eyes focused on Dayyan. Dread erupted within me.
“Kill them!” she screeched. “Kill them all.”
Dayyan launched toward Eskender and Bahir, only to be intercepted by guards.
I ducked under shamshirs and darted between large builds, using my smaller frame to squeeze past weapons, moving fast as a blur.
I spotted the shamshirs glinting like stars ahead, about to slash the necks of Bahir and my brother. I could only save one.
I darted before my brother, slashing my knife under the guard’s wrist. He cursed and stumbled back.
His eyes grew wide at the blood gushing forth.
Eskender shot up, grabbing me and pulling me away.
A head landed at my feet. I gasped, staggering back.
Azure eyes. Dark hair. The features settled in my mind.
Bahir. Bahir’s head was no longer attached to his body.
Shouts echoed within the pass, louder with each moment.
Eskender grappled with a guard. My eyes found the body, and I slapped my palm across my mouth, swallowing bile as I tore my gaze from Bahir’s quivering headless form and searched for Dayyan.
He, too, was staring at his brother. All the color had drained from his face.
His dagger slipped from his hand, thudding onto the floor.
I saw Bahir then, through Dayyan’s eyes.
A young boy who’d looked up to him, who’d loved him until pride and arrogance seeped into him.
Until he’d felt better than Dayyan, more worthy.
Until he’d changed into an heir at his father’s wishes. I saw a little brother.
“Bahir,” Dayyan whispered, stepping forward, a sheen coating his eyes.
A dagger plunged into him. A scream tore from my throat.
“Dayyan!”
Dayyan pushed the attacker from him. Farani stumbled away, withdrawing her bloodstained weapon from his side. Crimson splattered across the stone.
“Dayyan!”
Dayyan placed his hand over his gushing wound.
Blood slipped between his fingers, pouring too fast. He blinked, staring at it.
Farani had never been one for fighting, always hiding behind, always fearful of weapons.
But the expression she wore now, her eyes wide with obsession as she peered at her bloody dagger .
. . Her lips rose as Dayyan fell to his knees.
I hastened to Dayyan, lowering beside him and stemming the blood with my hands over his.
“Please, Almighty.” I looked above at the curved dome where a sliver of light shone down on us. “Help us.”
I heard a grunt, and my eyes shot to Eskender. He’d taken a blow to the head and collapsed, unconscious. Farani waved at her guards, and they moved toward him.
“Please, Farani,” I begged.
Her eyes flicked to me, and for a moment she seemed to hesitate, but whatever feelings flowed through her were dispelled, and a hard look overcame her. “You left me no choice, Yildiz.”
“Shahdokht,” a guard called.
Farani’s attention was snared. Dayyan couldn’t hold himself up. He sank onto his back. I pressed harder over his wound. Sweat clung to my brow.
“Dayyan, do not give in,” I said.
Farani neared the guard who’d called to her. There, beneath the unbreakable doors, was a small tendril of a golden root. Farani ducked down, but it curled away from her as though detesting her touch. Farani sliced through it with her blade. The root shriveled within her palm.
“You cannot just cut it. You must pray for the Almighty to sustain mercy on the creation before severing it,” I said, recalling the lessons we had taken together years ago.
“Not for me.” Farani glared. “This is my birthright. It has been foretold, and I am their protector.”
“And yet you’ve never gone past those doors,” I replied, noting the irony.
A rumble shook the mountain. More rocks broke about us. Larger ones. And then all at once, stones started crumbling.
“What is happening?” Farani screeched.
“Shahdokht, we must leave,” a guard told her, pale with fright.
“Take him.” Farani motioned to Eskender.
“Do not touch him!” I shouted.
But there weren’t any ears that heard me.
Farani had closed me off forever. The guards grasped Eskender and hefted him up, dragging him toward the narrow pass we had come from.
Guards moved to collect Samir’s body, but a large stone fell from above and crushed his corpse, sending them scattering back in retreat.
I wanted to get up, to fight for my brother, but if I did, Dayyan would bleed out.
A shudder broke through me at my helplessness.
“Farani.”
My voice was ragged and broken. Farani stilled, the last to leave. She turned her head, peering at me over her shoulder.
“Farewell, Yildiz.”
She faded from view, leaving us to our doom. Sobs racked me. My hands no longer stemmed his blood. It seeped over my fingers, coating my skin in crimson. Dayyan’s lids were shuttered. He was paler than I had ever seen him. I lifted one blood-soaked hand and touched his face.
“Look at me, Dayyan.”
His lashes fluttered.
“I swear I will not forgive you if you die. If you succumb to death, I will haunt you.”
His mouth curved into a wisp of a smile. “Shouldn’t I be the one doing the haunting?”
I leaned closer to him, tears slipping from my lashes onto his face and mixing with the blood left from my hands. “If you leave me, be certain I will follow. If there is no Dayyan, there is no Yildiz.”
His eyes opened slightly, focusing on me. The sounds of the tumbling rocks faded. There was only him.
“You should hate me,” he said, blood trickling from his mouth.
“But I can’t.” I lowered my face so our foreheads pressed together. “I never can.”
He shuddered with pain. I lay down beside him, our hands clasped together over his wound as we stared up at the sliver of light above us.
We lay together as the mountain fell apart.
Dayyan stopped moving. Prayers left my lips without end.
We lay untouched by the rocks that seemed to fall around our small circle.
I turned my head, looking toward the doors.
My eyes found the root Farani had severed.
It moved from beneath the door, growing with swift speed.
It journeyed toward us, growing larger before circling Dayyan’s midsection and clamping over our hands.
I wrenched my fingers free, watching in amazement as the blood ceased flowing.
The roots hummed and the wound slowly closed. Color returned to Dayyan’s cheeks.
There was a sudden silence as the rocks stopped falling. Then there was a groaning noise. My head whipped toward the doors. They drifted open, revealing a golden forest within. I thumped back onto the ground, exhaustion and shock pulling me under.