Seven
ZAKAI
I’d been excited to find someone who recognized my language, but from the look on his face, the barbarian didn’t speak enough to understand me. I tried again, choosing simple words in the hope of getting my point across.
“You know Al Nuzem?”
His nose wrinkled and he tipped his head side to side. “Mother,” was all he could reply.
“Is she here?” I asked hopefully. The sentence was too complicated because he frowned at me. I tried again. “Mother here?”
He shook his head. “Mother… gone.”
From the sadness in his expression, his mother hadn’t just escaped or left on a trip. She was truly gone from this world. Which was sad, but also frustrating. My one chance at being understood was slipping through my fingers, making tears of frustration burn in my eyes.
The barbarian who had been watching over me said something to the one I’d crashed into, and I saw the new onemake a face and shake his head while replying. Still, he made a poor attempt at translating.
“No… go. No… cry?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. Whatever he was attempting to say wasn’t helpful in the slightest. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and shrugged. I sighed. I would get no help from him.
I’d gotten distracted from my plan to run when crashing into the man. He’d cursed in my language, which was why I’d hoped he spoke my tongue, but now that I knew it was a lost cause, my gaze shifted to the tent flap again.
Before I could escape, my barbarian grabbed my uninjured wrist, clicking the shackles into place without a word. I hadn’t even seen it coming.
“You asshole!”
I tugged hard on the iron binding us together, glaring at him, but he only removed his long enough to switch hands before tucking the key away again. I hadn’t realized it was in his pocket before, but I was definitely going to find it once he was asleep. When I tugged again, his hand shot out, capturing mine in a grip just tight enough to make me gasp and my knees a little weak.
He tugged lightly on the metal links between our hands, then gave a pointed look at my injured wrist. I got his meaning. Keep tugging like that and I was going to hurt myself. The question was, was it worth the pain if he was forced to remove them to care for the injury again? Or would he just switch to my ankle or something until I decided to behave?
Only one way to find out.
Three days.It had been three days since I’d arrived at the barbarian clan, and I was no closer to escaping. When I’d started tugging on the shackles again with the intention to cause injury so he couldn’t use them anymore, my barbarian proved to be smarter than I’d expected. I tugged only twice before he grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together, making my tugging completely ineffectual. I couldn’t cause injury that way, and any attempts I made to pull my hand free made him tighten his grip just shy of the point of pain. I tried crying and acting like he was hurting me, but he just gave me this bored look like he could see right through me and ignored my tantrum. It wasn’t worth the effort.
In the meantime, he continued to try and teach me his language. I knew a few words, like bed and trench, because he repeated them so often, but I’d never admit it out loud. I purposely ignored him whenever he started his lessons and only picked up the few words I knew because he said them frequently.
I’d run into the barbarian who knew of my country a few times since our first meeting, but every attempt he made to speak with me was pathetic. I eventually just waved him away and focused on finding new ways to annoy my barbarian into letting me go. Thus far, I had been unsuccessful. Crying, pleading, and bargaining did no good. I tried to hurt him, but my dominant hand was trapped in his, and my attempt to use my other hand to hit him did absolutely nothing. He just raised his eyebrow at me like he always did and ignored me. And the one time I attempted to kick him in the nuts, he pinned me to the bed and held me there until I submitted and behaved.
I no longer feared he’d assault me. He didn’t seem to want to hurt me at all. The few times I’d gotten injured were all because of my own actions. And each time, he took me back to the healers who bandaged my injuries and sent me back on my way. It made me more brazen in my attempts to escape, knowing I wouldn’tbe hurt for it, but the repeated failures were disheartening. It was as though he’d seen it all and was unfazed by my actions.
“Bowl,” he said plainly, holding the bowl out to me.
I just shot him a dirty look in response.
Setting it down, he touched the lamp beside it. “Lamp.”
“Lamp,” I mocked like a brat, then froze when I realized I’d spoken out loud.
The barbarian’s smile was proud and he nodded once in approval. Then switched tactics, pointing at his own chest. “Uttin.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Asshole.”
He shook his head, repeating his name again, drawing it out and emphasizing the word so I could understand him. “Uttin.”
Rolling my eyes, I repeated my own rendition of his name, dragging the word out like he did. “Asshole.”
He couldn’t understand me, but I got the feeling he knew his nickname was unflattering. He gave me a flat look and moved on like he always did when I wouldn’t cooperate. When he started repeating things for the third time, I got bored and whined to the world at large.
