‘Dunayans spaak yaa hataasan Hessa. Craar thaar sa,’ Isla said softly.The Dunayans say you killed Hessa. I don't believe them.
There was a brightness in Isla’s stare, fragile and unguarded that struck Alina like a blade between the ribs. Hope.
Alina wanted to crush it.
There was no space for hope now. Only fire. Only vengeance.
Her heart thudded like a drum in a war camp. Every part of her yearned to believe Isla, to run to them, to wrap her arms around the two girls who had once been fragments of her world, the world that had shattered with Hessa's final breath.
But if this was a trap, if she allowed them in and they struck where she had left herself unguarded…
No.
Never again.
‘Saren hataasan Hessa,’ Alina said, her voice sharp and sure, letting the truth ring out like steel drawn in the silence.Saren killed Hessa.
Before either Dunayan could speak, the great doors to the courtyard swung open with a solemn groan, and Mareenaemerged, flanked by a procession of silent, silk-clad servants.
As always, she looked ethereal, untouchable in her beauty.
The white gown clung to her in all the right places, flowing like liquid pearl as it shifted with each step. Her raven-black hair, sleek and straightened by phoenixian metal plates, shimmered under the hanging lights, and her red eyes were rimmed in dark kohl, giving her the look of something divine and dangerous.
The sharp rhythm of her sandals against the sun-warmed tiles was the only sound to pierce the stillness.
She moved without hesitation to the centre of the courtyard, where the two Dunayans stood on one side, and Alina on the other, a tableau of tension drawn in perfect symmetry.
Mareena said nothing. She didn’t need to. She had the gift of silence, of watching with such stillness that it compelled others to fill the quiet with their own confessions. She could strip a person bare with nothing more than a glance.
But this time, her attention settled on Alina.
And in that unspoken moment, Alina saw the question clearly in her eyes: Shall I arrest them?
Alina stepped forward just one step, but it was enough. The breath that both Isla and Arena had been holding escaped them in quiet relief.
‘Perhaps we should go inside,’ Mareena said smoothly, her gaze never leaving Alina’s. ‘Allow our… guests to rest.’ The look she gave Alina was laden with meaning.
Alina inclined her head. She would get her answers but now was not the time to force them.
Still, she couldn’t resist.
‘Yaa da aqi, ni na?’ she asked again, her voice soft but unyielding.Why are you here?
Isla and Arena exchanged a glance, wary, uncertain. ThenIsla sighed and answered.
‘Saren pasaaran Dunayans. Waa vanaran ayada yaa.’Saren has taken the Dunayans. We have come to help you.
Alina’s brow furrowed. ‘Ayada mi na?’Help me?
Isla nodded. ‘Ha.’Yes.
‘Can vat na?’With what?
In answer, Isla reached up and pulled down her karash, revealing the rest of her face. There was dust still clinging to her sun-kissed skin, a familiar grit that spoke of long travel, of lives shaped by sand and fire.
She looked like the desert itself, fierce and enduring.
And for the briefest of moments, Alina was no longer standing in a courtyard. She was back beneath the stars, holding the hand of another made from dust and flame.
