I could climb over and be out in minutes.
But as I looked over my shoulder a light flickering in the distance pulled my attention. A long brick building stood separate from the main prison and the warden’s tower, like a lone rider on the horizon. I recognized it from the one time I had been there, after some fairly brutal punishments from Thohfsa.
The infirmary.
Noor.
My foot paused against the mud-brick outer wall, my breath stilling in my chest.
Could I do this? Could I escape and leave her behind, the person who had allowed me to get this far in the first place? Something dark took root in my stomach, a sick feeling I couldn’t shake.
If I went back for her, we’d be recaptured. Escaping when they hadn’t a clue I was gone was one thing, but rescuing Noor and fighting the guards by ourselves was entirely different. I didn’t even know if she was conscious. Or alive.
But Noor’s sardonic grin filled my mind, her driven hands black with earth, her face full of reverence as she spoke about Souma. Noor had understood how much I missed my father. She had felt the same.
I couldn’t hop that wall.
I couldn’t escape. Not if it meant leaving Noor behind.
“Dania, you are such a fool,” I muttered as I began retracing my steps and veering off to the right, toward the infirmary. Something churned in my gut remembering her limp body when I dragged her out of the tunnel, seeing that pool of blood spread out across the dirty floor.
She’s still alive.
She has to be.
My footsteps were a whisper on the sparse grass, the flickering candle in the infirmary window like a beacon. I pressed against the wall of the prison, huddling into the shadows to avoid a guard rotation moving past me. The prison yard was dotted with low bushes and not much else, but I was thankful there were no torches lining the perimeter wall at this side.
The sharp scent of cardamom wafting in the air caught my attention and I turned my head. I hadn’t drunk chai in a long time, but I’d know that smell anywhere. Two guards stood by the infirmary drinking from large cups, the steaming liquid casting vapors in the cool night. I could have easily killed them both just for a taste of it.
They stood at the only entrance, so if I was going to get caught I might as well do so with the taste of chai on my lips.
I crouched down by a thick bush, running my hands along the ground for anything I could use as a weapon.
My fingers shook with the need to hold any kind of knife.
A scimitar.
A katar over my knuckles.
I’d even take an ornamental blade.
My hand pressed against my chest as I remembered the pendantMaz had given me, a real miniature dagger that I could have used at a time like this.
Instead, the pad of my other thumb brushed against the rough bark of a tree branch that must have blown over the wall. I grabbed it with relief and knelt low, nearly crawling toward the guards.
If I attacked them both now, they’d sound the alarm, and any advantage I had would be gone. The last time I tried to barrel through the prison without a weapon it didn’t work so well, and this time I was armed no better. I tested the weight of the thick branch in my hands.
I bit the edge of my lip. Noor would never do something so risky as to fight the guards out in the open. And I needed to think a little more like Noor to get us both out alive.
I inched closer to the building, my stomach dragging over the soft grass, thankful for the blanket of darkness making me nearly indistinguishable from the shrubbery. I’d been crawling on my belly in the dirt for weeks, it didn’t bother me to do it now. I stopped a few feet away from the guards and listened to their hushed voices as they drank. My breath froze in my lungs at the mention of Thohfsa’s name.
“Hashim said Thohfsa is coming personally to see the prisoner. She gave orders to be informed if anything happened to her.”
“You think the girl knows where Souma’s stolen treasure is?”
The other guard huffed. “A weak girl like that couldn’t survive Thohfsa’s torture without revealing what she knew. But the warden still thinks she has information, or else why would she give her all those privileges? Or summon a healer of the unseen to heal her?”
“Well, Thohfsa won’t learn anything if the prisoner’s dead.”
