Rough hands hauled me upright, brushing straw from my face with mocking gentleness that made my skin crawl.
"Can't have the sacrifice looking like she rolled in the pig pen," one guard muttered, steering me away from Leila with practiced efficiency.
My sister's eyes screamed everything—betrayal and terror braided together so tight I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
The guard shoved me past her, and she said nothing, just watched me go with that terrible understanding weighing down her face.
Cold iron bit into my wrists as they locked the shackles. The chain ran to an iron ring sunk deep into the clay wall, and I tested it once, twice—solid as the mountain itself.
Another lie the tribe told itself, that immovable things were always right, that tradition's weight made it true.
Movement in the shadows caught my attention. A flash of familiar eyes in the dimness, and heat flooded my chest—Yasmin.
She sat among the condemned, wrists bound like mine, her face gaunt but unbroken. For a heartbeat, seeing her steadied something in me.
Then terror followed like a blade between ribs, because if Yasmin sat here among the "unruly," then she must also be counted among the untouched. Another virgin for Marzuq's multiplied sacrifice.
"Listen well, all of you."
A guard stepped forward, belly straining against his sash, reciting rules like a merchant tallying goods.
"Women will be silent unless spoken to. Women will not move unless commanded. Women who break either rule may find themselves dead before the offering." He paused, letting the threat settle like dust. "The ceremony requires pure sacrifices, but we have plenty of you. One or two more won't spoil the gods' appetite."
Heads bowed throughout the stable—most in reflex, some in revolt disguised as compliance. The merchant's daughter pressed her forehead to her knees. Amira stared at the ground. Even some of the condemned lowered their gazes, trained by years of submission to authority's voice.
I kept my chin high, eyes locked on the guard's face.
"You have something to say, betrayer?" He moved closer, breath reeking of sour wine and rotted teeth. "Some final wisdom before death?"
"Just wondering if you practice that speech in the mirror," I said, voice carrying clear through the stable. "Or does threatening chained women come naturally?"
His hand cracked against the back of my head, but I was already moving. My leg swept up, heel driving into his soft belly with every ounce of strength I could summon. Air exploded from his lungs as he folded forward. My knee came up to meet his descending face, and he hit the packed earth like a sack of grain dropped from a wagon.
Laughter erupted along the stalls—quick, disbelieving, dangerous. Yasmin's rang brightest among them, that familiar sound cutting through the horror like sunrise through storm clouds.
"She dropped him!" someone gasped from the darkness. "One chained girl against Marzuq's guard—"
The second guard's fist connected with my temple before I could turn. The world exploded into spinning lights, then narrowed to a single point of white-hot pain. My knees buckled.
The chain caught my weight for a moment before I crumpled completely, darkness rushing in from all sides like water filling a drowning lung.
I dreamed myself back at the market, standing before Farouq's stall but choosing not to approach. Choosing ignorance over knowledge. Choosing the pocket of safety that was never mine to keep.
In the dream, I turned away from his familiar face, grabbed Rafi's hand, and we disappeared into the crowd. No news of Marzuq. No knowledge of Leila's danger.
Just the two of us walking through a world of spices and silk, pretending we could build something lasting from lies of omission.
Ice water crashed over me, dragging me up choking and gasping. The stable reformed around me in painful pieces—concerned faces, whispered prayers, Yasmin calling my name from somewhere I couldn't quite locate.
"The leader requests an audience." The guard I'd kicked stood over me, one hand pressed to his ribs, hatred burning in his eyes. "You specifically. Alone."
"Tell Marzuq he can—"
"You'll come willingly or we'll drag you." He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me. "And if you make us drag you, your sister pays the price. Maybe we'll let the men have some fun with her first, since she won't need her purity much longer anyway."
The threat hit exactly as intended. I forced myself to stand, legs shaking but holding. "I'll walk."
"Thought you might see sense." He unhooked the chain from the wall ring but left the shackles tight on my wrists, using the chain like a leash. "Move."
The other guard flanked me as we left the stable. Behind us, voices rose in whispers—some praying, some cursing, some just marking another condemned soul walking toward whatever fresh horror Marzuq had planned.
Wind knifed through the open yard, each gust sharp enough to cut. My wet hair froze instantly, ice forming on my cheeks and lips.
I let it happen, welcomed the cold hardening my face into a mask, because the fury needed to stay sharp. I would spend it all on him without hesitation, without regret.
The guard yanked the chain, pulling me toward the leader's compound. "Marzuq has special plans for you, betrayer. Says you're the key to breaking the rest. Once they see you submit, see you beg, the others will follow."
"He's going to be disappointed then," I said through frozen lips. "I don't beg. Not for men who confuse fear with power."
"We'll see about that." The compound doors loomed ahead, warm light spilling from within like false promises. "Everyone breaks eventually. Even you."
The chain pulled taut as they hauled me forward into whatever game Marzuq thought he'd already won.