Fortune Favors the Cursed
the-reticent-seer
diverselit
diverselit
1.3K5
An orphan girl with questionable morals. A scarred prince with two lives. One relic to change their world.
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Badriya As-Sahra is sick of piling up camel dung and ...Chapter 41
Badriya was lying on a sea of ash and tears. She had been crying for so long she couldn't see anything else around her. Was she still in the burning palace, or was she transported into another nightmare? She couldn't tell, and she didn't care.
Ayaz was gone. Forever.
She knew in her heart that it was true. The dreams and the nightmares only showed what had already happened, even if they contained parts of the truth. That meant somewhere, somehow in the world outside her head, Ayaz was hurt or dead—perhaps both. Knowing the Sultan and his infamous ruthlessness, he wouldn't give Ayaz a chance to stand up for himself.
He had really done it. He won.
Badriya rested her head over her knees, muffling her sobs.
Whatever Shahrayar had in plan for the Jewel, there was no stopping him now. Far be it from her to do something about it. Even if she was able to snap out of the Sultan's wish, she couldn't do anything besides hurling a dagger to his throat. But she didn't have a knife, and she didn't have what it takes to face him.
She was just an orphan girl from a piss poor province. She was nobody.
Worst of it all, she won't be able to see Ayaz ever again. She won't be able to tell that she changed her heart about him. Those dreams, those illusions of him couldn't compare to the real him.
She wouldn't get the chance to tell him that she loved him, that she was sorry for all those times she hurt him.
She had so many regrets in her life, but this was the greatest she had ever felt. But what was someone like her going to do about it?
"You fight."
Badriya perked up to the voice. Darkness filled her vision, but a lump of color penetrated through. Upon blinking her eyes multiple times, the lump turned out to be a person standing in front of her. Inside the prison cell. A woman.
Yusraa.
I'm back at the prison cell, Badriya repeated in her mind. And what's Yusraa doing here?
Just outside the open bars, two men stood in alert, swords drawn as they looked beyond the dim hallway. Their backs were facing her. One of them was lean while the other was muscular and large.
"Is she awake?" Badriya couldn't pinpoint where the voice came from, but it sounded familiar. "The guards are already taken care of, but we can't be certain that more will come here."
While the smaller man ran off, Yusraa stretched a hand toward her. "Come, Badriya. Let's get you out of here."
Badriya leaned away, eyeing her warily.
This was another dream, no doubt about it. The Sultan was changing tactics now to keep her on her toes. This was him getting into her.
"What's the point?" Badriya said with a sniff. "This is just another dream. Probably a nightmare. I won't go with you. I don't have to."
"You're not in a dream." Yusraa said those words with such conviction Badriya almost stopped crying. Almost. "Whatever caused your tears is gone, and you're here now. This is real."
Badriya shook her head. "You think it's real, but it's not. Not for me. But you won't understand. You're just a dream. You're meant to think that way."
The large man turned around. "What the hell is she talking about?"
"She's suffering from something." Yusraa knelt down, her gaze now level with Badriya's. "Badriya, why do you think you're in a dream?"
Badriya hesitated. Should she even say anything? Would things change if she told any of them of what was happening to her?
"The Sultan," she said in a whisper. "The Sultan made a wish. I don't know what, but he made me live inside my head for who knows how long. I don't know if I'm even making sense, but I know—I know I'm in the middle of a dream."