Page 22 of The Moon’s Fury (Moon & Sands #2)

H er head pounded as if a stampede of horses had thundered through and back. The skin around her nose and mouth felt stiff, and when she pulled her hand back, flakes of dried, dark blood came loose. The stench of burning flesh and rotting death filled her nostrils.

Bright sunlight scalded her eyes.

What had happened?

Flashes passed through her mind—searching for her parents, the gathering mob, the first strike of stone.

His hateful eyes.

And yet another betrayal.

Gingerly, she forced her eyes open, ignoring the painful throbbing in her skull. Her clothes had burned away.

She cast her gaze around.

She wished she hadn’t.

Charred, black bodies littered the entire square. Judging by the rancid stench, they’d lain under the hot sun for days.

How long had she slept?

Bile crept up into her throat, and she retched and retched until there was nothing left to expel. Desperate eyes scanned the dead, searching for any sign of her parents, of anyone still moving, but it was no use.

She had burned them beyond recognition.

Staggering through the square, she entered her neighbor’s clothing shop—it would never see another customer again. She grabbed the first dress she saw, numbly pulling it over her head.

As she left the shop, her eyes caught sight of a small, blackened body a few feet away, tiny arms clutching an equally burnt, wooden horse.

What had she done?

She retched again, collapsing to the ground, tears leaving wet tracks down soot-stained cheeks.

Time lost meaning as she sobbed, grief weighing down her heart.

She cried for her parents, likely dead and unrecognizable; for her community, men and women who had hated her, but hadn’t deserved to die; and for the innocent children, who had not cast a single stone, yet lay dead and charred anyway.

She cried for herself until there were no more tears to shed.

Jamil loosed a heavy sigh. He had vowed to Zarian he’d get Soraya and her mother to safety.

He was beginning to regret half that promise.

Ahmar, his rust-colored mount, nickered softly as Jamil brushed him down, as if sensing his troubled thoughts. Next to Ahmar was a dark brown stallion, stolen from Alzahra’s stables. The brown horse was standoffish and quick to bite, but luckily, the two had taken to each other.

Unfortunately, that was where his good luck ended.

Jamil finished tending to Ahmar and turned back to the makeshift campsite, nestled in a shaded area at the base of a large mountain in the Zephyrian range.

Soraya smiled at him as he sat across her and her mother. He didn’t look at Hadiyah. He felt the sharp dagger of her gaze anyway.

If looks could kill, he’d be long dead and buried somewhere in the Alzahran desert. She had been shooting him murderous looks ever since she’d awoken on his horse in the middle of the night.

Soraya had been easy to convince. She was friendly with him after he’d brought her to the Oasis and back during the war—she’d quickly packed a bag, donned a niqab , and led him to her mother’s chambers.

Hadiyah had refused outright, becoming increasingly agitated despite Soraya’s attempts at persuasion.

When she began to shout for guards, Jamil had no other choice. He placed her in a chokehold until she passed out, limp in his arms. Soraya had fitted a niqab over her mother’s head as well, and Jamil carried her to the stables.

Soraya had ridden the brown stallion, her own horse left behind, while Jamil propped Hadiyah against him on Ahmar, and they’d fled Alzahra through a smaller, seldom used checkpoint.

Jamil had been lining the overseeing guard’s pockets with gold for months now—it was how he entered and exited Alzahra in secret.

He stoked the crackling fire with a long branch. Keeping his gaze fixed on the flickering flames, he said, “There’s still time to change course and head to Sendouk.”

“Absolutely not,” Hadiyah declared. Without looking, Jamil knew she was scowling at him. “You will take us to Shahbaad, as agreed. My father will provide us with an armed guard. Then, we can find Layna, and you can be on your way.”

He gritted his teeth. He hadn’t agreed to anything. Hadiyah had threatened to shout for help the second they encountered other travelers. She had nearly done it, and Jamil had hastily agreed to ferry them to Shahbaad.

He glanced up and caught Soraya’s gaze across the fire.

She gave him a tight-lipped smile and a one-shouldered shrug.

I’m sorry , she mouthed. She had nothing to apologize for—Soraya had tried to convince her mother to travel to Sendouk as he and Zarian had planned, but Hadiyah had sharply rebuked her.

Soraya looked crestfallen, and Jamil had to physically stop himself from placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

They lay out their bedrolls—Soraya and her mother on one side of the fire and him on the other. The two women lay down to sleep, but he remained awake.

Waiting.

When Hadiyah’s breaths were long and even, Soraya quietly slid out from beneath her blankets and sat beside him. She’d begun doing this a few nights after they had fled Alzahra—waiting for her mother to fall asleep, then coming to sit with him.

He didn’t delude himself into believing she actually sought his company. She was probably desperate for any sort of human interaction aside from her unpleasant mother.

She settled cross-legged beside him. The firelight danced across the angles of her face, glinting off her dark, chin-length curls.

He forced himself to look away.

“I’m sorry about Mama,” she said quietly, brown eyes flicking in her mother’s direction. “She wasn’t always this way. Baba’s death … it broke something in her.”

He nodded, more to appease her than anything. He didn’t bother mentioning that while her father’s death may have changed how Hadiyah treated her , it likely had nothing to do with her mother’s opinion of him .

No, the festering hate in Hadiyah’s eyes could not have been birthed so quickly.

“How is the horse treating you?” he asked instead, nodding toward the brown stallion. “I’m sorry we couldn’t bring Sirocco.”

She twisted her lips to one side, something he’d noticed she did when she was trying not to frown. “He’s been fine. He acts grumpy and mean, but he has a gentle heart. And he’s been easy to ride—despite Mama gasping in my ear at every turn.” She smiled, bright and open, and his heart stuttered.

The first time she gifted him that smile was in the Oasis, when he brought her stacks of parchment for her agricultural plans. Even then, it had tugged at something deep inside him—but he hadn’t yet understood what his heart was trying to tell him.

They stared at the fire in amicable silence.

“Tell me your favorite color,” she asked suddenly.

“My favorite color?” he repeated, arching a brow.

“Or food. Or animal. Tell me anything you like, as long as I don’t have to pry it out of you,” she said in an exasperated rush. Words didn’t come easily to him, whereas Soraya had no shortage of them.

Moons, what was his favorite color?

He looked at her, and he knew.

“Green.”

Green like the plants and vines she’d given life to at the Oasis.

Green like the pressed shrubs in her journal, the first thing she’d packed for their journey.

Green because every time he saw that color, he remembered her.

“I love this one street food in the Oasis markets—roasted chicken on flatbread with pine nuts and caramelized onions. And favorite animal is a horse. Yours?”

“I don’t have a favorite color. My favorite food is stewed lamb. And I love horses, too.” She smiled at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, assessing his face as if searching for something, but he had no idea what.

Eventually, she shifted, and he sensed she was ready for bed.

“Do you want to see Almeer?” he asked quickly, desperate in his attempt to keep her beside him for just a moment longer.

He stuttered over the other man’s name, his lips clamping down in refusal to utter it.

“It’s just … we’re crossing through Zephyria.

We’ll pass his village.” She was silent, eyes fixed on the fire.

His fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on his knee.

“I thought you might want to see him,” he added.

The corner of her mouth dipped ever so slightly—a detail so small that anyone else might have missed it. But he had spent every spare moment in the Oasis studying her from afar.

She was upset, and he had no idea why.

“No,” she finally whispered. “His—his family doesn’t approve of us. Because of the war and all. If I arrive unannounced, I don’t know how he’ll react. I can’t risk it, not with Mama with us.” She quickly added, “I’m sure he’d want to see me, would want to help. It’s just his family…”

She rose quickly after that, said goodnight, and headed to bed.

He stared at the fire until her gentle snores drifted through the air.

“He’s a fool.”