#isra-husna

After a year at her service, Anwar knows that if she hears a big loud crash followed by screams and reprimands in the Lameni residence, it’s Isra-Husna’s doing.

When she hears a scream then the sound of falling followed by silence, it’s also Isra-Husna's doing. Except she needs to rush here because silence isn’t a good sign with these kinds of stunts. So she rushes to the origin of the noise, cursing herself for taking her eyes off her young mistress.

“My lady, are you okay?”

Isra-Husna is face down on the pebbled path covering the ground. Upon hearing Anwar's voice, she slowly raised her head with a puzzled expression. No bruises, no nosebleed, she seems alright on that front. But then she slowly sits up and grimaces as Anwar kneels at her side.

“That sounded like a nasty fall. Are you hurt anywhere?”

Silence still. It's worrying. Isra-Husna looks at Anwar, then at her palms. All bloodied and scraped. From trying to catch herself, probably.

The pain finally seems to get to her brain, and Anwar sees her bottom lip quiver.

“M-My hands,” she squeaks weakly.

Anwar takes her wrists to maintain her hands open.

“Let me see.”

The wounds aren't pretty, riddled with the mud and tiny rocks that found themselves between the pebbles over the years. Blood is slowly oozing out, staining the unharmed skin. A nasty fall indeed.

“Does it hurt?”

“Y-Yes… I-It burns…”

“It's okay. It’s not serious. We’ll get you patched up in no time.”

“B-But…”

Isra-Husna's hands start to tremble.

“M-Mother… She will be mad if it leaves marks…”

Anwar sees a little shine in her eyes. The sign of tears to come.

Crap. This isn’t good.

“My lady… My lady, look at me, it's okay. We'll make it better, I promise.”

The words don’t reach the little lady. Her shoulders shake, a little sob escapes her throat, tears fill her eyes almost to the brim.

Anwar’s face remains calm, but her heart and mind are both racing. It’s not about getting in trouble anymore. It’s about something in this scrunched up little face that tugs painfully at her heart.

She slowly covers the wounds with her palms. Her hands might get bloody but she doesn’t care.

“Look, my lady, no more blood.”

“B-But it hurts…”

“Then I'll make it go away. I promise I will, okay? Pain, pain, go away…”

Anwar starts chanting in a hushed tone, trying to be comforting, to not give her worry away. Everything so her lady can stop crying. So she can go back to being her bright, smiling face again. Anything.

Her own hands feel really warm all of a sudden. Maybe it’s the blood? No, it doesn’t feel liquid at all. Isra-Husna blinks, interrupting herself mid-sob, then looks at her lady-in-waiting’s hands over hers.

“Woah... Anwar, it’s shining!”

“... What?”

Anwar lowers her gaze, just in time to see a little light fading between their palms. She jolts away in surprise, only to find an even bigger one underneath.

There's no more blood. No more wounds. Just the little rocks and mud falling off a perfectly healthy skin. Isra-Husna blinks away tears, her face instead filling with absolute marvel.

“It worked!”

She turns her palms, inspects them, rubs them together, shows Anwar excitedly.

“Look, Anwar, it worked! It doesn’t even hurt anymore!”

Anwar doesn't know how to react. Opens her mouth, closes it, looks at her hands. They still feel warm. Something just happened, something she had no control over, but… Whatever it was, it made her lady smile so bright the moon herself would be jealous.

“Well, look at that. I scared off the pain.”

“You did! You did, you're the best!” Isra-Husna giggles before throwing herself in Anwar's arms.

Her lady-in-waiting lifts her off the ground despite her skinny arms, and tries to look stern.

“Nevertheless, my lady, you promised to behave today and you didn't. We're gonna have to move this playing session to your room.”

Isra-Husna pouts.

“Awww… But can't you just make the pain go away if I fall again?”

Anwar doesn’t say that she doesn’t know how to reproduce whatever it is she did, shakes her head instead.

“I won't always be around to help you when you injure yourself, you know. You have to be more careful, lady Isra-Husna.”

“But you will always be around! You will, right? You… You promised.”

A little smile. Hands holding a little body tighter.

“I promise. And if I'm not around, then know that I'll always come back. Always. Now, moving up.”

She ignores Isra-Husna's protestations and the fake punches she gives her, walking and trying to not focus on her inner disturbance. About what that light meant.

She does not notice the two guards staring from the other side of the garden, neither does she hear their hushed whispers,

We have to report this to the Matriarch.

***

Against the cold floor, mouth flooded in his own blood, a gushing stab wound at his side, Umar Al-Yasiri squirms. His hands and feet are bound, his face bruised, he's losing blood, yet he refuses to speak.

Towering above him, yet so small, a girl about thirteen stares down with an unreadable, abyssal gaze, clutching a bloody knife. Behind her stands a much taller man with indifferent red eyes.

“Anwar. Heal him.”

The girl blinks, looks up at her mentor. For a brief second, Umar sees the child behind the killer.

“Heal him?”

“Like I taught you. Remember?”

“But, my lord, he hasn't spilled anything yet.”

Anything but blood.

“Are you disputing my orders?”

She flinches, then stands up straight.

“No, my lord.”

She walks up to Umar. Crouches down next to him. He winces when she puts her small hand on his open wound, but then… Then a warmth spreads throughout his side as light emerges from the girl’s palm. He feels, with greater pain than he’d like to admit, the tissues of his body starting to mend, bit by bit, until they’re fully repaired. The girl slowly pulls back her hand, and makes a gesture to get back up, but a cutting voice interrupts her.

“Good. Now stab him again.”

She stops dead in her tracks. Looks down at Umar, then at her mentor again. Umar himself blinks before understanding dawns on him with all the horror of itself.

“But I just healed-”

“I said again.”

As if motivated by a survival instinct, the girl turns around and plunges her blade into Umar’s ribs. The pain splits his body open, he screams, not loud enough for the man to say,

“Good. Be careful to not kill him yet. Now, heal him again.”

Again, the light, again, that warmth, the temporary relief.

“Now. Still won't talk?”

Umar grits his teeth. He did nothing wrong. Whoever plotted against the Lameni heiress, it wasn't him, even if he thinks the whole vampire world would be better off without her and her godsforsaken family.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“That's a shame. Anwar, again.”

This time it’s the thigh. The pain is excruciating, and they let him scream and thrash for a good minute before healing him. Umar's breath is shallow, his forehead is getting sweaty. Whatever spell this is, it doesn't make up for blood loss.

Still, he keeps his mouth shut. So they keep going.

Stab, heal, stab, heal, stab, heal.

He can’t tell how long it’s been. Just that he’s memorized every detail of that girl’s face by now as the pain turns his entire body into a raw nerve. Black eyes, two voids where nothing can grow. Thin black hair, a bird’s nest. A red tattoo on the cheek, of a few words, rune-like, an old dialect, something he recognizes.

Ah, he understands now.

The Lameni don’t breed Light mages, do they?

Some Jiantze whore just had to go and tarnish the Lameni blood, some Lameni fucker just couldn't keep it in his fucking pants and had to betray his own lineage, his own legacy, to produce that little brat. This is what that tattoo means, that she’s not one of theirs, these old words the Lameni tattoo somewhere on every impure-blooded spawn, this one has it on her face, so everyone knows, so everyone can read those words,

light-stained blood,

the mark of shame, the mark of her parents’ sin.

A gargling laugh escapes from Umar’s blood-filled mouth, his mind delirious with pain as the wounds are mended again.

“You know what? Maybe I should have done this. Maybe I should have killed her when I could. Her, and everyone here, if they were gonna be so careless as to taint our name like this-”

“So you admit to plotting against the family?” the older man’s voice cuts him off.

Umar hisses, making the blood between his teeth pop into bubbles.

“No. But I will end you. I fucking will, mark my words.”

“That’s good enough of an admission. Anwar.”

He makes a vague, almost bored gesture.

“End it.”

The girl takes up her knife for what Umar knows is the last time today. Stares at him with those two pits of darkness, her forehead sweaty and hands trembling from so much magic use.

Umar feels no pity for her.

Her kind shouldn't exist.

She raises her blade, slowly, eyes moving as she searches where to aim.

Umar laughs one last time, tears streaming down his face.

“Curse you filthy half-bloods. Curse all of you.”

The girl’s eyelid barely twitches as she buries the blade all the way through his throat, her mouth barely emits a groan of effort when she pulls it out.

Against the cold floor, mouth flooded in his own blood, a gushing stab wound in his throat, Umar Al-Yasiri smiles.

And curses them all for having a half blood as the last face he sees before he dies.

***

Heavy clouds have been hanging low all day, announcing a thunderstorm. Anwar couldn't have known. She spent the whole day inside with Lord Nabil-Malik, in that windowless room. She tumbles out of it with a full stomach and a hollow gaze.

She could wash off the blood but couldn’t wash out the man's last words.

Curse all of you.

A loud crack tears up the night and she jumps as a lightning falls in the horizon. Rain thumps against the ground and rooftop, and she stands motionless under the marble arch surrounding the garden, as if the distant rumbling of thunder was something coming to get her. She doesn't know how long she stands there before a breathless handmaid runs up to her.

“Miss Anwar, there you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Anwar turns to look at her. Seems she was in a real hurry.

“What do you need me for?”

Her voice sounds distant, monochord, like it isn’t really there.

“Well… Lady Isra-Husna refuses to go to sleep unless you’re the one putting her to bed. I believe she's afraid of the storm.”

Isra-Husna.

The name feels like a slap in the face.

Her lady needs her.

She doesn't even wait for the handmaid to lead the way. Instead, she starts running through the empty hallways, straight to her lady's room, where she finds a number of helpless handmaids gathered in front of the door.

“Let me through!”

Anwar didn’t think she could speak that loud. Neither did the maids, apparently, because they startle and immediately make way for her. She almost busts the door open, gets past the pearl curtains blocking her view, and emerges right as lightning strikes again. She flinches, gathers herself. She can’t be scared, not now.

Not when she just heard a little cry coming from a curled-up little girl at the foot of the bed.

She nearly throws herself to the floor next to her mistress. Isra-Husna is covering her ears with both her hands, trembling, face buried into her knees. Anwar reaches out, touches her shoulder.

“My lady. It’s me. I’m here.”

Isra-Husna’s head snaps back up, her head swivels to her lady-in-waiting. There's a brief moment of silence before she bursts into tears and throws herself against Anwar, holding tight onto her clothes, and Anwar wraps her arms around her without a second thought.

“Shhhh… Shh. You're safe. It’s okay. You were very brave, but I'm here now.”

Her lady’s sobs slowly start to subside, her tears to dry, but as soon as the rumbling outside starts again, she yelps and buries herself against Anwar's chest.

“...Do you want me to carry you to bed?”

She nods, so Anwar lifts her off the ground again, tucks her in, and closes the bed curtains before sitting next to her mistress.

“There. That way you won't see lightning anymore. And I'll stay until you fall asleep.”

Isra-Husna holds out both her arms, as if to invite her in.

“... Can you stay until I wake up, too?”

Anwar hesitates for a moment.

“My lady… It wouldn't be appropriate, I'm…”

Filthy.

Filthy half-blood.

“But I want you to stay,” Isra-Husna whines. “Please, Anwar?”

The thoughts are wiped away in an instant. It doesn't matter. Her lady wants her around. So Anwar sighs, and kicks off her shoes before sliding under the covers. Isra-Husna immediately takes refuge in her arms with a content smile. Anwar can’t help but smile too.

“Comfortable?”

“Hmhm. Thank you, Anwar.”

“You’re welcome, my lady. I promised you I'd be there, didn't I?”

A giggle.

“You did! And you're all warm. Hehe.”

It’s true. Anwar can feel the warmth slowly come back to her cheeks, her stomach, her fingertips. All the warmth she lost on that man, slowly coming back.

Maybe she can make light with her magic, but the real light is the little lady slowly falling asleep in her arms.

“‘Night, Anwar…”

She can take anything if it means keeping that light shining.

“Good night, my lady,” she whispers, holding her closer.