[AMAL POV]
The first day, I walked.
My feet found their rhythm in the endless sand, each step carrying me further from the ravine where Ghada's blood had pooled among the stones. The sun climbed mercilessly overhead, but I barely felt its heat. I was hollow inside, a vessel emptied of everything but the need to move forward.
The Prince's words echoed in my mind: No one survives the desert alone.
Perhaps that was what I wanted. Perhaps death in the wilderness was preferable to whatever life awaited me in the world beyond. At least here, I would die free.
By evening, my water skin hung light at my hip. I had rationed carefully, but the desert heat was relentless. My lips cracked, my tongue thick and useless in my mouth. I found shelter in the shadow of a boulder and tried to sleep, but the sand seemed to shift beneath me, restless as my dreams.
The second day, I stumbled.
My legs betrayed me repeatedly, sending me sprawling across the burning sand. Each time, I forced myself upright, adjusted my veil against the wind, and continued walking. The landscape blurred around me—endless dunes, scattered rocks, the occasional thorny bush that offered no shade.
I began to see things that weren't there. Oases shimmering in the distance, only to dissolve when I drew closer. Figures walking parallel to my path, always just beyond the edge of vision. Once, I could have sworn I saw Ghada standing atop a distant dune, her hand raised in farewell.
The third day, I crawled.
My water was gone. My throat felt like cracked leather, my lips split and bleeding. The sun had become a malevolent eye, watching my suffering with divine indifference. I pulled myself forward on hands and knees, leaving a trail in the sand like a wounded snake.
This is how it ends, I thought. Not in glory, not in triumph, but alone in the vastness, forgotten.
The irony wasn't lost on me. I had traded one prison for another. The palace walls had been replaced by an endless horizon, but the result was the same: I was trapped, slowly dying, with no hope of escape.
The fourth day, I stopped moving.
I lay on my back, staring up at the cloudless sky, my body finally refusing to obey my will. The sand beneath me was warm, almost comforting. If this was death, it was gentler than I had expected.
My veil had slipped during the night, and I didn't have the strength to adjust it. The morning sun beat down on my exposed face, but I no longer cared. There was no one to see me, no one to judge. In this place, modesty was a luxury I could no longer afford.
I closed my eyes and waited for the end.
But the end didn't come.
Instead, I heard the sound of hoofbeats.
At first, I thought it was another hallucination. But the sound grew closer, more distinct. The rhythmic thunder of a horse at full gallop, approaching from the east.
I opened my eyes and saw him.
The Arabian stallion—my Arabian stallion—the one I had ridden with the caravan. His coat was dark with sweat, his sides heaving, but his eyes were alert, intelligent. He had found me somehow, tracked me across the trackless waste.
He slowed as he approached, his nostrils flaring as he caught my scent. For a moment, we stared at each other across the small distance that separated us. Then he stepped closer, lowering his great head to nuzzle my face.
His breath was warm against my cheek, sweet with the smell of grass and distant water. I tried to speak, but only a croak emerged from my ruined throat.
The horse seemed to understand. He knelt beside me, his powerful legs folding beneath him, and I realized what he was offering. With trembling hands, I grasped his mane and pulled myself onto his back.
He rose carefully, slowly, as if aware of my fragility. When I was secure, he began to walk, his gait smooth and steady. I slumped forward, my arms wrapped around his neck, my face pressed against his warm coat.
I wanted to cry, but I had no tears left.
Why? I wanted to ask him. Why come back for me?
But perhaps the question was meaningless. Perhaps kindness needed no reason, especially in a place where cruelty was the natural order.
We traveled for hours, the horse seeming to know where he was going even when I had no idea. The sun moved across the sky, and still we walked, his hoofbeats marking time like a heartbeat.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, my body swaying with his movement. Sometimes I dreamed I was back in the palace, sometimes I was a child again, riding through green fields with my uncle. But always, I was brought back to reality by the steady rhythm of the horse's gait, the solid warmth of his body beneath me.
As evening approached, he stopped beside a small spring hidden among a cluster of rocks. The water was brackish, barely drinkable, but it was water nonetheless. The horse lowered his head to drink, and I slid from his back to cup the precious liquid in my hands.
It tasted like salvation.
That night, I slept curled against the horse's side, using his body as a windbreak against the cold desert air. He didn't move, didn't complain, just stood sentinel over my rest like a guardian angel made of flesh and bone.
When I woke, he was grazing on the sparse grass that grew near the spring. Seeing me stir, he walked over and lowered his head, inviting me to mount again.
You could leave, I told him silently. You could find your way back to the caravan, back to safety. Why stay with me?
But he simply stood there, patient and steady, waiting for me to decide.
I climbed onto his back, and we continued our journey into the unknown.
Days blurred together. The horse carried me across endless landscapes—rocky plateaus, dried riverbeds, fields of scattered stones. Sometimes we found water, sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we found shade, sometimes we traveled through the merciless heat of noon.
I spoke to him occasionally, my voice a whisper in the wind. I told him about the palace, about my friends, about the price of freedom. He listened with the patience of a confessor, his ears swiveling to catch my words.
Slowly, I began to heal. Not just my body, though that too grew stronger with each passing day. But something deeper, more essential. The horse had given me a gift more precious than water or shade: companionship. In his presence, I was no longer alone.
I named him Malik—king—for the regal way he carried himself, the nobility in his bearing. He accepted the name with a soft nickering sound that might have been approval.
We were both outcasts now, both refugees from the world of men. But together, we had found something that neither of us could have achieved alone: hope.
The desert began to change around us. The sand gave way to scrubland, then to rolling hills dotted with hardy trees. The air grew cooler, more humid. Sometimes I caught the scent of growing things on the wind.
And then, one morning, I saw it.
A line of green on the horizon, dark and promising. Forest.
Malik sensed my excitement and quickened his pace. As we drew closer, I could see the individual trees, their branches heavy with leaves, their trunks thick and strong. Beyond them, the forest stretched away into blue-green shadow, vast and welcoming.
This is it, I thought. This is where I will make my stand.
We reached the forest edge as the sun reached its zenith. The shade was cool and sweet, dappled with golden light. I slid from Malik's back and walked among the trees, my bare feet silent on the soft earth.
Here, I could build a shelter. Here, I could find water and food. Here, I could disappear entirely, becoming just another creature of the wild.
I turned to Malik, who was watching me with those intelligent dark eyes.
"What do you think?" I asked. "Shall we stay?"
He whickered softly and began to graze, his answer clear.
I walked deeper into the forest, my veil stirring in the gentle breeze. Somewhere ahead, I could hear the sound of running water. Birds called from the canopy above, their songs bright and welcoming.
For the first time since fleeing the palace, I felt something approaching peace.
I had lost everything—my friends, my identity, my past. But I had gained something too: the freedom to choose my own path, to build my own life from the ashes of the old.
The forest would be my sanctuary, my hiding place, my home. Here, veiled and anonymous, I would learn what it meant to be truly free.
Behind me, Malik's hoofbeats followed, steady and sure. Whatever came next, I would not face it alone.
The desert had tried to claim me, to break me as it had broken so many others. But I had survived. I had endured.
And now, at last, I was home.
Alhamdulilah.
The first week in the forest, I spoke only to Malik.
"See that stream?" I would say, pointing through the trees. "That's where we'll get our water. And those berries there—purple ones are sweet, red ones will make us sick. My grandmother taught me that."
Malik would flick his ears forward, listening with the patience of a scholar. Sometimes he would nod, as if he understood perfectly. Other times he would snort and shake his mane, and I would laugh despite myself.
It was as if I were performing in a world too perfect to be real — a stage where nothing hurt and everything meant something. I didn't believe in any of it, not truly. But still, I kept acting. Because when the curtain falls, when the dream ends and the silence returns… I don't want to regret not living it as if it were real.
"Oh, you disagree? Then you find us breakfast tomorrow, ya habibi."
My dear one. The endearment slipped out naturally, as if he had always been part of my life. Perhaps, in a way, he had been—a guardian angel waiting for the right moment to appear.
I built our shelter in a clearing beside the stream, weaving branches together the way I had learned as a child. My hands remembered the old skills, muscle memory passed down through generations of women who had known how to survive.
"What do you think?" I asked Malik as I stepped back to examine my work. "Too small? Too large? Not fashionable enough for a king?"
He walked around the structure, sniffing at the corners, then gave his approval with a gentle whicker.
"Alhamdulillah," I murmured, pressing my palm to my heart. "Praise be to Allah. We have a home."
It was a simple phrase, one I had said thousands of times in the palace. But here, in the green silence of the forest, it felt different. More honest. As if I were finally speaking to Allah directly, without the mediation of marble walls and golden ceilings.
You brought me through the desert, I thought, watching Malik graze in the dappled sunlight. You sent me this companion when I needed him most. You led us to this place.
I had always prayed in the palace, of course. Five times a day, facing Mecca, reciting the words I had memorized as a child. But those prayers had felt hollow, performed under the watchful eyes of guards who saw piety as another form of control.
Here, prayer became something else entirely. A conversation. A refuge. A source of strength that no earthly prince could steal.
By the second week, Malik and I had established our routines.
We would wake before dawn, when the air was cool and sweet. I would perform my morning prayers while he grazed nearby, his presence a comfort rather than a distraction. Then we would explore our new territory together, mapping the forest's secrets.
"Look," I said one morning, pointing to a tree heavy with wild figs. "Allah provides, doesn't He? Even in the wilderness."
Malik stretched his neck toward the lowest branch, his lips delicately plucking the fruit. Juice ran down his chin, and I couldn't help but laugh.
"Astaghfirullah, you have no manners! What would the palace courtiers say if they saw you eating like that?"
He turned to look at me, a piece of fig hanging from his mouth, and I laughed harder. The sound echoed through the trees, bright and strange. When had I last laughed like that? When had joy felt safe?
"You're right," I said, wiping tears from my eyes. Was I crying? "We don't need to worry about courtiers anymore. We can eat however we want."
I picked a fig for myself and bit into it messily, letting the juice run down my chin in mimicry of my companion. Malik whickered in what sounded suspiciously like approval.
"There," I said. "Now we're both barbarians. Free barbarians."
The nightmares came in the third week.
I woke screaming, my hands clawing at my throat where I could still feel the phantom weight of a collar. The forest was dark around me, filled with shadows that moved like palace guards.
"La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah," I gasped, the words tumbling out in panic.
But the prayer felt thin, inadequate against the weight of memory. In my dreams, I had been back in the dungeons, back in the place where hope went to die. Ghada's voice had echoed through the stone corridors: Remember me, Amal. Remember all of us.
I pressed my hands to my face, trying to stop the trembling. The memories were too vivid, too real. I could smell the stale air of the palace, feel the cold stone under my knees.
Then I felt warm breath on my shoulder.
Malik had approached silently, his great head lowering to nuzzle my neck. His presence was solid, real, pulling me back from the edge of panic.
"Malik," I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for waking you."
He stood perfectly still, letting me lean against him. His heartbeat was steady beneath my cheek, a rhythm that gradually slowed my own racing pulse.
"They're gone," I told him, and myself. "The palace is gone. The guards are gone. We're safe here."
He nickered softly, and I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders.
"You know what I think?" I said, pulling back to look into his dark eyes. "I think Allah sent you to me not just to save my life, but to save my soul. To remind me that there is still goodness in this world."
Malik nuzzled my cheek, and I smiled despite the lingering fear.
"We have a deal, you and I," I said. "I will protect you, you will protect me, and Allah will protect us both. That will be enough."