Red Hood's Revenge

through the following days in shock, not knowing from one day to the next whether this was real or a nightmare. Her family was gone, her sons’ cries echoed in her ears, and then Jihab and Lakhim had arrived to take them back to their palace.
    How long would she have remained in that trance if Jihab hadn’t come to her bed that night, meaning to claim her once again? In a way, the stories were true. Prince Jihab had awakened her. Not with a kiss but by shocking her into action.
    She remembered sneaking from the palace, climbing out the window, and making her way along the walls. She made it to the edge of town before the alarm bells began to ring. There she found a farmer preparing to transport cattle to Jahrasima, four days south. All the gold she had taken when she fled went to pay for her safe passage.
    They were stopped three times on the way to Jahrasima, but nobody discovered her. Even with their prince dead, few soldiers were loyal enough to dig through a wagon full of cow dung to discover the girl huddled beneath, protected by a heavy canvas tarp and breathing through the cracks at the bottom of the wagon.
    Talia shuddered. The putrid scent had lingered in her hair and skin for days, no matter how hard she scrubbed.
    Blue light blossomed in the water beside her. Talia glanced down to see a glowing serpent swimming through the reeds. A jaan, a fairy creature who lived in the water. They were said to bring good fortune to those who fed them, but Talia had nothing to give.
    She had never believed that superstition. More likely, feeding the jaan was a way to keep them trained. These creatures guarded the city gates as much as the uniformed men on the far side of the road. Anyone trying to swim across the lake would find himself surrounded by eager jaan, their glowing bodies illuminating the intruder for all to see.
    Not that many people worried about the south road. This was the least traveled of the four roads, leading to the poorest part of Jahrasima. The gatehouse was in poor repair, as were most of the buildings beyond. Even from here Talia could see where one home had crumbled to the onslaught of time and overgrown grapevines.
    Two men stepped out to meet her as she approached the gatehouse. Their armor was lighter than that worn by their counterparts in Lorindar. Arathean warriors valued speed and skill over protection, not to mention the toll heavy mail could take in the desert heat. One carried a short spear. The other held a war club, a short, slender weapon with a knobbed end. This was a northern design that could double as a spearthrower, carried by all those in service to Queen Lakhim.
    Both wore green sashes marked with the royal crest. The white tiger was the symbol of Lakhim’s family. The small huma bird flying above the tiger had been the symbol of the crown for more than three hundred years. Lakhim hadn’t eliminated the huma bird from her crest, but she had diminished it to little more than an afterthought. The green mountains in the background represented the fairy race.
    “What happened to you?” asked the one with the spear.
    Talia licked her lip, still swollen from her fight with Roudette. “Wolf attack.”
    The other moved closer. “Are you all right?”
    “I will be.” Talia did her best to feign fear. “I need to get to the temple. My friends were hurt. One was mauled too badly to move.”
    She shifted her balance, one hand ready to snatch a knife from her sleeve. Few had ever seen Sleeping Beauty in the flesh, but it never hurt to be prepared.
    “What about the wolf?” asked the one with the war club. He sounded almost eager. Probably looking for something to break the tedium of guarding the poor quarter.
    Talia shook her head. “It won’t bother anyone else.”
    Her body remembered the route to the temple. She left the main road, taking a shortcut through an alley-way and around an old warehouse, finally emerging onto a road of broken stone. Weeds and vines pricked her legs, catching her trousers as she walked toward the low, nine-sided building at the end of the road.
    A waist-high stone wall surrounded the temple grounds. The wall was in poor repair, little more than a symbolic barrier. Even from here Talia could smell the urine and decay of the sick and the dying.
    Her heart drummed in her chest as she approached, following a dirt path through the open gate. Inside, the grounds were better tended. Red stone crunched beneath her feet. Fig trees grew to either side,