“There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.”

  — Dante Alighieri, "The Divine Comedy"

  The first thing Ife felt when she woke up was dampness.

  It was everywhere: on the moldy walls; on the wet floor; in the moist air. Everywhere.

  Even inside herself, she could feel this dampness.

  Under her sweat-sticky skin, in her bones brittle from hunger, in her muscles weak from fatigue, and even in her brain fogged with anxiety.

  Ife sat up, making the chain on her own ankles jingle without noticing it — the sharp sound of steel cutting through the silence, echoing off the walls and hitting her ears. She flinched in surprise and groaned in pain; covering her head in a protective gesture, she pulled her legs up-as close as the shackles would allow-and clenched.

  Ife could feel her swollen eyes — though they were no longer tearful, they stung so badly that she felt the compulsive urge to tear them out of their sockets; she felt the same with her screaming throat—the compulsive urge to shove her hand down her throat and scratch at it in an attempt to get rid of the pain—and with all the other parts of her body that she wanted so badly to get rid of.

  Her head ached just as much as her body; being strained not only by her desperate attempts to remember how she'd gotten here, but also by her desperate attempts to realize exactly where she'd ended up.

  The room was dark — so dark that Ife didn't realize what time it was: was it day or night or morning or evening?

  The only source of light had to be an oil lamp — now lying in the distance, extinguished and broken.

  Ife stretched her hands forward, trying to feel where she was, but instead of the unpleasant sensation of touching the wet, slimy floor, she felt only another pain in her ears, caused by another chain — which, this time, bound her arms and neck, not her legs.

  A feeling of hopelessness crept under her skin, making her shudder at the thoughts that swarmed like parasites in her head, laying eggs from which other thoughts would later hatch, driving her even crazier than the previous ones.

  The atmosphere pressed down on her so hard that Ife huddled in a corner and clenched her body in an attempt to keep the remnants of reason that were draining out of her along with her life.

  That was what the royal prison was, a place where there was no one and nothing but bottomless darkness, steel chains, and your own thoughts eating you faster than a herd of hungry rats.

  Ife didn't know how many seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or maybe even years had passed when she finally saw a bright light, heard a human voice, and felt fresh-compared to the dank and damp-air.

  "Hey," called a male voice to her roughly, whose owner walked over to the bars with an oil lamp in hand and hung it on a hook near the entrance.

  Exhausted physically and mentally, Ife didn't even find the strength to flinch — she only raised her head languidly and looked at the man with a hazy gaze, unable to see anything but a dark silhouette. Opening her mouth, she tried to say something, but no words or sounds came out — dehydration swallowed them just as quicksand swallowed everything in its path. Her mouth was truly like a desert now: dry without the slightest hint of moisture, and with mirages in the form of viscous saliva that couldn't quench her thirst or even moisten her throat.

  "It's a wonder you're still alive," said mockingly another male voice, whose silhouette appeared next to the first. "A lot of people here don't last an hour, and you made it through the morning. What endurance..."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  If physical exhaustion led to a complete atrophy of any motor and vocal functions, moral exhaustion led to a complete atrophy of the brain: Ife could not think, understand, realize, much less analyze; even such simple things as the words of the guards hovering over her half-dead body seemed to her nothing more than a set of sounds that made absolutely no sense.

  In her studied state she also did not notice what was going on around her; she did not notice the guards taking out the key, did not notice them opening the cage with it, did not notice them going inside, did not notice how—

  "So, are you gonna drink? Or should I give the water to someone who deserves it more than you? Like a stray dog..."

  Ife blinked sluggishly, trying to dispel the cloudy veil that had settled so snugly in her eyes. But even when she saw the bowl of water in the hands of one of the men, she couldn't find the strength to move; only to make a quiet sound, more like an animal whimpering.

  She didn't see the man holding the bowl roll his eyes.

  But she did hear him say:

  "You leave me no choice by acting as pathetic as a stray dog."

  Roughly grabbing her by the hair, the man threw her head back and also roughly held the bowl to her lips and ordered:

  "Drink."

  Ife complied and opened her lips, allowing the liquid to fill her mouth. She greedily drank the water that flowed down in one huge stream, moistening the dry walls of her throat and giving her—so small but so important—bits of physical and mental strength until she suddenly choked. The man let go of her, allowing her to cough. Water flowed out of her mouth and nose, unpleasantly printing her mucous membranes and lungs; but despite this Ife was glad for the long-awaited moisture.

  With a condescending glance at her, the second guard pronounced:

  "You even drink like a real d—"

  "Time to go," interrupted the first one, the one now standing behind him at the exit of the cage.

  Gently taking the bowl from Ife's hands and setting it aside, the man roughly grabbed her by the collar of her dress and unceremoniously yanked it upwards, tearing the thin fabric to shreds with his abrupt movement. The remnants in the form of small pieces of fabric fell to the floor, leaving Ife—who hadn't been able to pick them up in time—completely naked.

  Suddenly, the realization hit her of her vulnerable position: completely naked and shackled, exhausted to the point of being unable to resist, imprisoned in front of two strong men who could do anything to her, and no one—no one—could help her.

  The realization was followed by the worst feeling in the world, crawling beneath her skin like hatching maggots: helplessness.

  Giving in to panic, Ife pulled back sharply, knocking over a bowl standing nearby, which made an unpleasant cracking sound and shattered into large clay shards.

  "Don't... touch..." she forced out pitifully. "m—... me..."

  This time, it was the first who rolled his eyes.

  Silently walking over to Ife, he roughly grabbed her jaw and pressed her head into the wall — not hard enough to inflict non-life-compatible injuries, but hard enough to let her know he could do it without too much effort.

  "Zaf—"

  Ignoring the other, the man leaned toward her — so close that she could feel his breath hot with icy rage on her face, which was contorted in fright.

  "Do you think we need the body of some filthy murderer that badly?" he asked with disgust in his voice. "And if we did need it, don't you think we would have raped you a long time ago?"

  Letting go of Ife, he looked down at her — not with condescension, no; with contempt.

  "But, if you still think no one knows about women's possession of breasts," he continued, "you can cover yourself."

  Taking his advice—which sounded more like a threat—Ife, sluggishly picked up the tattered pieces of cloth—which didn't even resemble floor-washing rags — so dirty were they—of her once whole dress, and placed them against her breasts, covering herself.

  When she tried to stand up—which turned out to be an extremely unpleasant sight due to her atrophied limbs—the first took her under his elbow: either out of benevolence — which, to Ife, seemed not only unlikely, but absolutely impossible; or vice versa — out of distrust of her and her possible actions.

  "Just no nonsense," he said as they stepped out of the dungeon into the corridor. "Otherwise I'll have to kill you."

  "With exactly the same ferocity," added the other, "as you killed all the people in the bazaar. Including—"

  "Don't talk," the first admonished the latter. The latter pressed his lips together grudgingly, but obeyed.

  Then, they started walking. She, clumsily, stumbling and squinting as the bright light struck her eyes like the point of a dagger. They walked smoothly and clearly, without unnecessary movement; just like the trained soldiers they had been since childhood.

  Ife didn't know, but she knew where they were taking her.

  A gloomy prison at the bottom, royally furnished corridors at the top — they were clearly in the palace of the now ruling Pharaoh Israfil. And given the fact that both men had called her a murderer, it was becoming quite obvious where they were taking her.

  To judgment.

  That realization came down on her like an anvil from the sky — abruptly, with no room for reflection and no time for humility.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but the guards had already opened the doors and ushered her into the throne room.