A month had passed since Ari and the scowling boy, Khalid, had been rescued by the two crusaders.

  Ari rarely paid attention to what Khalid said. Time was against her, and she had no patience for his endless talk of hatred, of how he would one day get revenge on the woman with light hair and the man with brown. She sat in the corner of her room, imagining her mind and body were anywhere but here.

  As far as Ari could tell, the two Nasara were nothing like the people who had enslaved her. She was grateful simply to have a roof above her head, and the woman, Ava, was unfailingly careful to make sure they ate.

  But there was one thing Ari noticed.

  Every seventh day, on Sunday, the blonde woman never appeared in the mornings like she usually did. Instead, she made sure the man came to check on them. Sometimes she left letters.

  Ari could not read them.

  Khalid was practising in his corner of the room, swinging the wooden sword he’d received from the brown-haired man, if Ari remembered correctly, his name was Thomas.

  His swings were sloppy, as if the sword was guiding him. He had no grace, no rhythm in his footsteps.

  Rhythm, how Ari missed it.

  Her mind went back to simpler days, days she spent in Tiberias*, days spent dancing her heart out with her sister, Layla. In the segregated city of Tiberias, after the lord of the city, Raymond of Tripoli, had separated the streets, making it obvious who was and was not Christian, it was her only comfort to dance with Layla.

  And then, Allah took her away from Ari.

  Ari looked at her hands, then her legs. It was dull, but the dull sensation in her skin did nothing to ease the sharp pain in her heart.

  She felt it, the same fate as her sister was approaching.

  With a sigh, Ari continued to watch Khalid. He swung with such rage, such aggression, and the other day, when he fought with the one with blonde hair, he used the dagger she gave them. Ari saw it in her eyes; she heard it in his cries.

  Khalid had tried, and failed, to kill her.

  She rose, her legs still slightly weak, going from captivity to freedom in such a short time; her body had not fully acclimatised. In fact, she was in awe at how quickly Khalid had gotten used to each environment thrown at him. In the cell, he endured.

  When they arrived here, in Tyre, he began to fight back.

  “Khalid,” Ari said, cutting him out of his concentration.

  He turned his head, Ari saw those eyes again, so troubled, his face looked as if he thought his death would be a blessing, as if it was something to get over with.

  But Ari knew better than most that life was never a burden, no matter how dark it seemed.

  “Yes.” He said.

  “I—um,” silence fell between the two, “I think, you’d benefit from loosening your hips, maybe, moving your body requires—”

  “Are you a swordfighter, Ari?” Khalid cut her off.

  “No, I’m not, but—”

  “Then leave me alone.”

  Khalid went back to slashing at the air, stiff and sluggish. She could watch it no more, and for the first time in a long time, she walked towards the young boy and began to practice herself.

  She began to dance.

  At first, her rhythm was off too; she was sloppier than before. Seven years ago, she and Layla would dance in perfect harmony with each other, despite her being barely older than a toddler.

  “Ari.” Khalid grunted, “Move out of the way, I’m practising.”

  His words meant nothing to her as she swayed and flailed her body, feeling the warmth and joy she had once forgotten. Dancing was her way of being free, of seeing the world through bright colours; it was her way of remembering Allah’s beauty in this land the elders insisted on calling holy.

  Ari sped up, her twists and meanders increasing in speed, her feet tangling, and even Khalid backed away to let her dance with more space. She remembered the moves Layla had taught her on the streets, how she taught her to flip, to dance, to hesitate her moves just a bit to emphasise the finale.

  Ari missed it dearly. But then it happened, she hit the floor with a crash.

  “Ari?” Khalid asked. He went to approach her, but.

  Once again, she felt no pain, only a dull sensation, but no amount of injury changed the numbing in her lower legs and hands.

  Khalid went to help her up, and as he held her, she saw it. She’d seen it so many times in Tiberias, and here it was again.

  Slash marks, methodical and precise, stretching across the wrists, up until the bicep. He’d been using the dagger Ava gave him, she was sure of it; those sounds she heard at night, the sound of metal slashing flesh, this was the source.

  Why did he hate his own existence so much? Ari knew pain, of course she did, but she couldn’t sit and accept it; she knew that she had to try and find joy in life.

  It’s what Layla would’ve wanted.

  “Khalid…” Ari whispered.

  He glanced away at his name, waiting moments before responding.

  “Yes?”

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  “What happened to you… before we were sent to that place…”

  There it was again; anytime the topic of Iss came up, Khalid fell silent. Ari couldn’t blame him. Ari hated that place too; the cells they kept them in were likely worse than what animals got, in fact, she knew they were worse.

  The blonde knight’s horse was practically treated like royalty.

  Ari expected the same deflections, the same responses, and yet when Khalid opened his mouth, he did not fully push away.

  “What happened to me…” Khalid began. He twirled the wooden sword in his hands, eyeing it closely.

  “What happened to me was that I grew up,” he finished his sentence, yet just as he did, another one came out.

  “I was given an extension on my life; I don’t have the right to sit and daydream like you.”

  With that, he went back to practising his skills.

  Ari did not understand, if his life had been extended…

  Why did he not embrace it?

  Ari sat back down in her corner of the room. She pressed on her lower legs once more, no reaction. She sighed and looked out of the window. The sky was so vast and blue, so beautiful.

  Why did everything so beautiful have to be so out of reach for her?

  …

  It had been hours since the pair of Nasara had left Khalid and Ari in the inn alone.

  Khalid couldn’t be happier.

  The woman, Ava, was always more trusting of him and Ari. She would leave her door unlocked as they left, Khalid could tell by their footsteps. Hers were slower, measured against the wooden floor, less frantic and excitable, yet the man’s, Thomas, were energetic, heavy steps that carried down the hall with a careless rhythm.

  It was little things like that Khalid had to do in this place, other than train, or occasionally go out with them.

  As Khalid headed outside the inn, he saw a man clad in blue and white armour, the same colours the other two wore. The afternoon sun caught faintly on the metal. He sighed and looked outward across the dusty street.

  It must be the knight with brown hair, and whilst he never wore his helmet, perhaps today was an exception.

  Every day they came back to the inn, to greet them, talking in their native tongue, so brash and repulsive to Khalid, it reminded him, it reminded him that they were them, and him and Ari were Muslim. There was no room for them in this land, Samira had told him so years prior.

  She had never been wrong before. She had always known what to do, what to say, how to convince his older brother to help him or get him something. Khalid knew she wasn’t wrong about the true nature of the Nasara.

  He eased himself outside of the inn, near the stables that were adjacent to it. The smell of hay and horse sweat hung in the warm air. He grimaced as that horse neighed and ruffled around in its stall, the one that had carried him from Iss. Something about her made Khalid’s skin crawl. The blonde knight treated it as if it were human, as if it weren’t part of the tools the Nasara used to enslave and torment his people.

  Khalid crept up the stairs.

  He noticed the sound of Ari’s dancing, dancing that persisted far after he left the room, had dulled. The light tapping of her feet was gone, replaced with the stiff squeaking of wooden boards shifting under someone’s weight.

  His brow furrowed.

  When the brown-haired knight came in, he usually did not linger. He headed straight for the opposite room. Khalid drew his dagger, just in case.

  Quietly, he crept further up, checking either side. The hallway was dim, only thin light slipping through the shutters.

  Surely the innkeeper would not let someone who wasn’t staying there in, right?

  As Khalid opened the door, he froze.

  For once, he had wished it were the two knights who had saved him.

  For once, he wished they were here now to protect them once more.

  Ari squirmed as the man in armour grabbed her by the throat, his gauntleted hand tight around her neck. He murmured words indecipherable, low and breathless beneath the helmet. But Khalid knew. He knew she wasn’t safe.

  He knew he had to act.

  Her eyes met his.

  Despite being strangled to the point of fainting, they still gleamed. Khalid had no clue what she saw when she opened her eyes and looked at the world. This world that had taken everything from them, that had enslaved them.

  Khalid could not understand why she kept smiling.

  But he knew he wouldn’t let it happen again.

  The wooden door that was opened just a creak seemed irrelevant to him. The room they’d stayed in suddenly burst into sharp colour in his vision. His palms became slick with sweat as he steadied his dagger.

  “ARGH!”

  Khalid lunged from the doorway, bolting towards the knight, running as fast as he could, the wooden floorboards creaking loudly with every step he took.

  He drove the dagger through the joints of the armour, on the right side, slightly above the hips.

  The knight turned, his eyes full of horror through the slit of the helmet. Forcefully, he struck Khalid hard with his gauntlet as he staggered, blood already beginning to ooze from the gap in his armour.

  “K-Khalid!” Ari croaked, her voice failing her.

  Khalid fell into the bed frame, nearly hitting his head against the wall. More blood continued to leak from the man’s armour, dark and spreading across the metal plates, but Khalid did not relent.

  He charged once more.

  This time, he made sure to finish the job.

  Both of them fell to the floor. The man’s hands tightly around Khalid’s face, as he stared him straight in his eyes.

  …

  Khalid didn’t know how it happened; he just kept stabbing, making sure not a single one of that kind could hurt one of his people again. Even if he didn’t know Ari, he’d fight, he had to, he had no right but to fight.

  The dagger Ava gave him, it was excellent for the armour the knight wore, Khalid could only think of that.

  As he rammed his dagger repeatedly into the man.

  Squelching rhythmically came from his torso. Khalid repeated the motion, until his arms ached, until his vision was smeared with red. And even past that, he continued.

  “Die!” he yelled, “Die! Die! Die!”

  The knight had died long ago; he knew that, but that did not stop him from continuing to drive the dagger into his flesh. Khalid started with his torso, the initial point of impact, then, when the sound of his dagger entering his skin stopped producing blood, he moved upwards.

  His skin was pale. Khalid knew the Nasara were naturally paler, but he knew it was not just due to that. It was because of the blood Khalid had spilt from his body.

  Khalid continued to stab, thrust, and maim until the knight’s face was a mangled mess, eyeballs torn, lips shredded, and his face was unrecognisable.

  “Khalid!” Ari yelled, “Stop it, he’s dead! What are you doing!”

  Khalid ignored her. He finally understood the look Jaleel had that day, at Ayyadieh, the immense thirst for war, his hatred.

  He saw now why his father kept weapons from them at all times.

  Ari was the first one to hear them, the sound of approaching footsteps. Khalid grabbed his dagger and pointed it at the door.

  “Ari!” he yelled, “Those Nasara gave you a weapon, didn’t they?”

  She nodded. Khalid could see the fear in her eyes, not of who was about to come through the doorway.

  But of the blood-smeared mess Khalid knew he was.

  “Then pick it up!” he screamed, “Do you want to fight, or die!”

  She whimpered, tears streaming, and Khalid continued.

  “If you want to die, fine, but I can’t die, I will not die, even if it hurts me… even if it changes me.”

  When the door finally flew open, Khalid should’ve known who it would be.

  Ava walked through the door, her face already filled with worry, holding a wicker basket full of apples. She came in, one apple in her hand, feigning friendliness as she always did with them.

  Then she saw it, Khalid on top of the knight, his hands and dagger bloodied.

  She dropped her basket. Her hands were running through her hair frantically. Khalid saw her eyes; they were already red.

  But they became even redder after she looked upon him.

  She wept helplessly, Thomas waited at the doorway, and merely looked at the sight in disgust.

  Sorry…

  She repeated, embracing Khalid tightly. He felt her tears stream down his back as she continued. Her speech was sloppy; he already struggled to understand her. He’d picked up a bit, but not enough to understand it all, but he understood these words.

  I’m so sorry, how… how did I let it come to this…

  Khalid saw Ari, her face shocked, she pointed to Thomas, and he too, let out a singular tear, his fists balled.

  They sat, sorrowful and still, their silence occasionally broken by the man’s blood spitting out of his throat. In all of this, Khalid’s thoughts went back to Acre, all those years ago, with him, Jaleel and Samira on the ports of Acre.

  “Innocence is a rarity in the Holy Land.”