Chapter 11: The Embervale's Secrets
Zamira's POV
The darkness pressed against Zamira's chest, a familiar weight that made her lungs ache. In her dream, she was back in the camp — though it wasn't the camp anymore; it was a labyrinth of shadows that whispered cruelty in every corner. Cold stone walls loomed, damp and unforgiving. Distant shouts bounced off them, not loud enough to understand, but loud enough to make her heart hammer and her stomach twist. She could feel the invisible chains around her wrists, the cold bite of fear, the small, suffocating certainty that she could never escape.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. A shadow, just beyond the corner, shifting in ways it shouldn't. A muffled scream drifted through the hall, and she froze, unable to run, unable to breathe. The air was thick with something she couldn't name — dread, memory, and the ache of being utterly alone.
Then a voice — sharp, urgent, and achingly familiar — cut through the nightmare.
"Zamira!"
Her eyes snapped open. Rosalith was crouched beside her bed, shaking her gently. The lantern's glow painted the room in soft amber, warming the chill in her bones. Rosalith's hand brushed a loose strand of hair from her face, steady, grounding, real.
"You're shaking," Rosalith whispered. "It's okay… it was just a dream. You're safe."
Zamira tried to speak, but the words refused her. Her chest rose and fell in uneven gasps. After a long moment, she finally managed a whisper:
"I… I saw it again…"
Rosalith's hand stayed on hers, fingers warm and steady. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Zamira hesitated. To speak was to pull the nightmare closer, to invite the fear back into the waking world. But the sincerity in Rosalith's eyes, the way she leaned in like she could hold the weight of Zamira's terror, gave her courage.
"It… it's the fear," she said slowly. "Not just the camp. The loneliness… the helplessness. The feeling that no one could ever reach me. That even if I survived, the world would never let me be safe again."
Rosalith nodded, soft and understanding. "I… I think I understand more than you might expect."
Zamira's gaze fixed on her friend. She had always seen Rosalith as cheerful, kind, almost untouchable. But there was something darker beneath that smile, something she'd never shared. "You…?"
Rosalith's breath was slow, measured, as if pulling her own memories from the depths of a locked chest. "I had… a family once. My parents were… wonderful. Kind. Loving. But… I wasn't their only child. I had three older siblings… and they… they were cruel. From the moment I could remember, they…" Her lips tightened, eyes drifting to the floor. "…they beat me, trapped me, humiliated me. From age seven to fourteen, I… I spent most of that time locked in a cell. Alone. Tortured. Forgotten. Sometimes… I thought I would die there and no one would notice."
Zamira's chest tightened. The image of a young Rosalith, trapped and abandoned by her own siblings, made her stomach churn with helpless anger. "I… I had no idea…" she whispered.
"No one did," Rosalith said quietly, a hint of pride breaking through the sorrow. "Because I couldn't tell. I had to survive. I had to… hide the pain, hide the fear, hide everything that made me weak. And then… at fourteen, they… someone came. Someone said they needed the youngest child of the Embervale Court. Me. They brought me to Qasratul Jinan … that was when I… started over. But the scars… they never leave, do they?"
Zamira's hands trembled as she reached for Rosalith's. "I… I can't imagine… what that was like. But… thank you… for telling me."
Rosalith's eyes softened. "I don't tell anyone. Not really. But… I trust you."
The quiet between them stretched, filled only by the soft creak of the dormitory floor and the occasional sigh of the wind outside. Zamira felt a fragile warmth bloom in her chest — the first in a long time. She wanted to say more, to share her own burdens, but she remembered the rule she had lived by all her life: never show weakness.
Instead, she spoke of what she could: the nightmare that had brought her here. "I… I dream about the camp. The fear… the emptiness. Even when I wake, it follows me. I feel… trapped in it, sometimes. I don't know how to shake it off."
Rosalith squeezed her hand. "I understand. I know that kind of fear. The one that doesn't vanish with sunrise. But… you're not alone in it anymore. Not with me."
For a long while, they simply held each other's hands, the silent communion stronger than any words. Zamira could feel the weight of Rosalith's past and the strength it had forged. She understood now that bravery was not the absence of fear, but the courage to endure it, again and again.
Then, almost on a whim, a spark of thought crossed her mind. "We… should make a plan," she said, voice small but firm.
Rosalith raised an eyebrow, curious. "A plan?"
"Yes," Zamira said, a small smile breaking through the lingering shadows. "Something just for us. Something secret. A way to… remind ourselves that we have some control. Some piece of the world that belongs to us, not to fear or cruelty or nightmares."
Rosalith's lips curved faintly. "I like that. What kind of plan?"
Zamira's eyes glinted with determination. "We'll train together. Protect each other. Amd protect Nova . Learn from each other. Make each other stronger. One day… we'll have our mark on the world. Not the cruel world that tried to break us… but the one we choose to shape." And the three of us will be strongest.
Rosalith nodded, the faintest smile tugging at her lips. "I promise. Together."
They leaned closer, foreheads touching lightly. Zamira felt a warmth she hadn't known for years. Fear still lingered at the edges of her mind, but it was softened now, tempered by trust, shared pain, and hope.
The night deepened around them, the dormitory quiet except for the occasional creak of the floorboards and the soft sigh of the wind outside. Together, they whispered the small details of their secret plan — quiet giggles mixing with serious whispers, imagining clever tricks, daring escapes, ways to protect each other, ways to fight back when the world tried to crush them.
By the time sleep finally returned, Zamira felt Rosalith's hand over hers, steady and real. She closed her eyes with a sense of fragile hope. Even in the darkest dreams, even in the shadow of past horrors, they had each other. And for now… that was enough.
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