Down to Two
Erik awoke in a sweat. He'd had a premonition. He hadn't had one in a while and his premonitions over the course of time had been deadly accurate. He looked over at the sleeping form of Amalia, curled up in a nest of blankets under the open night sky. Not far away, Nadir kept watch. Erik had arranged for a ship to take them from the Turkish port to which they were headed to Greece, and from there, they would travel with the horses as far as they could go and then board a train that would eventually take them to France.
Erik would not consider abandoning the horses after all they had been through together. Isra, the black stallion and Baraz, Nadir's grey one, had been staunch allies in their escape and travel, never wavering despite the hardship of the terrain. He would bring them home, no matter what the cost.
Home. He smiled to himself at the word. He dared to imagine the three of them arriving in Rouen, taking possession of his family estate, and making it a far more welcoming place than it had ever been in his dark and distant past. He would be in control now and it would be a place of light and music. He could imagine the beautiful Amalia in gowns designed just for her. She had a lovely voice and he planned to help her to shape it, to train her to use it properly.
Still, the premonition bothered him. He had seen himself and Nadir, each alone on a horse, and Amalia… she was not in the vision at all. He shuddered. Here was a woman who had seen him and embraced him for who and what he was. Who loved him for himself, and, although the fulfillment of that love was still but a promise between them, he worried that it might never become a reality.
After all, who was he to deserve any kind of happiness. He had blood on his hands.
Nadir came and sat down beside him. His friend had given up a life of protection by the Shah to help Erik to escape his death sentence. Though Erik had trouble expressing his gratitude to Nadir, Nadir understood that Erik's sometimes scathing remarks to him were said with affection. "So be it," Nadir thought, "we are such good friends that we are now almost family. Erik will not admit this, but I know his heart is good, and that he needs me."
"What is troubling you, my friend," Nadir inquired, quietly, so as not to disturb Amalia.
"Nothing I want to burden you with, Daroga. Just my black conscience, keeping me awake." He smiled grimly. Dawn wasn't far off. They still had a ways to travel, maybe two nights and a day until they reached the port, and the steamer that was expecting them and the horses.
Amalia, lay sleeping and still dreaming as the night gradually lost its depth. In her mind, there was a blue sky. There was a turquoise sea and a small boat upon it. She saw the two stallions, side by side, grazing on tufts of grass and she saw a hand, black gloved, reaching out to her.
What no one noticed was Amalia stretching in her sleep, and her foot loosening a small rock beneath which rested a black viper, the deadliest and most poisonous snake of the region in which they made camp.
Neither Erik, nor Nadir, noticed the disturbed snake coiling itself to strike. And as the hand in Amalia's dream grasped hers, she let out a small gasp, as two venom filled fangs sank into her heel.
The sun rose turning the sky pink and a cerulean blue not far behind it. Erik and Nadir watched this beauty welcoming one of the last days left to travel stealthily over the hostile terrain, with one eye ever open for any of the Shah's mercenaries. Erik turned to look at Amalia. Then he looked again, more closely. And his heart stopped briefly, before resuming to beat against the absurdity of carrying on when his future now seemed to have come to an end.