She watched the general, then, at Typhon. She lowered her head and felt tears running down her cheeks.
"You promised me..."
The general showed a large smile. He displayed all his supremacy, proud of his maneuver. He was like a solid golem contemplating the broken creature at his feet.
He was watching her from afar, behind his desk. Content of the situation.
"You could die fighting the dragon, I have no idea by which magic you survived. I wanted to offer you both a glorious death instead of being punished for treason. What a shame to lose elements like you. You always were weak, princess, but I would never expect you to make my best man as weak as you."
The general stood here slapping his desk.
"It's all you, you did this. He fell in love with you and you killed him instead of her. Are you happy you spared her life now? Will you be the obedient dog you were supposed to be when your father sold you?"
Arja raised her head. The general was speaking even louder, he was now literally laughing at her face.
"You didn't know, right? The king sold you. You were useless to him. He sold you to send Ulrich to the mountains because he heard some tribe could make him strong again. He sold you to save your brother, you are just a pathetic creature."
Arja opened her eyes. Her brother was alive? Her heart bumped and she felt surprisingly alive. She grabbed the knife in her sleeve and sliced the throat of the man at her left. Then she stood up and ran. The body fell on the floor, she stepped on it and jumped.
She placed her arms in front of her face. She didn't think about what she was doing. She just took the only escape possible, the window.
It was around twenty meters high. As she was falling she realized that she had a low chance to survive. She saw the floor getting closer and closed her eyes. After all, she had no chance to survive in this office too. As she fell, she felt the corners of her mouth turn up. The thought of meeting Typhon on the other side gave her the strength to face death with bravery.
She crashed, and then, nothing.
She had a complete blackout, she didn't remember anything. Not her bones breaking with the impact, her head smashing the floor so strongly that half of her teeth were expelled out of her mouth.
She didn't remember her body dislocating. Only Typhon's face was in front of her, smiling at her. She felt her hand caressing his cheek and she told him with all the love she could.
"Sorry and thank you."
Suddenly she heard a voice growling somewhere near her. She felt as if she had no eyes to see who was speaking.
"Of course, she says sorry to the dead. I should never come to her. And what for?"
Another voice answered the first one.
"Because he ordered me to. Shut up and save her life as he asked. We don't want to disappoint him."
She could hear some more complaints but everything became dark again. She needed a few days of coma before finally opening her eyes, she didn't expect to be alive and was the first to be surprised to touch her body.
She was in big pain and she had many wounds that didn't heal yet. She tried to stand up but she felt very weak and had to use a stick to raise her heavy body. She watched all around her and saw that she was in a tent similar to Zuline's. She went out of the tent limping and she saw that she was in Rika's desert again.
After seeing she was in the desert she understood that the feminine voice was Zuline's voice. She searched for her and rapidly found her. Zuline came first.
"You can walk! That's fantastic Arja. We didn't expect you to heal so fast. Please sit and eat something with us. "
Arja followed her, she was not hungry. The loss of Typhon was too brutal and too hard to process for her, for now. She ate the bowl Zuline gave her without conviction. Zuline smiled at her.
"I see that you desire to survive. He would be very happy for this."
Arja was still in shock and needed time to process where she was and to who she was speaking.
"Zuline, how did I come back here? How did you know what happened?"
Zuline smiled at her with tenderness.
"Someone very important wants you to survive, he appeared to me and told me what was happening. We rushed outside with Gawanda and we rescued you. By chance we arrived at the right moment, we saw you when you were falling. That was incredibly brave and stupid of you, but well, it worked and you could escape."
Arja was about to ask who these persons were but she heard the other voice grumbling behind her back. She turned her head slowly and she saw a troll. Like the ones from the legends. He was tall and thin, his skin was green-pale, his head was elongated and he had two tusks going out of his jawbone. He had a severe expression and came to Arja directly, he took her hand and checked her pulse.
"Ok, you can stay outside. I will stay one or two days to be sure you survive and then I leave."
Zuline laughed, Gawanda left immediately to his tent without any more words.
"Trolls are not friendly, they stay between themselves. Gawanda's tribe tolerates us Jessadians only because we are originally from the same land. He is the best healer of the worlds."
Arja was stupefied by the events. That was too much to process. She took a deep breath and stood up.
"I am sorry Zuline, I am a bit tired."
Zuline nodded and Arja came back to the tent. Once inside she took her pile of clothes next to the bed and took out Typhon's letter from it. She read it once again, trembling. He was her reason to live and even if her brother was alive somewhere. That could be just another lie. Typhon, him, was real. He was giving her the strength to walk, to surpass herself, and to do her best constantly. Now that he was gone there was nothing left.
She lay down on the bed and slept for a long moment again, holding the letter tight on her.