(POV: Maisha)
The prison breathed like a living thing. The sandstone walls sighed with the weight of centuries, each curve and hollow carved by hands long forgotten, each shadow holding whispers of the dead.
Heat lingered even after dusk, clinging to Maisha's skin, carrying with it the smell of dust, sweat, and dried blood. She had grown up in these caverns, learning to move as silently as the air currents that slipped through cracks in the stone.
Her mother had taught her how to vanish, how to strike, how to bury softness until it suffocated. Yet, even as her body obeyed those lessons, her heart longed for something else, something her mother called weakness.
Tonight, weakness brought her here. She slipped down the narrow passage toward the lowest cell, her steps careful on the sand-strewn floor.
No lamp lit her way, only the faint gleam of moonlight spilling in through cracks above, turning the prison into a shifting maze of shadows. She carried no torch, for she needed none. Silence was her torch, memory her guide.
When she reached the cell, she stopped in the darkness just beyond the bars. Her eyes adjusted quickly. There, chained to the wall, lay the man.
Leonardo.
She had heard the whispers from the guards—his name spoken like both a warning and a dare.
The Spanish commander who had cut down rebels as though they were wheat. A man loyal to a king oceans away. A man her mother swore was dangerous even in chains.
Maisha should have kept her distance. She should have obeyed Kara's command and left him to rot. But curiosity was a weight on her chest, heavier than any order. So she stayed, pressed against the wall, and watched.
He slept fitfully, his head tilted against the stone, sweat beading his brow. His lips moved, forming words she could not always understand. But when the syllables caught, she recognized fragments—Spanish prayers, perhaps, or names spoken into the dark.
"Mateo…" The name slipped from his lips, raw with longing.
Maisha tilted her head, listening. Who was Mateo? Brother, comrade, friend? The way he said it carried no hatred, only grief. It made her heart twist.
Her gaze wandered over him. His chest rose and fell steadily, his body lean but marked with wounds. Some were fresh, bandaged poorly by the guards. Others were scars, old battles written across his skin like scripture.
She had seen scars before; every warrior bore them. But his were not trophies, not carved for pride. They looked like burdens carried too long.
She crouched lower, keeping to the shadows, studying him the way one might study a storm cloud, knowing it was dangerous, yet unable to look away. His strength unsettled her.
Even bound, even weakened, he seemed unbroken. His jaw was set, his body tense, as if he fought still, even in sleep.
Maisha pressed her palm against the stone wall, feeling the vibration of her own pulse through the rock. Something stirred in her chest—a strange recognition. Here was a man caged like an animal yet refusing to be anything but himself. Here was defiance wrapped in flesh.
Her mother had told her once that defiance was a poison, more deadly than any blade. Yet, looking at him, Maisha felt the opposite. His refusal to break lit something inside her, a fragile spark she had never known she carried.
The silence deepened. Water dripped from somewhere high above, echoing like a heartbeat in the cavern. Leonardo shifted, murmured again in Spanish, and then fell still.
His head lolled to the side, and for a moment, Maisha almost thought he looked…peaceful.
Peace. The one thing she had never found in this prison, the one thing she had always craved.
Her throat tightened. She wanted to step closer, to reach through the bars; to prove he was real and not some phantom dream conjured by her restless heart. But she stayed rooted, afraid, not of him, but of herself.
She had been taught all her life that compassion was weakness. Yet here she was, risking her mother's wrath to watch a stranger sleep. And not just any stranger, but an enemy, a man her people considered a monster.
Still, she could not leave.
Maisha shifted slightly, her movements soundless. Her eyes never left him. She tried to memorize the way his chest rose, the curve of his mouth when he whispered, the faint tremor in his hands. These details carved themselves into her mind like new etchings in the sandstone walls.
Why him? Why now?
The question burned inside her, unanswered.
For the first time in her life, Maisha felt that her curiosity was not a weakness, but a kind of rebellion. Watching him was dangerous, forbidden, reckless, and yet it made her feel alive in a way nothing else had.
Her lips parted, but no words came. Not yet.
For now, she remained the shadow in the sand, the silent witness to a man who, even in chains, refused to be broken.
And though she told herself she would leave soon, her feet stayed rooted to the spot, her heart unwilling to let go of the sight of him.
***
The sound of footsteps came first, measured, deliberate, echoing through the cavern like a drumbeat of authority. Maisha stiffened. She knew that rhythm anywhere.
Her mother.
Kara moved like a shadow given flesh, each step smooth, unhurried, yet carrying the weight of danger. The faint flicker of torchlight from the corridor reached the bars of the cell, and Leonardo stirred, his head lifting just slightly. He did not see her at first. He only sensed the change, the shift in the air that warned of a predator near.
Maisha slid back into the darkness, pressing herself against the wall. Her pulse quickened, but her face remained composed. To show fear around Kara was to invite ruin.
The torchlight grew brighter until Kara emerged fully, her presence filling the space as though the cavern itself bent to her will. Her tall frame was draped in a dark cloak, her braided hair bound tightly against her head, her eyes sharp and cold. She paused before the cell, lifting the torch just enough to cast light across Leonardo's face.
He squinted, his jaw tightening. His chains rattled as he shifted, pulling against them with quiet defiance.
Kara studied him for a long moment, then spoke, her voice low and steady, the words slipping from her tongue like a blade drawn from its sheath.
"Usiende karibu naye."
Do not go near him.
The warning was not aimed at Leonardo. It was for Maisha. Her mother did not turn her head, did not even glance toward the shadows where Maisha stood, yet the words struck her like a blow.
Maisha's lips pressed into a thin line. She stayed silent, her breath shallow, and her body taut with the effort of stillness. Kara had not seen her, but she knew. She always knew.
Leonardo tilted his head slightly, as though he sensed there was more in the cavern than just Kara and himself. His eyes searched the darkness, but Maisha remained hidden, her back pressed to the wall.
Kara crouched in front of the bars, torchlight painting her features in harsh relief. "You will live," she said in Spanish, her tone clipped, every syllable weighted with disdain. "But do not mistake life for freedom."
Leonardo met her gaze without flinching. "Ya veremos," he muttered under his breath.
Kara's lips twitched into something that was neither a smile nor a scowl. She straightened, turned, and with the same quiet steps, disappeared back into the corridor. The torchlight receded until the cavern was swallowed once again in darkness.
Maisha exhaled, only realizing now that she had been holding her breath. Her mother's warning echoed in her ears, not as a command, but as a reminder: Kara saw more than she revealed. Curiosity was a dangerous luxury.
Still, Maisha lingered. She could feel Leonardo's gaze searching the dark, though he could not see her. For a moment, it almost felt as though he knew she was there, that somehow, across the gulf of language, chains, and fear, he could sense her watching.
Her chest tightened. She wanted to speak, to break the silence with a word, a whisper, anything that would bridge the distance between them. But her mother's voice rang louder in her mind than her own.
"Usiende karibu naye."
So she stayed in the shadows, her curiosity masked beneath silence, her heart thundering in rebellion.
When she finally pulled herself away, her steps light as falling sand, she carried with her not just the echo of her mother's warning, but the image of Leonardo—defiant, unbroken, and impossibly human.