Loretta of the Lamp - The Fallout

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The Golden Palace was similar to the deserted streets of the highest reaches of Misbah, in that Loretta found it to be a place that had been altered over time and turned to a purpose other than what it had originally been created to be.

Remnants of the first walls could still be seen, laid out of beautifully carved stone in gentle and soft filigree patterns that came to the height of Loretta's shoulders. It was more a fence than a wall. But it had been made into the walls of a fortress by the heavy sandstone slabs that were stacked on top of it, reaching three times Loretta's height into the sky at least, and much too smooth for her to scale. She walked a full ring around the palace compound where it sat straddling the highest inhabitable points of the city. Loretta was sure the view from the inside down over the city must have been beautiful, much as the view into the compound from the bottom of the city near where the walls rose out of the plains must have been impressive. But Loretta wasn't interested in seeing the sights, she needed to get inside. She was sure that if the Djini King had kept Akil alive, he would be found somewhere within the boundaries of the palace.

Loretta still felt sick, from the moment she had woken through the flames and arrived on the top of the ziggurat until now, and she knew it was because of everything that had gone wrong, everything that she was intimately responsible for. She felt bad for blackmailing Bennou, but it had worked, and the ends had become more important than the means. There would be time for apologies later if Akil was still alive, even if she had meant everything she had said.

She stopped for a moment and sat down again, placing her head between her knees, giving herself a moment to consider everything she was about to do, to affirm that it was the right thing. She could make her own decision about what was right and wrong, just as much as Hess could. But Hess was wrong, Loretta was not a lover, nor a saviour. In fact, both words made her feel ill. She had a debt to pay and that was it. She owed it to Akil to right the wrong that had been done to him on her account.

"My mama told me crying was only for girls."

Loretta jerked her head up sharp. There was a boy with big blue eyes and curly brown hair standing in front of her. She frowned at him.

He stared back and said nothing for so long that Loretta wondered if it had even been him that spoke.

"Are you, like, waiting for an answer?" Loretta scowled at him, questioning for one cruel moment why of all the children in Misbah, had this one not been fed to the flames? Then she checked herself. It was a horrible thought to have.

"I don't know. Are you crying?" he said.

"No. But even if I was, I'm a girl, which suggests I am allowed," she pointed out, looking around behind him and up and down the street, wondering where his parents were, and in the many throngs of people that moved about this street, why they hadn't stopped or come back to collect him.

"You don't look like a girl," he replied.

Feeling obliged to partake in the conversation in penitence for thinking such horrible thoughts concerning him only moments earlier, Loretta asked, "Well what does a girl look like then?"

"Smaller than you. Maybe half your size."
The conversation was so ridiculous in the face of the horribleness of everything Loretta had faced in the last few days of her life that she had to laugh.

"What's funny?" the boy asked.

"What's your name?" Loretta asked him.

"Akil." The boy informed her with unfaltering confidence.

Loretta wondered if he recognised the shock and horror on her face. "I knew a boy called Akil once," she told him, dropping her knees and crossing them into a more friendly posture.