Life was exhausting. Life was bland. Life was painful.

Those were the thoughts that kept assaulting the former scribe as she strode across the dunes. Her body hurt, not just her legs, but her entire being. Especially her lungs. After performing hours of anaerobic exercise, each load of air they held hurt like the nine hells. Her body screamed to stop, but her mind was louder. Stopping was death, but her eyelids were becoming heavier by the moment.

The unrelenting and ever-vigilant sun didn't make it easier.

It seemed to observe her and never moved its focus away from her, for it knew of her crimes.

Aloe almost crashed into the sand as she sobbed, remembering the blood in her hands. It still was there, only that it had long dried and now were nothing more than crumbling scabs.

Even though she had managed to recover herself, Aloe led her body to the ground once her speed was no longer lethal and sat down once her body stopped tumbling.

Where she could sob in peace.

"Ohhh…" She moaned, groaned, and grunted in pain. And as hurt as her body was, the origin of those noises was emotional, not physical. "I… what I've done…"

She knew everything had been out of her control, too fast for anyone to process, but that didn't stop Aloe from blaming herself. It was just too painful.

"Oh, Aya…" And that was the worst part of all. Knowing that she had left little Aya without a father.

Aloe could live with the fact that she was a murderer. She had been living with worse for a long time, way worse, but killing one of Aya's parents? That was killing her from the inside, one chunk at a time, to have done something so hideous if just by accident.

Just thinking about it made her hyperventilate.

It was simply too much to bear.

To relax herself, she poured all her vitality into a cumin seed to evolve it into a Blossomflame. Such activity would have knocked her unconscious before, but she now had enough vitality that if she took a vitality pill at the last moment with an empty stomach, she could evolve it without issues.

Consuming vitality relaxed her, though not as much as a good night's sleep or a ter'nar tea.

"Oh…" She moaned again. "I'll never have one of those again, will I?" Not only she had left behind the only living specimen of Na'mul Ter'nar, but she also didn't know how Karaim had originally evolved it. A vague hint was all she knew about the origin of the blue and white coiling tree.

The fugitive scribe uncorked one of her waterskins and took a lazy gulp out of it. She had barely managed to recover some food and water from the flames as she hadn't undone her luggage yet, meaning they still were stored in a thick leather backpack.

The water tasted incredibly under the harsh sun to her dehydrated body. This wasn't the first time she had stopped to rest, but this was certainly the first one she had drunk in many hours.

The sun hadn't come up when she departed from the oasis with everything that she could carry in her arms and back, and now it was already past noon.

But she knew she couldn't stop.

Heavens knew what was behind her.

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The faster she removed herself from the vicinity of Sadina, the sooner the wind would hide her footsteps in the shifting sands. For the first time ever, she wished for a sandstorm. The murderer let the hand that was holding the waterskin fall down as if it were weighed down by the very heavens.

"That's fine and all," she told to herself, "but where should I go now?"

She peered to the skies, but alas, no heavenly providence came to her. Considering she wasn't that religious of a person, that didn't surprise her.

"The assassins want me for some reason, perhaps I offended them by visiting the apothecary. And even if I hadn't…" Aloe painfully groaned, the smell of scorched meat caressing her nose. The memory of the scorched flesh. "Yeah, now I'm definitely in their sights."

Being a fugitive didn't exactly trouble her, her life was getting a bit monotonous as of late, and a little excitement couldn't do her bad. But jokes aside, it was painful to leave her previous life aside like that, discarding everything she had built and worked for. Everything vanished in a blink, with no chance of recovering it.

"And what worries me more is the sultanate. At least the assassins want me alive, Aaliyah… not so much." The fugitive chuckled, otherwise, she might have cried. Again. "She must have sent dweller riders through the roads to post my wanted face in every major city. I just can't outrun dwellers. This also means that the border will be alerted, even more than usual."

Escaping through Loyata was her best opportunity, but she wasn't stupid. Sure, avoiding customs was easy if you wanted to take a detour, but there were two big problems with that.

First, she didn't speak Loyatan. There were workarounds but not many, and the moment a dark-skinned Ydazi young and petite woman was discovered in a Loyatan village, Aaliyah would likely send assassins of her own if just to investigate the whispers of the snake-tongues.

Second, one couldn't overlook the temperature. Passed the Tokal mountain range, temperatures dropped dramatically, a solid ten degrees at minimum. If she were to cross the frontier unprepared, she would freeze to death. She couldn't downplay the freezing cold of Loyata, there were more than enough historical records and failed military expeditions to confirm that.

Apparently, the dry cold of the desert's night couldn't be compared to the humid one of the tundra or beyond.

"Ah…" Aloe groaned as she led her hand to her head. "I'm getting a headache. It would be so easy if I could just take a ship out of the country."

That had originally been her intent since the moment she left the palace of Asina. To just board a boat and leave everything behind, but at that time she was hurt, still bound to a wheelchair, and guarded by soldiers directly under Aaliyah's command.

"I wish I had done so when I had the chance." She whispered. "It doesn't matter leaving everything behind when you no longer have anything. If I had done so…" The murderer slammed her fist on the scorching sand. "…at least some lives would have been saved."

Sure, she would have never learned many of the Nurture stances, but that knowledge wasn't worth Jafar's life nor the little time Fikali had left.

"Oh, girl…" The thoughts of her dead dweller made her whimper. "Wasn't there a better outcome, uncle?"

Aloe recalled the last words of her uncle. "I'm sorry, little plant," he had said. The guard captain and apparent assassin was sorry for assaulting her and killing her mount, but Aloe knew that she wouldn't have felt sorrow for killing him if he had never uttered those words. If Jafar hadn't called her by her nickname, she wouldn't have inspected his corpse and found out who was under the mask, never to feel the pain that was wasting her away.

But that was fine.

This way she could feel but a fraction of what Aya would feel. Mirrah too.

"Ah, how long will it take for someone to find his body? Will a fellow assassin take his body to his family, or will they leave it to rot?" That thought made Aloe puke, especially after not even allowing her uncle's body to rest as she left as fast as she could. "Please heavens, let Aya and Mirah find Jafar's body. Give them closure, please."

Not even when she had been reaped by Aaliyah had she prayed, or at least not consciously. But knowing how she had devastated her family who she didn't share blood ties, made her search for a higher entity for help.

Not for her, but for Aya.

Aloe herself had been older when her father died, and that had devastated her. And she couldn't say she still was over the death of her mother. For Aya to lose her father at this young age and the hands of her cousin… Aloe couldn't even imagine the pain.

What she wanted to do was puke.

The murderer led her hand to her mouth, fighting to keep her insides out. Must hold the food. Can't waste the few I have.

With a heavy inspiration, so much so to make her lungs spasm from the repeated movement, Aloe stood up. Everyone was threatening to kill her. The sun, the shadows, the sultanate, and even, her own body.

She had no idea where to go, but getting far from Sadina would do for now before she became yet another heap of dust in the endless dunes of the Qiraji.