Light flooded the tent and tickled Arai's face. She opened her eyes heavily and tried to sit up. But she felt two hands on her shoulders and was pushed back again. She looked at the hands and finally recognized who they belonged to. Ramius stood over her and eyed her.
"Are you feeling better?" He asked and sat down again.
No Answer. Arai had turned her head and was silent.
"Stubborn as always, so you can only be better," Ramius said and leaned over her again. "At least look at me."
Again no answer. If she looked him in the eye, the same thing would happen as last time. He would hypnotize her and she didn't care. Ramius seemed to have noticed her thoughts because he laughed softly and finally forced her to look at him.
"You should know that I never make the same mistake twice."
Arai looked at him defiantly. Ramius was up to something, you could tell by his smug grin."What are you going to do again?" She asked softly and looked bitterly at him.
“Something funny.” Ramius had got up and walked to the tent entrance.
When he turned to her, he had put on an insane grin. Apparently something was going on out there. Arai sat up and her gaze slid to a mirror. When she winced, Ramius laughed even louder.
"Looks good on you," he said spitefully. "If you have the time, you can come outside and see my new victim."
He disappeared from the tent, leaving Arai alone. She went to the mirror and looked inside. Her eyes had changed. The dark brown had turned into an abysmal black. Full of hate, pain and cold.
This can not be.
She closed her eyes only to open them again to find that those black pearls were staring at her again. But were they different yesterday, before Ramius splashed the water on her face? In thought she shook her head.The eyes didn't change color immediately because of water. Something must have happened when she passed out. What exactly that was, she still had to find out. She stepped out of the tent uncertainly and looked around. The sun burned down from the sky and blinded her at first. Then she heard a scream. A man's scream.
Arai followed the voice and stopped in front of a second tent. When she entered, it was as if her blood had frozen to ice. Ramius and another, dangerous-looking man, stood in front of a prisoner. This prisoner looked up just as Arai entered.
"Sabir," she gasped softly.
"Did I promise too much?" Asked Ramius and took Arai's hand. "I figured I'd ask your foster father if he'd mind if we get married."
Sabir stared at Arai. Hatred was reflected in his eyes and he tore at the chains. Sabir had always been a damned proud warrior. These chains had to drive him to white heat."Mahina ..." He looked her straight in the eye and she struggled not to look away. "I'm disappointed in you."
He uttered these words very calmly. But they hit Arai harder, as if he had yelled at them. The coldness and indescribable contempt in his voice was the worst.
"A-abe-r i-I ..." She stuttered and broke off in shame.
Ramius laughed nastily. He enjoyed seeing Arai suffer.
"Enough now. Talib, bring our guest into his room." Ramius bowed profusely to Sabir and laughed.
Talib did as he was told and dragged the former captain past Arai. He whispered something to her as she passed.
"You have not only betrayed yourself, but also what is important to you."

“What do you mean, the captain is gone?” Seth snapped at the soldier, who was a good head taller than himself.
"Sorry, but he disappeared. Last night," said the person addressed and became a good deal smaller.“What's going on here?” Atemu had stepped up to the two of them.
“My Pharaoh.” Seth and the soldier bowed at the same time and Seth asked the soldiers to tell what was going on.
He cleared his throat briefly and seemed to be considering. Seth commented on this reflection with a bored sigh.
"Last night we saw the captain for the last time," began the soldier, "since then he has disappeared. Nobody knows where he is. But since his house was pretty devastated, we assume that he did not go anywhere voluntarily. "
Atemu's eyes had narrowed to slits. He knew who was behind it again.
“Sorry, I don't know who, sorry, my Pharaoh.” The soldier bowed again and then went back to his colleagues.
Seth wanted to say something, but Atemu shook his head.
"The captain," he said quietly, "took care of Arai. He raised her. It's no wonder he's gone. She seems to want to destroy everything that reminds her of her past.""I think you are doing you wrong", Seth said and nodded weakly. "Arai did not turn away from us voluntarily, I thought you understood that by now."
“Seth, don't hold it against me, but I don't intend to discuss this topic now.” Atemu turned to the palace and saw, to his great bitterness, that Nefertari was running after him again. "I have completely different problems."
Seth turned around too and nodded.
"I can understand," he said softly. "Good luck then. I'll take care of the army a little, otherwise it will never work."
He went, leaving Atemu alone. But he was not alone for long, because Nefertari had reached him and fell around his neck.
"I have the feeling that you are evading me," she whispered softly in his ear.
If you knew how right you are, Atemu mumbled in his mind and freed himself from the grip.
"I'm just very busy, you know?"
"So much that you don't have time for your future wife?""Unfortunately yes."
“I don't believe you.” She clung to him again and waited. "You're only getting me off you one way."
“And that would be?” With her embrace she almost pushed his breath away and he was ready to do anything, as long as she let go of him again.
Nefertari took this as a request and pressed her lips to his. Atemu was so surprised that he didn't react at first and just let her do it. But suddenly he realized what she was doing and this time pulled her away with a little more force.
"Please, I don't have time for something like that at the moment."
"But Atemu!" Protested Nefertari and was about to hang on to him a third time, but Atemu dodged and shook his head again.
"When we have won the fight that is ahead of us. Until then, we all have to be careful and keep our eyes and ears open."
Nefertari snorted and sighed.
"So my father was right when he said you were quite a coward.What are you afraid of? From that bunch of thieves out there? "
“No, not in front of them.” He laughed bitterly and turned back to her. "Let's just say you have a person or two I would rather not face."
"Your entire army is against them and you still have doubts? You are really weak. That's not how I imagined my husband to be."
"Likewise," Atemu mumbled quietly and made his way to the training ground.
Nefertari stayed behind. The anger was written on her face. She wasn't going to marry that coward. It would get that far. Before marrying him, she would voluntarily renounce all servants. Sighing, she went back to the palace.
We really have to make the greatest sacrifices, she thought.

In the meantime, Atemu had found Seth. This was just having the soldiers carry out trial battles.
“My Pharaoh.” Seth nodded to him. "I see you got rid of them."
He grinned crookedly and looked at Atemu."Yes, luckily," he countered laconically and looked at the soldiers. "How does it look like?"
"You are fit, but-"
"- you consider our chances to be pretty slim", Atemu finished the sentence. "Believe me, I feel the same way. We both know what Arai is capable of, but Ramius is still virtually unknown to us. Of course, we saw what he can do, but we didn't really see him fight."
Shaking his head, the Pharaoh broke off and looked at Seth. He had just listened to him in silence and nodded every now and then.
"We have to wait," said the priest quietly, "maybe the captain will manage to escape. Then maybe he can tell us how many opponents are waiting for us."
Atemu laughed softly and bitterly.
"If Ramius doesn't want anyone to flee, then no one can either."
"But-"
"Unfortunately that's the way it is", Atemu interrupted him. "We have an example of that, don't we?"
Seth was silent. This subject really bothered Pharaoh and he and the rest of the priests could not do anything about it.Nothing they said would change that, absolutely nothing.
Now both stood in silence in front of the army of soldiers, farmers and townspeople. Whether they could win this battle was in the stars.

It was already getting dark when Arai had finally overcome her rigidity. She had been sitting in the tent and Sabir's words kept going through her head. Again and again she had his eyes before her. Everything seemed to repeat itself. Finally, with her head bowed slightly, she got up and went outside. There it ran into no one other than Ramius. He must have come by by accident.
"There you are," he said with a grin. "I've been looking for you half the day."
"And I hid from you for half the day," she said, looking past him.
"Actually, I wanted to ask you if you want to keep watch over your foster father, but apparently not." Ramius waited.
Arai looked at him in disbelief. He couldn't mean that seriously.Finally she gave up.
"Which tent?"
Ramius pointed to a small tent that was probably just out of philanthropy. She walked slowly towards it. Everything in her resisted it. But she wanted to talk to Sabir, explain to him that she would not marry Ramius. He wouldn't believe her. She knew that, but maybe she could help him escape. Then at least her conscience was calmed, at least a little. She came to a halt in front of the tent entrance. Carefully she pulled aside the cloth that served as the door and stepped inside. The next moment she winced.
Sabir was a terrible sight. His arms were still tied behind his back, his head bowed. When he looked up, she saw that there were dark circles under his eyes and more than one scratch.
"Hi-lo," she stuttered softly.
No Answer. He just kept