She fell on the forest floor. As soon as she believed that Basila was too far away.
They had lost it all. But she hadn't. It was her little niece who was going to bring Order back together.
She grinned.
Mehmed had promised her forever. And yet, he still had a harem. Sadiha knew that it was only a matter of days before one of the slave girls gave the man a son.
She was going to rule. For just a short while. Just enough to bring…
"Irina," she heard it. His voice. Only shamans could wield magic among the horselords.
But she was a Blood Elf. And even with the tumor growing inside of her, a tumor, which had it been a child would have forced her to remind herself that she was a woman, she was a force of nature.
"Husband," she told him, but not in his tongue, but in her own.
She was going to die as Sadiha, yes, but not just as Sadiha, but as Sadiha Sultan.
"No, you will die as the weak girl who lured me into her bed with summer wine," Mehmed almost sounded fond of her.
Sadiha blinked. He had not sounded so for a very long time now. For so long, that she felt that he, of all people, had forgotten that they were married.
"Summer wine? Was that what that was, husband?" she giggled. "No, it was no summer wine. Just made to taste so."
She smiled, a smile full of teeth. Teleporting herself back to her husband's side.
They smiled at one another. Him, with the scimitar in his hands and the guards at his side.
And her, with her dagger in her small ones.
"Sadiha, I know you are dying. I spoke to the healer. Why not die in comfort?" For a split second, she wanted to tell him that she'd rather die under the hooves of horses than by his side, his hand in hers in her final moments. "Irina… was there never a chance for us?"
Sadiha was strong. She had weathered the challenges of Mehmed's harem time and time again. She knew how to keep him in her bed.
But Irina… Irina was a foolish girl.
Sadiha refused to go back to being the girl who had thought she could buy her family's freedom with her own body.
Selling it to the handsome Sultan.
Who didn't even keep his word.
"Firestorm!" Sadiha roared.
"Whirlwind!" Mehmed jumped into the flames, his limbs moving quickly. His scimitar saving him from the heat. Making his weapon all the more deadly.
Sadiha smiled. Oh, so they were to dance! One final dance, then!
"Earthquake!"
The earth shook under her. She was tossed to the ground. So was he.
They looked at one another. Mehmed began to try to stand up.
For a second, she was Irina again. The girl who had fallen in love. The girl who had believed in the kindness of a young man.
But then he just went past her.
Towards the crumbling exit.
He had never loved her, she finally realized. She had been spoils of war. Spoils which were even sweeter, for the fact that they had been freely given.
"No, you don't!" Sadiha roared. She stood on shaky legs.
If she was going down, then the Pearl of the World was going down with her!
"Mete…" she began.
Her roar died in her throat. She looked down. Registered the scorching hot piece of metal in her throat.
"Insane bitch!" Mehmed roared, limping out.
Leaving Sadiha alone. Leaving her to become Irina once more.
She couldn't speak.
Maybe it was for the best. Maybe she had not thought things through, and had she actually managed to destroy the city, then she would have created a great evil.
But she was old. Fifty years she had spent by Mehmed's side. He was even older.
There was no way for her to get what she had lost as Irina, but she was Sadiha now.
No, she punched the ruin of her apartments' floor with a bloody fist.
She was Sadiha SULTAN!
"A soul for a life," she offered. She offered it to Mehmed's God. The Old one he still worshiped even when he knelt to the new one. The one he forced her to convert to. "Is a good deal."
Something growled in her mind. Was that thing really a wolf? Or was it something even worse?
But what did an Angelic had to fear of wolves? She was a Blood Elf. Romulus and Remus were raised by a mother wolf!
"A soul for a life," she continued, for Mehmed's little nephew was milder than his uncle. A man who loved his wives and children and wanted a peaceful and quiet land. "In favor of another."
"You lie," the guttural something told her. "You are not doing it for Osman. You are doing it for Basila."
"For Icarus," Sadiha let all of her spite drip from her soul like poison. "Isbul's son. The Princess Irina's son."
The guttural demon, for Sadiha had no illusions that such a thing could only be a demon, roared.
She could feel as Mehmed's soul crumbled, was forced out of his body and into the place where she was going to.
The Steppe.
Well, Sadiha had promised the man forever. That not even death was going to do them apart.
She was no liar.
The woman who was sixty-six closed her eyes. She looked not a day over thirty.
The very picture of what Basila could be one day.
Sadiha said a prayer, a horselord's prayer, in her mind for her dear niece.
She knew that horselords made for poor husbands.
But she hoped the girl was smarter than she. That she could give the boy a son.
That she, unlike Irina and Sadiha after her, could have a family. Even if it meant being a part of a harem.
"Sweet dreams," she heard Mehmed's voice calling her from the Steppe. He didn't sound angry. There was a softness to his voice. "Do you think we will have a chance now?"
Sadiha breathed out her last breath.
A smile on her boiling lips.
The palace where she had been born, lived and died burning all around her corpse.
A soul for a life…
But how many lives?