Chapter 10

Izmi's entourage consisted entirely of seasoned elites who had traveled with him through various countries for years; deserts, swamps, dense forests, and high mountains were merely parts of their daily lives.

The main group’s journey was not arduous, and their itinerary proceeded in an orderly fashion. Whenever supplies ran low, the designated oasis would appear before them. Aside from the intense heat during the day and the chill at night, the journey seemed relatively safe.

However, for lower-ranking members like Inanna, life was far more difficult.

Water was the most precious resource in the desert, yet her quota was minimal—just a few sips each day. She teetered on the brink of dehydration almost daily, her body growing darker and thinner in just a few days. Without any shelter in the desert and unable to leave Luca’s sight, even the simple act of relieving herself became a major challenge.

As a Chinese woman, her sense of shame was paramount. She endured this hardship by waiting until nightfall to slip behind the tent to relieve herself.

Luca observed this with disbelief. He had even discussed it privately with General Hazaz, who, living in an era when most women wore virtually nothing and Egyptian women even relieved themselves standing, couldn’t understand why Inanna waited until night to sneak behind the tent.

General Hazaz remarked, “No wonder the prince sought out Master Labalu; this foreign visitor’s behavior is truly strange.”

Luca agreed but neither wished to trouble the prince with such a mundane matter, nor seek the young sage’s wisdom on why this female slave was so adept at suppressing her physiological needs.

In the end, General Hazaz instructed Luca to keep a close watch on the female slave and, if necessary, to challenge her a bit to see how she coped—both to test her and to better understand her nature.

This was an age of absolute obedience. When Luca was told to make things difficult, he complied. Ten days had passed since leaving the last oasis, and the next one was still nowhere in sight. The water skin visibly sagged. Luca swallowed hard as he stared at Inanna’s throat before confiscating her water pouch.

Inanna knew that if this continued for more than a day, she would weaken from thirst, with no hope of mercy. Death seemed the only escape. Yet water was abundant in the desert—it was merely invisible to the naked eye.

As they made camp at dusk, Inanna asked Luca for a clay pot. She dug a shallow pit in the ground, placed the pot inside, then retrieved a condom she had previously used to bind her legs to stop bleeding. Under Luca’s watchful eye, she carefully cut it open and stretched it over the pit’s opening, smoothing sand around it to seal it.

She placed a small stone in the center of the membrane, shaping it into an inverted cone.

This method came from a survival guide she’d read long ago: if the theory was correct, the temperature drop at night would cause moisture in the pit to condense on the condom’s surface, forming droplets of water that would collect in the pot by morning—pure, distilled, and safe to drink.

If the guide was wrong, or if she had made a mistake, this very pit might become her grave.

Having completed the setup, Inanna endured the fiery dryness in her throat and fell asleep immediately. Luca had no idea what she was doing, saw nothing dangerous, and after binding her hands and feet, left her to rest.

Before dawn, Luca was jolted awake by Inanna’s pushing and shoving. Puzzled, since she was usually lazy and never rose without being called, he untied her.

She dashed to the spot where she’d buried the pot. The condom had collapsed under the weight and fallen into the pot’s bottom. Her eyes lit up as she quickly dug out the pot, shaking it to hear the sound of liquid splashing inside. It felt like a rebirth; she drank deeply, greedily, spilling some on the sand.

Luca stared in disbelief before snatching the pot from her, clutching it tightly, and scolding, “You reckless woman! Do you know how precious water is in the desert? How can you waste it on the ground?”

Inanna beamed at him with delight, as if to say, “So what if I waste some?”

After days of torment, Inanna finally had the right to hold her head high.

She now had the means to produce water, supplying herself endlessly. She no longer depended on their grudging daily dole, nor was her fate left to be decided by the merciless sands.

Luca, frustrated, reached to grab her, but she swiftly dodged. His shouts to stop roused the entire camp, even prompting the prince to robe himself and come out to investigate.

To Prince Izmi, Inanna’s nimble movements resembled those of a native desert mouse, darting among the dunes to evade Luca. Agile though she was, unfamiliarity with the terrain betrayed her; she stumbled into a sand pit and tumbled down a small dune, unable to climb back up for a long while.

Fearing she might have hit her head, Luca looked closer and saw her clutching her left foot, her oddly shaped shoe cracked at the toe, toes protruding through the worn material.

Shoes were precious in these times. Many common folk went barefoot; those better off wore woven straw sandals; only nobles could afford shoes made of leather or fine fabric.

Though the breaking of a shoe was upsetting, to Luca her crying was as if she had lost her parents in childhood.

She wept, tears mingling with sand, a pitiful and almost comical sight.

No one here truly understood Inanna's thoughts. Since awakening in that river, her circumstances had worsened. She had no knowledge of her location, only the resolve that moving forward was the way out.

Encountering this group—a mysterious prince, an unfamiliar kingdom, cruel and backward customs, and a bewildering youthful face that defied time—she inwardly sensed the era was wrong, even if she refused to admit it.

For a lone woman, if this suspicious expedition did not intend to kill her, then despite the hardships, she had shelter. Inanna planned to uncover the truth of this world, hoping to find a way home.

Only she and her clothing testified to her existence in modern civilization.

Now, her sneakers had accompanied her from valley to plain, finally succumbing to irreparable damage in the desert. She felt her hope of returning home wane alongside the fate of those shoes, compounded by indescribable fear and sorrow.

She remembered her vow never to speak aloud. That sorrowful sobbing was suppressed into dry retching, a safe outlet for her anguish.

General Hazaz frowned and smacked Luca’s head harshly. “What have you done now?!”

This time Luca was somewhat innocent. He handed the clay pot to General Hazaz, who, seeing it full of clear water, ignored Luca’s origins and knelt before the prince, exclaiming, “Your Highness! Water! This is water! The desert god’s blessed nectar!”

It was understandable that both General Hazaz and Luca lost their composure. Though an age deeply devoted to gods, most reverence was oral tradition; few had ever witnessed miracles.

Yet overnight, at the desert’s heart, a pot was filled with pure water. Such a phenomenon could only be explained by divine favor.

Prince Izmi observed this chaos coldly, ignoring the tearful general and his vow to sacrifice fifty sheep to the sun goddess Alina. He asked Luca directly, “Explain.”

Though he longed to kill fifty sheep himself, Luca was too poor to offer even a leg. He reluctantly recounted the entire story, including Inanna’s strange actions the night before. He speculated she had performed a mysterious ritual with simple tools, invoking divine mercy.

The prince listened to Luca’s ramblings and the near-sobbing sounds from beneath the dunes. He ordered his soldiers to bring the female slave before him.

Inanna’s face was smeared with tears and sand. Prince Izmi barely looked at her, and those few glances saw only filth and disarray.

He took the pot from General Hazaz, who clung to it desperately, and poured the entire contents over Inanna’s head. Bathing in the desert was an extravagance beyond even owning an iron pot. General Hazaz knelt helplessly before the prince, watching Inanna become a drenched mess, the water seeping into the sand, irretrievable. He struck his thigh in frustration and grief.

Prince Izmi remained impassive, as if the lavish gesture had not been his. The desert sun was rising, bringing heat, yet his voice was like a chilling wind as he told Luca, “Next time, do not let this female slave appear before me in such filth.”

Though still disheveled, Inanna was much cleaner after the wash. She looked at the prince with fear and confusion, startled by his unexpected generosity.

He moved his lips, his expression gentle but the warmth never reached his eyes. He said to her, “Slave, if you want water, learn to produce it yourself. If you cannot, and do not want to die of thirst,” he sneered, glancing at the kneeling camel, “the camel will give you what you need.”