At every offence, he rebuffs my blade. He is strong in every respect – size, speed, even range. But the most maddening thing of all is that his sheer will, without his affinity, outmatches my own as if this is a vendetta, not a mere battle. And this is afractionof his strength. He could toss his weapon and fight with fists against my blades and still win. He could move slower, yet still outstrip me in strength. His movements are a tricky calculus; he never wastes a breath so he can outlast me.
Heisbetter. In every possible way. I cannot win, not against his conviction.
We circle each other like crazed beasts and when he advances again, he proves his masterful approach in the art of knife fighting. I receive a blow to the side, a kick to my bad leg, another slash at my neck. His blade kisses flesh like a sickeningly obsessed lover.
‘I understand now,’ I sputter with a bitter laugh, twisting away from a slash. ‘You want me so injured that I can no longer duel our captain. You want me to forfeit the Duxzam.’
He does not deny it. No matter my attempts to endure his pace – my high arches, my low swoops – nothing works.Nothing. At last, he throws me to the ground.
‘You are sickening, Qabil’s spawn,’ I hiss, cursing him.
‘As sick as you.’ He digs his foot into my abdomen, and I cry out.‘Concede.’
‘Is this the point you wish to make? Never against your kind.’ I am seething through bloodied teeth. This is a different kind of cruelty, where emotions are as painful as fists. ‘You stomp upon my limbs, spit in my face. Tell me,’ I try to breathe, ‘are we both not monsters?’
‘Monster?’He stoops down. ‘I break my body every day to destroy your kind. I will never forget what your people did.’ He yanks on my arm, the gold-threading an omen between us. ‘I cannot understand how our superiors let you into this city. Your empire burnedourhomes in the borderlands. My clan, wishing to return, still holds the bone-shards from the bricks of our hovels. Azadnians pillageus. Let the warriors witnessing this duel remember that her kind does not care; they peel babes’ skin, hanging them on walls in triumph.’
‘And what of you!’ I burst out. ‘What ofmy tribe?’ My surroundings dim, black splotching. I taste blood, I smell smoke, I see a spear piercing the khan’s head.
‘If you ache for a monster, I will show you a monster,’ Cemil promises. He wraps his hand around my throat, ripping me away from the past, and I dig my heels into the sand. But he does not squeeze. He stares at me struggling beneath him and I wonder, is this it? Is this the ceiling to his anger? Or will he snap and do it?
‘Master!’ a familiar voice shrieks.
Cemil looks back and, to my horror, Arezu flings herself at his back. But the Third-Slash simply catches her by the wrist. She flails, trying to punch him, but in little more than a twist, he tosses her aside like a bug.
‘Do not touch her!’ I struggle to rise against him.‘Do not dare touch her!’
But I amweak. I amnothing. He is stronger than you, I can imagine No-Name telling me. She watches, stricken in fear while the crowd leans in to my demise. My senses slosh languidly and I feel myself gazing at the world from afar.
Justice does not exist; justice will never exist.
I am skin and bones. Weak and pathetic. A girl who drifts between borders like a swirl of dirt in the breeze. A girl with a piece of everything but nothing whole to belong to. One who will never amount to anything but repeated failure.
‘Do you yield?’ Cemil demands again, fingers slackening at my throat. He is trembling.
‘No,’I wheeze, thinking about my massacred tribe, and then my Zahr clansmen. A Sajamistani will not see me break, will not see me scream. Never again. I need this Duxzam.
He speaks calmly, but a slow horror quivers beneath.‘You are not normal.’
I attempt to imagine what normal means. I did not cry as an infant. Uma said the devil did not prick me. I know that is not normal as well. Normal means having a name, a clan; being kind; not time-blanking. I only know how to be the blade of a fallen emperor.
Normal. I am unsure of its meaning, but I know I do not ache for it, either. If I am not normal, I will be ugly. So in pure animalistic panic, I drive forward, smashing my head against his. I know it will not win me the fight, but I am angry, I want him to hurt, I want his pain so raw, he yells. I want to feel his skin rip beneath me, blood pouring like water for a thirsty monk in a sun-ravaged desert.
And yell he does before he slams my arm against the ground. ‘You are not fit for this city. You are unbelonged.’
Humiliation sears like a hot wick. But these are my uma’s warnings coming to fruition. Hers were not spun fables of lore, nor an attempt to scare me into submission. Her sensationalism was grounded in truth. One of us acts out of line and we all pay. One of us utters something despicable, we are all blamed. I am not the city’s scapegoat; I am an empire’s scapegoat.
And you are doing the same, No-Name reminds me.
Suddenly, Cemil is wrenched off me.
‘Disgusting,’ Overseer Yabghu sneers at him, Katayoun and Aina at his back. They must have alerted him. ‘Thrashing your own trifecta is beneath a warrior’s dignity, Cemil. Sparring in a high with Heavenly Energy alone without a convenor will result in this, a high of bloodlust.’ Then Yabghu pulls me up. ‘Andyoushould have conceded, foolish girl.’ He surveys my injuries. ‘Who cursed me into having this trifecta?’
A wave of guilt crashes into me. The rage in Cemil’s gaze dims as he glances around us, realising what he has done. Yabghu helps me limp away but as we pass Cemil, I pause.
‘You should have done it, coward,’ my words tremble quietly, ‘for my anger is greater. You will regret that you did not end me.’
In the Qabl infirmary, Yabghu does not speak to me. His foot shoves me into a chamber before he departs without a word, leaving me to fester in a pool of my blood.
