In the beginning, as the weeks crest and fall, No-Name wins every spar. She embodies not only the warriors of Za’skar, but even my clansmen. Some days she morphs into my siblings, Zhasna or Yun, wearing their faces to remind me of my mistakes.
The worst is when she drapes herself in indigo monastic robes, turning intothatmonk. I look away, refusing to believe it.
‘Don’t you recognise your Older Brother?’
‘I had no monk as a brother. I only recall a traitor,’ I reply, remembering what my father ordered of me.
Then she guts me, intestines spilling out like long worms; she jabs my eyes until the pupils burst into liquid. I feel the pain – every blazing second of it – when she tears my body apart and my heart stops beating. But at the end of each fight, my wounds disappear, and only a small amount of pain remains.
It is awful,so awful, the urge to curl up is dizzying. At my lowest moments, the temptation to concede overwhelms me.
The gore of it puts me in a fervour. I no longer sleep; I hardly eat; my eyes ring in shadows; my bleeding-cycle does not appear again. Every morning and night, I wrap my broken flesh with cloth to conceal it from prying eyes. I hurt myself to become stronger and I begin to like it. When the urge to rest for even one day, when the traitorous parts of me whisper that one evening would not make a difference, No-Name careens into the emperor.
My presence becomes rare in my trifecta study sessions. As the First-Slashes engage in discourses in the Great Library, a pang resonates in my chest; I was there because Cemil showed me it, but it was he who thrust forward my weakness. And so, No-Name clamps my ears, ensuring I’m never tempted to respond to other First-Slashes. I make no more allies and I do not care. I do not want friends if their companionship is a ruse shielding their violence – like Cemil’s hatred. I want power.
Katayoun notices the change. It’s the end of the month. The daysof fasting have arrived, and with them, spiritual acts. Monks lecturing about Nuh’s lessons. The exorcism wards emptying. Shops closing and reopening only after sunset. With no water or food to supplement my energy, my endurance increases and my Qabl meditation soars.
After convening for trifecta training, I hand over Katayoun’s portion of my monthly stipend.
She fingers through the pouch and takes one ingot. ‘Keep the rest.’
‘But you are not generous.’
She yawns. ‘Listen. You can bribe me any which way, but you look so pathetic, you might need this more.’
I flinch. Evoking pity from the girl married to greed feels somehow lower than the thrashing from Cemil.
‘You’ve regressed back to your initiate days. You hardly speak, even in classes. When Yabghu returns, even he will notice.’
If my methods are so wrong, why are they working? After a string of losses, I begin to hold my own in the spars against No-Name. And with this obsessiveness, something within me changes like the weather – one day sun, and another day storm. At night, darkness grins at me. I see creatures as if the Veils of the Unseen are peeling back. The shadows accompany me wherever I go, a warning of my forsaken path. Instead, I turn the Sepahbad’s khanjar in my hands and repeat my vow: he shall regret gifting this to me.
No-Name changes, too, into more woman than girl. But I fling these disturbing observations away. Fear is weakness. Pain is strength. And the thrill of training through pain is the bleak reward at the end – an addictive high – and I crave it, hoping to get it again and again.
In the last weeks before the Duxzam, the pazktab students seek me deep in the woodlands, finding me hanging upside down from a tree.
‘We have a proposition,’ Arezu announces.
Sohrab shoves her away. ‘Please!’ he begs, falling to his knees. ‘The Marka is over but we need you! Be our master again!’
I sit upright and squint, pretending to think about it. ‘No. You expect me to continue holding your hands?’
‘Yes, please. Hold me.’ Yahya tugs at my tunic.
To my startlement, Sohrab’s features harden in the first streak of genuine anger I’ve ever seen on him. And I am stunned at how much I despise myself for causing it. ‘You need us.’
My shoulders lift. ‘Not anymore.’
‘We are your only friends. The other warriors resent you for the Marka victory.’
‘I have friends,’ I defend. ‘Like Yabghu.’
‘Yabghu hates you. He is forced to be your overseer, and you defy him at every chance.’
My teeth clench. ‘It is the allure of our blossoming friendship – built on hate, but all a pretence. Besides, I have Katayoun.’
‘You pay her into your loyalty,’ Sohrab argues.
‘Such honeyed lies, master.’ Arezu smiles coyly. ‘The victory has bloated her head. Goodbye and may death never be a peace on to you.’
