No-Name shakes her head. ‘You must cleanse yourself of the emperor; you must let him go. He is your poison.’
Desperately, I take her hand. ‘Tell me. What is the antidote?’
Her rows of sharp teeth gleam in the torchlights. ‘You must kill him.’
Then she is my father again. ‘Khamilla,’ he breathes.
My eyes well with tears. I imagine him hugging me.
Then he kneels. Heishugging me. He has never embraced me like this. He is solid. Real. Warm. My arms lift, the temptation great. A part of me understands, logically, what embracing him is doing.
He smiles so affectionately; a keen wrongness tugs in my liver. ‘You’ve done it,’ he says. ‘You infiltrated our enemies. A worthy weapon for theclan.’ But a frown disrupts that satisfaction as he sees us on the ground. ‘Why are we on the floor?’
‘Because I am in pain,’ I whisper.
He is jarred at this. And why not? I have never told him my true feelings, about anything – least of all my pain.
‘Rise.’
‘Did you hear me? I said I am in pain.’
‘Rise before your clan; it was what you were bred to do.’
‘Your clan –your children– deserved better. Eliyas, Yun, Zhasna, Azra, they were pure.’ My hands feel wet, and I think I am bleeding – from everywhere. But the emperor does not care. For he was the cause of it – even now, stillisthe cause. Does he not see outside his own perception of me or is he wilfully ignorant, liking that I straddle the line between daughter and dog, smiling at the master that chokes the chains around its neck. For really, what is priceless to an emperor who sees the world as a series of finite values waiting to be conquered?
As if sensing my change, his arms tighten so I am a daughter tucked in the crook of her father’s arms. But love is for fools who will recklessly chain themselves to its corpse even when it rots. Love is not made for the ones who have nothing to spare.
I lean into him and wipe my tears. ‘I already killed you.’
His face crumples. ‘Foolish girl, we could have reigned if only you had stopped resisting.’ His grip tightens. ‘You need me. You can never go a night without my name upon your lips. It makes you feel useful.’
I back away. ‘This is wrong.’
‘Many things in the world are wrong.’
‘No,youare wrong.’ My voice is a plea, praying, hoping,clawingmy way to the words so I may believe them.
‘Would you believe me if I said, all this time, you were my strength, too?’
I despise the acknowledgement. At him, I smile. ‘No.’
‘You had one task,’ he snaps. ‘I forgave you for your failures, for your roots. I made you. You only had to avenge me.’
‘You lied to me!’ I burst. ‘You lied about the poisons, about empires – everything!’
‘The world is full of liars! What we know of it is determined by the victors. I became your father forvictory.’
‘I never asked to be your daughter!’ My breaths rise rapidly. ‘I never wished for your ambitions that destroyed us all. The clan – does it not matter? I am relieved the Divine made this your fate, to die from your own creation, for it released me from you. All the time I was obedient, but why –why did my brother die?Why did I have to abandon my tribe; why did I have to become a weapon that condemned the souls around us? Why did I lose my uma?All I wanted was my uma to be safe.’
‘I did it for our home.’
‘Not our home.Your throne.’
I do not know of a home. Is it possible for a heart to ache for both – for Azadniabad, across its prefectures, which deserves better than my father, and for Tezmi’a, in its rolling pastures? The emperor never let me love both, I was always forced to choose one. The land was my home, not the name. I was only to allow myself to be an Azadnian instead of an Usur of Tezmi’a, or a Zahr. If each home I’ve called such has been destroyed, what kind of home have I ever had?
But the emperor is not looking at me. For I’ve always been the barbaric daughter of a barbaric wife he never asked for. They like to call us barbaric in fear of our strength to conquer. Tonight, I can conquer him. I grab the khanjar from Farzaneh’s corpse. I grasp the one emotion I’ve truly ever understood. The one that birthed and spat me out.
Anger. I was once a girl who demanded a fate from the Heavens. Despite my affinity, I have not changed. I refuse him. And I refuse the girl I was before.
