At my frown, he stops and takes my sleeve, turning me so I look at him.
‘They whored out villagers, they mutilated them. Azadniabad is begging for another war. These people need us.’
It would be so easy to poke at Adel, to incite his anger, which is as fluid as his warmth. His words are ironic: he accuses them of the very actions his empire repays in kind.
He continues, ‘Za’skar has collected intelligence on the disappearances for over a lunar year. Our informants had shared mentions of soul contracts, but we’d never seen the end result, nor imagined it to be like this. If we don’t destroy this monastery, the apprentices will note our escape and send caravans of this Mitra to northern Azadniabad. These bodies, they are jinn-folk in human shells. Their souls have merged but the humanity of them is gone.’
Then he reveals two blades in his sleeve, snatched from dead scholars. He hands one to me like a half-measured concession. If he notes my slight reluctance, he does not comment on it.
I take the blade. Our eyes flare as one.
At the gated entrance, I dry out the wells of my weakened ruh until immolating light permeates the material world. Nur blasts from my leg bonds. Adel fans it with his superior Afflicter affinity, the currents of the world compressing my light into blasts.
The front of the bedrock crumbles as we run, weaving through corridors toward iron gates, Adel’s affinity slamming two apprentices out of our path. Our attacks only manage to damage a quarter of the sprawlingunderground outpost. We do not stop running as we pour into the rugged courtyard outside the monastery, even as guards hound after us on our trail. We trample through shrubs until the path ends abruptly at the brink of a ravine. With little hesitation, Adel wraps his arm around me and dives over the edge.
I’ve no time to scream as we plunge to our deaths, but at the last moment, Adel summons a soft gall, tumbling us safely to the ground. The guards skid to a halt above us and we make our escape beyond the mountain pass.
Adel’s perception of the currents steers us away from the borderland. We cross south and pass a village, where we steal a horse, which carries us to the nearest outpost.
There, our dealings are scribed into reports, then delivered through the parî courier system reserved for viziers, where ababil birds deliver letters at high speeds.
We are told to wait for the Sepahbad’s arrival from the central Ghaznian outpost. Hearing this, a cold sweat breaks out on my neck. Every moment I remain in Sajamistan is a risk of him discovering my identity.
‘Is something the matter?’ I hear Adel ask.
But my mind drifts to the raids of my childhood; to Sajamistan encroaching on our prefectures; to my uma cornered by the then Sepahbad and Alifs before she ended her life. It makes choosing to help this empire a painful conflict. The equivalent of a knife slicing half of my body, leaving the other intact. For I have dreamt of the Sepahbad’s death a thousand times to soothe myself.
Before I can summon an answer, Officer Samira enters the room. ‘The Sepahbad has reviewed the reports with Adviser Arash.’
Alif Adel sits up, his eyes thin slits. ‘Old man Arash is here?’
Her expression pinches. ‘Please, do not pick a fight, my Alif.’
In the intelligence ward, the words go unheeded when Adel glares daggers at a familiar wrinkly man in a left-hand vizier’s robes, decorated in amber birds, who stands beside the Sepahbad. His greying hair pokes out from a feathered onyx-coloured turban, his eyes and mouth worn from a life spent more in battle than away from it; a dagger pictogram is dyed on his forehead through black-threading. On Arash’s shoulder is perched a large, weathered raven. Flanking him are the outpost captainsand their aides. Adviser Arash is not an Eajiz, though he is the oldest left-hand vizier to the Royal Council of Sajam.
The Sepahbad looks on from a palm-wood table as we fold our knees on the kilim. He meets my gaze briefly. I feel hollow. The officers convene and discuss a potential invasion of the Mitra outpost. The Sepahbad spreads a calfskin map of the terrain, the design of it adjusted by Adel’s memory.
‘Old man, have you come to your senses?’ Adel speaks as the captains bow over the long stone table.
Arash cocks his head. ‘And what would that be?’
‘The uselessness of optimism and negotiations. We should strike first. I warned your little council of bureaucratic rats of the growing raids on the border and look where it has led us.’
‘The local Arsduq tribes will accuse us of invading the buffer; they will deem it a breach of their alliances in the Camel Road and retaliate with Azadniabad, leading to a crackdown on the steppes.’
Adel huffs a laugh. ‘Have you read the reports? They’ve been bribing tribes for months. The crackdown has begun.’
Arash’s expression wavers like leaves pattering on to the surface of an oasis, but he stills himself. ‘The bodies Azadniabad used were villagers on the frontier. We could be hasty in assuming these were from Ghaznia province at all.’
My jaw gapes open. Does he seevaluein Mitra?
I catch how Adel’s eyes flick to the Sepahbad as he delays his response, almost as if silently seeking permission. I realise Adel’s jabs at Arash are an intentional provocation. Rather than arguing with Arash himself, the Sepahbad allows Adel to steer the offensive. From this, the Sepahbad plays the middle ground between the two ends of the spectrum, appearing appropriately neutral as necessary to his aides. The weapon of subtlety is more terrifying than blunt force; the politics of the martial-viziers makes my head spin.
‘Old man, the war has arrived. Any cooperation in the past between our empires was a necessity born of a shared enemy. We have no shared enemy now.’ Adel rakes his hands through his henna-stained curls, voice seething. ‘You dare excuse torture; you excuse our own provinces’ deaths. The only purpose for Mitra’s existence is for waging war, fool.’
Adviser Arash stews on this. ‘Based on Usur-Khan’s report, theyintend to offer a Mitra trade to create mutual assurances – their intention includes developing variations to preserve the human soul. We would be fools to dismiss the idea without considering it. Think of it as a weapons trade. Inventions come at the price of lives, which Azadniabad has already paid, and from which we could benefit. How is it different from the cost of inventing a weapon? Weapons are not magick but they are powerful. We cannot change that Mitra now exists. Azadniabad controls it; this opens a chance for beneficial relations because sooner or later, they’ll salivate to try Mitra on Eajiz. They might need Za’skar for its ancient jinn-knowledge. If we refuse it, that is Akashun’s opening to finally conquer our borderlands. Akashun will trade Mitra to our vassals on the condition that we receive no support in the event of war.’
I sit on my heels, leaning against the wall, my hands fisting. Adviser Arash would forsake his alliances with peripheral tribes, and our integrity?
