As I stare at them, I conclude it is only a matter of time.
Sohrab reaches out to me but cold habit beats against me. I should find Overseer Yabghu. Why am I here? To inflict more pain?
To be selfish.
‘No.’ I step away.
Their faces fall. My blood pulses faster behind my ears. With Yahya curled in one arm, tentatively I outstretch the other. Sohrab and Yasaman cling into it, as if I can lift them to safety.
‘Swear a Heavenly Oath that you will return?’ Yasaman says.‘Please.’
I cannot look at them. A cry chokes into my words. ‘I am a liar.’ And for once, the confession feels absolving. ‘I have lied many times and do not dare pretend that I have not. I have used you. But now, I do not wish to lie to you. Not about my intentions. Not about my identity. Not about my duties.’
‘Then kill the enemy!’
‘Do not say that.’ I stiffen, my eyes truly burning. ‘Killing cannot be done lightly, most of all by you.’
‘But. it is a war. You will have to kill.’ Sohrab’s words flow too easily, and a part of me wonders what he has seen. ‘When you are kicked intoa corner and left to scramble, it does not make you a monster. It makes you human.’
Yasaman nods and brushes the necklace of bones at my throat. ‘Do that. Be a monster. To live.’
I cannot answer except to pull them closer. Yahya begins crying in his confusion, unable to parse where I will be going.
We remain until the sun crawls up between the mountains like a red creature, swallowing the black-blue into wisps of dawn. Before they break away, I stammer, ‘Remember our stances. Continue with a bowl of water, and meditate in the treetops. But please, do not pick a fight with the karkadann to practise. And,’ I breathe, my chest caving, ‘even if you achieve the stature of Qabl master one day, I want you to always breathe steadily through your pain. I want you to protect each other. I want you to—’
Eajiz are tools. Our purpose is to become terrifying warriors; to be an empire’s weapon, the blade in a ruler’s grasp. But despite such logic, all I can reason isno: I want them safe; they are mine. They are young, and these empires have no damned right to tear them from me. I was wrong to train them. I want to be their protector, to be their master, to be their mother.
But they will continue on their path, and I will walk mine. I hate that fact most of all.
‘We know,’ Sohrab grins lopsidedly. ‘You trained us.’
It’s that grin that seizes my spirit and shatters it.I want you safe, you naïve fools. And sheer desire seems as good as a millennium of logic, giving me reason to believe that somehow, I could remain at their sides.
But Uma told me of innocent birds in a cage. They must be set free.
I add thickly, ‘I am no good and I am sorry for it. Please, on Judgement Day, do not testify against me before the Divine when you learn the truth of who I am.’
They giggle at that, deaf to the urgency. Sohrab clasps a hand to my cheek, kissing it gently. ‘You are no good, master. Not at all. But to us,’ he smiles, ‘your good was enough. And for that, you will survive.’
The grass dances at our feet, the wind echoes my whimper. ‘I might survive,’ I whisper, ‘for you.’
The drum from the pazktab school indicates the start of morninglessons. Sohrab has to rip a crying Yahya from my arms and they depart. But Arezu, who was standing far from the others, does not follow them.
She refuses to meet my gaze. Minutes pass, perhaps longer, before she glances up, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. ‘You do not wish to lie, but lie to me. The way you spoke – you are never like that. Something in you has changed. Whatever is happening, you are never returning, dead or alive.’
‘Arezu, I am not worth your tears.’
‘I am not crying!’ she bursts out before aggressively wiping a stray tear. ‘I know you hate me. I know we are pests buzzing at your ears and I know I say I do not like you, but that was never true. I—’
I clasp her shoulders, heart fluttering faster than the wings of a sparrowhawk. ‘Never,’ I answer carefully. ‘I could never hate any of you. You are pests but,’ I wipe her tears with the end of my shawl, ‘I cannot explain all of my feelings to you.’
Another truth hits me. The idea of her disapproval is the worst. I crave Arezu’s regard more than I crave that of my superiors or even my own father. I want Arezu to remember me as anything other than what I am – a selfish creature.
Her eyes slide up. ‘Do you love us?’
‘I do not understand what love is,’ I admit.
She smiles then, a rare expression. ‘Neither do I,’ she says before embracing me, face buried into my chest.
