The regret is blinding. Why hadn’t I realised it before; why had I not held her achingly close, tucked her into my shoulder and told her -told all my pupils – that I loved them. That in my time at Za’skar, they were my joy? Why had I not appraised them of this: they were the first people I’d ever loved by choice.
Why was I so selfish?
I gather her marred hands. Tears pearl Arezu’s lashes and she stills for good.
No.
‘Arezu,’ I plead, lifting her to my shoulder.
I cannot save her.
I shake her, once, twice.
I cannot save anyone.
‘Arezu!’ Again, and again.
Something slams on to my chest, throwing us backwards. A ghûl rises and I crunch my fingers, the nur splintering it. Though my world has irrevocably changed, the rest of the world has not. I cannot evenmourn for the child who only ever knew war – who was never a child, but a weapon.
She’s one of millions – the reason why beautiful flowers are picked from a garden but never the weeds. Because humans like destroying beautiful things.
Now I see.
My hands raise to the sky and curl into fists. ‘Heavens!’ I scream, and the material world shatters like glass and I’m before the light of the immaterial.
My psyche grows into ridges of poisonous blackness, and I feel No-Name at my back.
‘She’s dead,’ I whisper, letting her arms curl into me. ‘The creatures I helped create killed her.’ I feel hollow. I should not exist. ‘Arezu died, not knowing that it is my fault. Her master let her die. Arezu was a child; she had nothing to do with this war. And she is not alone. All of them – the villages, steppes, pastures – they didn’t ask for this.’
My hands reach out to grasp my beautiful seventy-seven bonds.
I crush them.
The Heavenly Energy rumbles and shakes before delving into shadows. They are a tide and I’m the shore and I welcome them with open arms.
No-Name gazes in satisfaction. ‘When Mitra succeeds, the other kingdoms will fall because of you.’ She smiles. Why does winning a war matter when no one good is left? If heroes existed, Arezu would not be dead. If heroes existed, the Camel Road would not be caught between two empires. But heroes do not exist. They never did when I was a child, and they never did for the children here. If heroes don’t exist, then one can only be a monster.
No-Name was right. By heeding the warnings of the monks, I thought I could kill Akashun without plunging off course. But to seek power is to resist all ties to natural order.
And so, on my knees within the spiritual world, I raise my bloodied hands, allowing unnatural order to grant me power, to make me their demon so I might destroy another.
Through my fear, rage slams harder. The psychospiritual world pulses as my bonds tangle into each other. From gold, they tinge into black. Some bond lines snap from their Heavenly sources before burrowing down below. The understanding is clear: I am about to do something wrong. Something I cannot return from.
‘His Mitra, his war, his greed,he killed her.’ I tremble. ‘Now show me rage.’
Then I’m hurtling from the psychospiritual to the material, the power shattering through the cosmic realms and billowing through my bonds, crackling in spars of light.
At first my vision is a bliss of white: nur’s blazing currents. My body is paralysed to basic commands. I channel the power toward the falak and ghûls and then... Azadnian soldiers. The arches bypass my squadron, who whirl in horror.
‘Farewell, siblings,’ I hiss.
I want to blast them into oblivion. I know what held me back. It’s these bonds, these arbitrary, meaningless gold lines – they are an illusion, compelling Eajiz to think they’re safe.
In one swoop, my nur incinerates hundreds of ghûls and destroys the living quarters of the Azadnian troops. I stare as the sheer brightness blasts them into oblivion, creating smiling skeletons. My arms widen until the light empties out.
This feels good. It’s not the gore of it; it’s the sheer destruction. It’s the asymmetrical power finally within my grasp. The freedom of no constraints to simply erode all in my path in a symphony of destruction. It feels too easy.
I revel in it for a moment, tasting the chaos. This is destruction, but destruction is the force from which I was birthed.Now it’s clear. I almost grin. The only way for me to rule would be to break the world under the stomp of my feet and glue it back together with their collective fear of me.
