‘You cannot understand what goes into war until an entire empire’s fate rests in your hands.’ He pats a hand on my shoulder. I am too numb to recoil. ‘Khamilla, no doubt she’s a hero. But she is one death out of many. War does that to people; it turns bodies into numbers.’
The frankness of it. The cold condolence is a sharp knife. I stare at other warriors hunched over corpses. The injustice of it cleaves my heart in two. I cannot even protest Adel’s logic, because if Arezu was another’s comrade, I would not flinch at her death.
‘She hoped to be a warrior. To be a Qabl master.’
‘A child died saving villagers from the monastery. She’s a greater warrior than any of us,’ he whispers.
I blink at the burning sensation behind my eyes. ‘I wish someone could tell her.’
Adel regards me. Whatever he sees must satisfy him. ‘Tell me, in the next battle, what you will do to the enemy?’
I am reminded of the look that engraved his face at the sight of Mitra – the burning, blinding hatred. A people reduced to the simple wordenemy. At the centre of it, one emperor.
‘The Divine have mercy, I will make them scream.’
Yabghu approaches me twice to take Arezu’s corpse to the gravediggers, but I refuse.
I had thought this war, at the height of its destruction, was true Hells, but this – Arezu’s death – flings me to the peak of agony. I prefer screams and cries to this awful stillness. I prefer the hot feel of blood to cold skin, helpless, with a dead body in my arms.
How dare I breathe when the girl below me cannot? She was good.She was good. And that goodness murdered her. Goodness is futile.
I do not know what else to do other than to trace my fingers uponArezu’s face, skimming her nose, cheeks, her broken skull. Only once had I held Arezu willingly. And I ache to do it again.
But touching her now is only the echo of what could have been. Her soul is gone. The Angel of Death has led her to the barzakh, and I pray the Divine will bathe her in nur until the last hour. The certainty embraces me in its own light.
My child has the status of a martyr, a guarantee of Paradise, but...
I will never see her again.
My next breath jolts the air. I only know anger and vengeance, but the thought of snuffing it out terrifies me. Because if vengeance means losing all chance to be good, then what hope do I have to see Arezu in the hereafter?
I wish Eliyas was here; he would speak the beauty of prayers into death. Or Yun, with his harsh but red-warm heart, who would give me a stern talking to and fill me with resolve. I want Babshah to speak a folktale. And Uma with her quiet empathy. But I have nothing but an affection that has rotted, poisonous; it was that that made Mitra. That struck this child dead.
My nails jam into the grassland. But the pain brings a purpose. Fine, then. Though Arezu is dead, this selfish creature will tuck the child in her arms like that midwinter night and speak soothing words. I can do nothing more. Because she is my child. Shewasmy child. And in this dark world, I want to bathe my child in light.
But how?
In Azadniabad, we mark the dead with seeds of firelotus, we let nature reclaim their bodies in the cycle of resurrection. But in Sajamistan, they bury their dead with a marker of bone-stone to say this is the realm of the barzakh. However, both empires follow the method of Adam – to bury in the ground facing the first place of worship.
I feel like his accursed son, unworthy of burying the corpse, hiding my sin in the belly of the clay. Still, I prepare Arezu’s burial rites in his way. I perform an ablution upon her to cleanse impurities. I place her broken hand on her marred chest and then the right atop.
I prostrate on the dirt and perform a prayer of the martyrs. With her body at my side, I tuck her hair back before raising my palms. I beg the Divine:please let my words be heard for my child.
But the request stumbles at the sharp ache inside my chest. ‘I-I missthem.’ I wrench the words out. ‘Eliyas, I killed him. Babshah I could not save too. Uma, Usur Khan, and now Arezu.’ Before I know it, my hands are ablaze in nur. An old grief that has rotted for years bursts out like an infection and I cannot cleanse it. ‘Please –this pain. Take it away. I cannot bear it.I would die a thousand deaths to see Arezu’s smile one last time. Why had I notcherishedit?’
A caw above has my head craning. A familiar raven lands lightly, scratching claws against the tired dirt.
‘Mourn her,’ I gasp to Rasha, ‘for I am unworthy.’ Then I am pressing my nur to my mouth.Swallow it, a part of me urges.Forget it all.
The raven simply stares.For every martyr, death transcends. Ravens are vultures, to scavenge and find bounty even in the dead.
‘O, Rasha,’ I whisper, for this is what the Divine has revealed to me: the pain that I misunderstood my entire life, the pain that I ignored –it was love. And it assures me that I’m a true dirt-being of Adam. But the realisation is late.
I sink lower, unable to breathe. ‘I’m sorry. To Eliyas for rejecting your love. To Babshah for forgoing my oath and crumbling under the burden of your tales and buzzards. I have run from pain to forget it. I cannot forget you, Arezu. I vow it. I failed in burying Babshah, Eliyas and Uma. But I will not fail you, my child. I honour your burial with this raven to guide it.’
Ravens: my enemies’ symbol, but also this girl’s honour. I do not fear it.
I begin my true message through the prayer. Tears brim in my eyes and my hands drop to Arezu’s face. ‘The children of the monastery live because of your martyrdom,’ I reassure her. ‘You – you perished fighting. Even knowing that if you survived, you might be exiled from Za’skar City, you made a Heavenly Oath to earn power for certain death.’
