‘Usur-Khan?’ Yabghu calls out.
Then I am sprinting through the trails into the jade-rich mountains. No-Name and I summon the shadows but her teeth clench. ‘I cannot maintain it; the shadows are not powerful near your trifecta.’
For hours, we trek along the wet almond trails, following the Tezmi’a River. I retrace three paths to mislead potential pursuers. Eventually, I head north-west at the juncture of the steppe-camel trade. I nibble on measly nuts I pluck from the damp brambles, climbing trees when I hear Azadnian troops through the rain.
After four days, I reach Azadniabad’s wartime capital in Navia before sunrise.
A dim blue eats through the rumbling black sky, illuminating the bustling floral capital. I rub frankincense attar before summoning the shadows. They conceal my movements. I trail behind straggling soldiers riding through shell-rock gates in the citadel. Despite my resolve, my chest pangs from hearing barks of dialect, seeing the lotusmonasteries, the familiar woodlands with wild goats, the blue poppy gardens within the rainy fog.
The people appear so content. So kind. They are still my kin. Not long ago I was raised here, living their ways.
I wish I could return. My hands fist.
I hate him.
I climb the wet limestone steps of the administrative ziggurat while concealed by the shadows. At the top of the seventh tier, I follow a vizier to a council room. She passes marble and iron doors carved with the Heavenly Crane defeating an eight-headed lion. My heart hammers hard as I pause. The entrance swings open, and advisers pour out.
The chamber preens with lavish crane portraits and stelae. A tall man wearing a gold crane-feathered turban stands at the threshold of a floral balcony, exchanging salutations with an adviser. Shockingly, Warlord Akashun has not changed since I last saw him. He exudes rough charisma. His ebony beard is clipped, brown skin smooth, and he has the corded build of a warlord.
He argues with another man swathed in a pale qaftan with a gold waist-sash, raven hair swept back—
Hyat Uncle?
The shadows flicker and I stumble back. Seeing the man who stood by my father, the very same who’d prompted my path down to Za’skar, is no relief.
Hyat departs with a tight look. Warlord Akashun moves to the lip of the balcony. Outside, a thunderclap booms through the Heavens. The skies tremble as the rain weeps harder on to the balcony.
Akashun backs inside. I will have to trap him by sealing the entrances of the chamber with dense nur, so no guards can enter.
I glance at No-Name and her hungry eyes. She drops the shadows.
I inhale the torrent of incense swirling in my bonds. My fingers crack, the nur spitting into the doors. My nur widens, so compressed that the nearby walls bend inward. The material of the door singes white, welding shut as if under the deft fingers of a blacksmith. There is no time for shocked faces, not even a cry from the guards on the other side. No one will be able to enter the room unless they manage to rampage through sweltering iron and marble.
Akashun, at the commotion, whirls around and spies me across the council room. ‘What’s this?’
My nur rises into a gushing wave. He pivots back, hands clasped.
‘Nur,’ he recognises, stunned.
A strip like a Veil, as smooth and oily as silk, snaps forward from his hand. I frown at its strange familiarity before it slithers across the kilim rugs and combusts into black needles, shattering the light and throwing me backwards.
I land in third stance and channel a fourteen-breath meditation, my bonds expanding into the Second-Stratum. The flow of time wanes in my vision before I summon a stroke of nur, holding it like a paintbrush. With two steps, I twist into the air and slam my hands together. Two coils of nur burst against his Veil in equal force, the blackness dissipating.
When I land, I see not a man, but myself, standing before my clan, bitter years ascending in cruel memory – a violent cycle that never found closure. To end a cycle is to slough it from its roots, even if it means severing the last ties to my people.
Akashun reels back. ‘I sense them on you, too. Jinn-poisons.Whoare you?’
‘I am a Zahr,’ I answer calmly.
His eyes search me and recognition settles at last. ‘You?You’ve come willingly to me.’
I step forward. ‘No. You killed my Older Brother, my clansmen, then my child, and now my home. So, I have arrived to destroy yours.’
Shoving a khanjar’s hilt into my mouth, I lunge toward him.
New-found energy careens through my limbs – the power of grief and anger.
I bound high through the ninth stance, bonds pulsing. My foot uncoils, heel breaking against his chest, but his hands clasp my ankle, wrenching me forward. I drop my weight, swinging around his torso in a low sweep, nur hissing from my toes. His fingertips smoulder from the dense energy, and he startles back.
