I roll to a coiled stance, khanjars between my fingers like talons. When he swings his blade, I follow, my two knives clashing against his shamshir, scattering orange sparks, before my knee thrusts up to break his balance. With an animalistic snarl, my arms encircle his neck, yanking him down. I slam my khanjar into his jaw, but somethingeclipses from his fingers. A loudpop, and my surroundings momentarily blur behind a Veil. Suddenly, his sword slashes my forearms.
Instead of red cuts, my blood ripples like a jinn-poison.
I jump, but he dives into my attack zone, driving into my chest with Veil-fisted hands, over and over again. In rapid succession, I deflect with my forearms, wrist twists, and then a sidestep before spinning again and slashing the nur-engulfed khanjar across his torso.
Again,somethingconverges upwards, blocking me from penetrating skin, like armour – so fast, it cannot have been him. My palm flicks out, projecting compressed energy. The nur spits three times but thatsomethingsucks it into its oily walls.
‘Fool,’ he grits, as we dance faster, bending and parrying before retreating, air whirling around us in rhythm. ‘You are connected to the Veils by Mitra; you cannot fight it.’
My form hesitates at this.
When he breaks with his sword, parrying to my chest, my wrists flick out before I cross them, jerking his blade down. I stoop, my foot jamming into his sternum, the blast of nur sending him flying back to crash against the balcony doors, which fly open into the rain. But anothersomethingcatches him. For a second, eyes wink in Mitra. With no warning, he flies on to my back as if I’m a stepping stone.
My skull knocks to the wet stone, teeth rattling inside my mouth, and I cry out. Pure instinct makes me roll right as his sword thrusts down. With it, something pounds on to my body like stones, pinning me down.
He laughs. ‘It feeds off your blood, little bird. Both of us share a bond; you cannot hurt my Veils. It was so easy to convince Eliyas to bring me your blood from your poison training; he thought I would free you from the Mitra ritual. He was a fool.’
My stomach clenches, remembering Farzaneh’s explanation. Akashun ingested my resistant blood to replace my father, after he died, and complete the Mitra exchange to become its wielder.
‘I’ve searched for you for years,’ Akashun continues. ‘Even when your uncle told me you were dead.Hyat lied. And now I have the opportunity to siphon your blood.’
‘Never,’ I hiss. The pain from the force holding me down burns like slow flames. Is this how Arezu felt, dying in agony, feeling every bit of her body gripped and ripped apart?
I cling tight to my anger as if I am hanging off a cliff, rage extending its hands to pull me from the edge. As Akashun leans down, my right hand latches on to his calf. Somehow lifting my left, I drive my blade across his thigh. With another cry, I part my lips, bonds expanding and fluidly ejecting nur from my tongue. It shoots into his chest enough for me to flex upwards, my palm slamming into his nose.
But it’s not enough. Whatever jinn is protecting him from behind the Veil only expands, even as Akashun reels from my blow. Something sharp skewers through my eyes and I scream.
‘If you wished to fight me, why even come alone?’ he hisses from above. ‘But that’s how your clan raised you: as their dog, primal and isolated. A job well done, you’ve made the Zahrs proud.’
The tip of his sword digs into my throat and I gasp, still half blind.
The sheer will in his eyes, the determination of a man who believes he is right, chokes me. ‘The only reason you are below is because you’ve accepted what your father made you. You are content with the meagre bonds fed to you. Monks teach only fragments of information because they’re fearful of dipping their toes in the otherworldly. And for that safety, you will die. But Mitra – it’s the essence of bondage and sacrifice.’
I can do nothing to change it.
‘You can,’ No-Name insists. ‘Everything about your life was preordained. But now,youcan usurp it.’
Azadnian soldiers finally burst through the welded doors, eyes flickering between us with the determination of creatures committed to slaughter. My instincts curl as I recognise the path drawn out before me, leading to the end of my desires.
Akashun tilts his head at them. ‘It’s a shame if you die. But very well. My heirs will do.’
Heirs. They would replace Akashun in a blink.
Repulsion swims through my blood. The devil is not the only one whispering into the ears of mankind. Tyrants may not have chains around our necks, but they control something worse: our ideology.
It was my father and now him. Cutting off one head will not save this continent; it will not save the tribes of the Camel Road.
I could make a choice so the Camel Road would no longer remain torn amongst false choices. Because what choices can the peoples of the borderlands make? To join the army of their enemy or to be pillaged by that same enemy? To sit as smiling mules before armies invade,only to die slowly and miserably, or to resist and die anyway on a path to martyrdom? For them, it is no longer a question of winning a war, but of either accepting Azadnian or Sajamistani suzerainty. Arezu chose it, because she had never lived a life where she had anything else to pick from.
But I accepted that natural order is no match for a person like Akashun who usurps it. I knew in some dark pocket of my being that I did not arrive to kill one man. I came to purge a cycle before it evolves into something worse.
‘You are wrong,’ I choke to Akashun through the Veil clogging my senses. ‘I understand sacrifice. And I understand power.’
Something snaps in my soul. I stare up at the Heavens vomiting rain on the world. The water in its enormity swallows sound into a mute nothingness, except for the shrieks thrown from the high winds.
My eyes shut as I sink into my senses; I revel in the panic thrumming in the lands. I sink further, into the water and sweat moistening the air. I sink more, into the clay stitched by motes of dirt, into a seismic ocean.
I read the design of the world festering below the Heavens.
