Pushing past my uma, I hurry left then right, down the winding corridors of the monastery. Spilling out of the illuminated archway on to the top of the stone steps, I catch sight of Eliyas. He stands below with some monks in medicinal gardens of blue poppy and balchar.
‘Older Brother!’ I shout. He ceases his talk and turns. I descend the steps. ‘I cannot wait until tomorrow. I want to show the clan, show Dunya – show all of the Azadnian court – that I too belong in the circles of the Heavenly Crane. I choose this path.’
He indulges my anger with a mulling look. ‘Little bird, do you have the willingness to train? For victory requires guile, and suffering. That is the true warrior’s way.’
‘Yes.’
The next evening, I keep to my promise.
With Uma, I arrive at the dining hall, to Dunya’s great displeasure. But still showing she is expecting me in her circle from the way she gestures to the silver cushion across from her, nodding at my qaftan, velvet waist-sash and crane feathers, identical to the other young Zahrs.
‘Peace be unto you.’ Dunya lifts her heavily draped blue sleeves, a thin strip of silver fur at the hem. Her fingers are adorned with rings and bracelets stamped in the design of a firelotus, with petals woven around the band, glittering under the copper lanterns. She smiles politely behind her sleeves. I only see the stark outline of black sormeh around her eyes.
I lift my sleeves to circle my fist. ‘And you, Second-Uma. Please, break the fast.’ Behind her, Eliyas nods, reassuring me. He sits cross-legged beside the senior officers of the emperor’s court. He informed me the emperor would not be at the meal, busy in the throne room meeting a delegation.
Dunya bends down to her daughter, hissing orders. Zhasna scurries away, only to return with a tray of elaborate small dishes – quivering pots of oiled lamb dumplings, skewers of red quail. One bowl contains yakhni and root vegetables, another shorpa from lamb organs. A long plate balances a fried flat, spiced saffron kebab, glistening with jiggly marrow. The last plate has semolina with nuts, a halva dish.
‘You offended me at the last meal,’ Dunya says coolly. ‘A Zahr dines from beginning to end with the clan.’You will eat all of it, is her silent order.
Very well. Beside me, Uma hesitantly dips the flatbread into the shorpa, bringing it to her mouth. Just as it grazes her lips, I grab her hand. I use my tongue to prod at the spicy broth colliding with a thin film of...
Boeki scorpion slime. Boeki poison.
I meet Dunya’s gaze and say, ‘Uma, I wish to eat all of the food. A Zahr must not refuse their clansman’s invitation.’
Before Uma or Dunya can protest, I push the entire bite into my mouth and swallow.
Dunya grips the reed mat, leaning forward. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ At her thunderous words, the hall hushes. Other clansmen incline their heads in interest.
‘I am eating your food.’ I shovel quail down my throat. ‘It’s tasty.’
‘Are you mad?’ Suddenly, Uma swats away the breadbasket.
But my brother quickly strides through the circular tables, reaching Uma. Eliyas winds an arm around her waist, pulling back as Uma struggles against him. She jabs a finger at Dunya.
‘I thought your cruelty would dull with age but I was wrong! You’ve edged sharper at my return. Poisoning a mere child younger than your own, someone who hasn’t tasted life until now. You would steal another clan from her out of envy!’
‘Uma, enough,’ I choke out. Eliyas drags her out of the hall as I make my way through the lamb dumplings.Swallow, I think to myself.
Dunya blinks hard. ‘Stop that.’
‘It was your invitation to break fast, Second-Uma.’ I chew more. ‘I taste boeki. Not to worry. The emperor had me study this poison well.’ I lift a round kebab and pause through a surge of nausea. ‘Bristles of a yellow-spotted caterpillar. Nicely done. But it would be more effective to use this poison in the dumplings, as the ground lamb and onion would conceal it well.’
Dunya grips my wrist. ‘You were not raised as a proper Azadnian, so you hardly know poisons or healing antidotes. If you continue, you will die. Or have you revealed your nature? As mad as the masochistic death-worshippers of Sajamistan?’
A sharp voice speaks over her. ‘Uma, if this child from the barbarians insists on understanding our ways, let her continue. She is killing herself. Or perhaps she won’t break so easily.’ I make out the familiar face of Zhasna. Her eyes glint at the promise of bloodshed. Slowly, the other clan elders, advisers and the visiting warlord abandon their food to surround our table and watch me devour the poisoned meal. Why eat, when even away from battle, their bloodlust hungers for a different type of meal: an act of violence waiting to happen.
My hand stuffs food down my throat faster. I hardly chew. I plop a salt cube under my tongue and wash it down with sheer chai from a copper-enamelled saucer of cardamom- and saffron-spiced black and green tea.
Eliyas returns and his steady eyes urge me on.
‘You do not fear death, child?’ Dunya asks in a measured tone, but her eyes are black slits. Now she thought me a child?
To diminish my standing. My gaze narrows and I snap a flatbread in half.
While Dunya had thought me recovering, with my brother’s help, I prepared to suffer. He diluted my stomach in a watery white clay and charcoal suction. Then we placed bitter prunus cherries under my tongue, for Eliyas said that would help my stomach produce more bile. We made a gamble.Ingest the food hastily and then pray. I know my uma’s favoured poisons, Eliyas ordered.
‘Corpses no longer scare me,’ I finally answer. Life was large but its skin so fragile, and so were its dreams. I dreamt of belonging here, but Dunya’s killing of that dream I find more frightening than death. I know I have felt belonging once before – before Sajamistan’s death-obsessed masochists destroyed my tribe – but that memory buried itself in the grave when the emperor ordered me to build myself anew. For some reason, there is only the here and now. The past receding with every passing moment, every bite of poison.
