‘Every soul fears death. You lie like a fumbling child,’ Dunya objects. Her arm reaches out, floral bangles, bejewelled like the red of a crane’s eye, winking beneath the firelight of the copper lanterns strung above us. She swipes sweat slipping down my chin, wetting the table. ‘We smell your fear,’ she coos.
I glance up at the watching clansmen; she-warriors with loose hair adorned in crane feathers, and eyes curious; the men with long silver felt capes and velvet waist-sashes, ivory daggers tucked underneath, glinting mockingly. I see the blurring outline of my half-siblings whose names I hardly remember as poison bleeds through my veins. The scent of sesame flatbread clashes with the sharp tang of the black juniper and blue poppies crawling along the walls. I want to vomit. But I cannot fail before their expectant gazes.
Gritting my teeth, I raise my finger shakily. My words begin slurring from the poison. ‘L-let us see if you fear it too, Second-Uma. Eliyas, may you pass my halva plate?’
Dunya glares at her son as he nudges forward the only food I have not touched: cubed halva, shaved rose sprinkled across the glistening ghee pooling at the top. I scrape the wet semolina into my hands. ‘Here, Second-Uma. You said a Zahr dines from beginning to end with the clan. However, we have broken the most important Azadnian custom: the eldest woman in the circle must break bread first. I have eaten all the flatbread. But I have not touched my halva. You must eat it, or would you refuse a clansman’s food?’
She stills.
I scoop a rosy morsel into my swollen mouth. ‘Y-you’ve gifted me this meal. Itcannotbe poisoned, for I’ve eaten all of it and I-I am fine.’
Her fingers dig into the wooden slab of table, nails tearing into the reed mat. She understands the position I have put her in before the court. My hand extends again. ‘Take your halva and complete the custom.’
She parts her lips closer to the sugared semolina. Her temple glistens with sweat beneath the firelight. Beside her, Zhasna is bleached bone-pale in fear.
‘Uma, don’t eat it!’ Her daughter tries to snatch away the morsel.
But Dunya is not one to fall back from an open challenge. ‘Half-daughter of mine, I will have your halva.’ The cold acknowledgement sends a rush through me. Dunya swallows it from my hand.
Her lips twist, throat swallowing with visible effort. But she compacts her expression through sheer will.
There is quiet in the hall, then.
I stand. My fist circles once in the Azadnian greeting. ‘Forged by blood, bound by duty, I offer my soul by the white blade,’ I speak quietly, but it rends upon the air like a knife.
‘Slave to the Zahr clan,’ Dunya finishes and unsheathes the ivory blade at her trembling arm, pressing the flat end to her forehead in a sign of reluctant acceptance.
‘Let us dine together as a clan next eve. Peace unto you.’ I push back, and bow my head, heavy sleeves risen to hide my shaking face.
I turn away. My limbs feel heavy. My tongue is bloated. I taste metallic blood against my teeth. The muscles around my throat convulse from an impending vomit. I do not make it one step more. My knees buckle and I am about to fall, when a hand latches on to my upper arm.
‘Keep walking,’ Zhasna says through gritted teeth. ‘Do not weakennow, young warrior. You must go on, alone.’ Another hand joins her; one of my older half-siblings. Together, they shove me onward. From the corner of my eye, I spot Uma straining against one of my clansmen.
I stagger and pass Eliyas, too, who curls his hands, conflicted as he wishes to help. But Zhasna is correct. I must leave dignified, and alone, as a show of strength. I press forward, drenched in my own sweat.
Around me, the elder clansmen no longer eye me in distaste, but with another expression more difficult to discern. Different viziers nod their acknowledgement, which sends a rush of warmth through me. Every empire has eight viziers: left-hands, in charge of martial and economic affairs, and right-hands, in charge of social and the court’s judiciary affairs.
‘Well done,’ someone hums. My head turns right; the voice belongs to an imposing figure, a curved kilij blade strapped to his leather waistband. He wears a blue and emerald qaftan, but with a crane-feathered turban slung around his forehead, his long black hair tied above the opening. Sormeh darkens his wide brown eyes; a trimmed beard skims along his prominent, square jaw, and his features are long, as if chiselled with a blade. It’s the visiting warlord from the western jade mountains. A small dove curls on his shoulder, flapping restlessly.Akashun, Wolf of the Khajak prefecture, I recall Zhasna saying.
‘I will see you again,’ Warlord Akashun promises quietly.
But it’s not his words that still me. My gaze is taken by what is behind him. Something dark stretches across the amber-fretted tapestries of the wall. A bloated figure, black and woolly. My senses seize. A bone-white eye observes me hungrily.
No one notices the shadowy figure.It is not real. It is the poison, I convince myself. With great difficulty, I pass it.
I duck through the low threshold of the dining hall and limp past gilded teal corridors, straight to the apothecary. The apothecarist’s eyes widen at my shaking form.
‘A-antidotes,’ I rasp. Eliyas and I had prepared four antidotes, based on his predictions of Dunya’s poisons.
After twisting the glass toppers of each decanter, the apothecarist pours all four down my throat. ‘I take it, you coming here like this will be a routine happening,’ she notes.
‘Yes.’
Eliyas comes inside, grinning. ‘You bested Dunya.’
I stagger forward, collapse into his arms and vomit all over his robes. Behind him, Zhasna enters the room but recoils. More Zahr cousins press at their backs too, watching incredulously.
The next hours I come in and out of consciousness. I hear voices arguing above me. At one point, Zhasna glances down at my cold shivering body.
