And Zhasna... I learn is a court poet. A strategy to charm the notables in favour of the Zahr clan. The emperor’s weapons aren’t always poisons, daggers and sharp words, I’ve come to realise. At court, melodiously charming, Zhasna recites odes about the Divine mandate after the Great Flood, and the parable of the Zahrs’ righteous authority to rule. Most mornings, she attends her apprenticeship under the tutelage of the Chief Court Poet.
Eventually, I enter the circle of the Zahr clan, receiving a new-found respect. In the summers, the emperor sends me with Yun to prefectures across Azadniabad, to acquaint myself with the trades, histories and tribes of the empire – even the mystic monastic schools within the remotest northern caves. As my siblings grow older, they depart and return after spring campaigns to defend our borderlands against Sajamistan in the south, and reconquer lands from warlord fiefdoms in the east and west. Some of my cousins have taken on roles of governorship in the prefectures.
For me, the emperor says my time is best spent in the capital, alongside him, as his future left-hand vizier. Whenever I return to the spring or winter capital, I continue classes on martial history, strategy and training my affinity with Eliyas, who reads from ancient manuscripts about Eajiz warriors, or the strategy of conquerors like Eskander.
Through Eliyas’s lessons, I learn about other Eajiz affinities – warriors long dead, or living in the Sajamistan Empire – though a part of me still longs to meet another Eajiz. Eliyas orders me to recite odes about holy warriors – another form of faith – to strengthen my Heavenly bonds.
‘In the heart of the Mist Mountains where the cosmos sleep, theSimorgh, the third sagely bird, guards Heaven’s secrets, bestowing wisdom to worthy warriors and guiding the presage of a great new era,’ I recite back one morning. We hang upside down on the branches of olive trees, meditating on nature.
Eliyas nods at me. ‘As you recite about the firebird, contemplate your seventy-seven bonds; they represent your contract with Heaven. The Heavenly bonds come from the Unseen, the spiritual world, and—Do not stop praying !’ he snaps.
‘Sorry,’ I wheeze out, the blood rushing to my head making this difficult. Through my recitation, slowly, gold lines, as thin and weak as a strand of mule hair, rise from different points on my body, upwards to the Heavens, flowing with Heavenly Energy.
Eliyas cannot see the Heavenly bonds because they are separate from an affinity; every Eajiz has seventy-seven bonds used to summon Heavenly Energy, which feeds their power.
Eliyas suddenly points at the white nur flashing from my feet. ‘Your bonds are growing; you can summon nur through your feet as well. This will increase as your affinity is manifested through the different bonds on your body.’
I glance up at my hanging legs. ‘Where else?’
He waves at the length of me. ‘You have bonds concentrated around your womb, arms and legs that store Heavenly Energy. There are Heavenly bonds even in each eye and the tongue, but those are nearly impossible to use. In fact, the best Eajiz can perhaps utilise only half of their seventy-seven bonds throughout their life,’ he explains.
I find myself enjoying lessons on Eajizi more than any other class.
Eventually, I move from the monastery to a communal room in the women’s inner palace with Uma. Many nights, she disappears, summoned by the emperor. Some months, I catch Uma gripping her stomach, but she assures me she is only ill and I trust her – wrapped up in my new life.
I lean into the tight embrace of it, the time before Azadniabad becoming more like the dark shadow of a nightmare. Something I glimpse looking back at me in the mirror, if I linger too long. But there is assurance in even that reminder; better a shadow to remind me that at any moment, this life – this home – can be taken from me too.
year 510 after nuh’s great flood, era of the heavenly birds
Navia, Spring Capital of Azadniabad
‘You’ve found a better teacher,’ Eliyas says one morning before our lessons. We are cross-legged below the hills leading into the juniper and orchard meadows outside the outer palace walls, playing the strategy game of saktab, the board strewn between us on a kilim. It’s a few days past the spring solstice. We reside in the north-western spring capital of Navia, hedged on a hill overlooking its luminous freshwater lake from Nuh’s Great Flood. Eliyas told me Navia – a settlement famous for its stone masonry – is the indigenous city of the Zahrs before they overthrew their Azad clan cousins almost 200 years ago and seized rule.
‘Who said so?’
‘Yun told me you prefer his training,’ Eliyas accuses me mildly, rearranging his legs in front of me. Recently Yun has begun imparting lessons of the secret Zahr martial arts system called the Seven Gentle Paths of Dawjad – something he’d learnt on his travels to the northern prefecture of Izur and brought back to me.
‘N-no,’ I reply with a quick smile. ‘No one is a greater mentor than you, Older Brother.’
‘Ah, you suck-up. You say that not to wound my heart.’ He leans his head against a stela, entombed with flood runes, before pushing his brass piece across the sandblasted gameboard. ‘I concede,’ he declares.
My grin disappears when I glance down. ‘You ignored my last opening, and let me win.’
‘The fact that you noticed shows your tact. Remember, some battles are worth losing for the greater war. I like conceding to you, little bird.’ He winks before pulling me to my feet but his words perturb me.
‘What war?’
A breeze sweeps fast, a gust of dirt and damp before it scatters. With it, I hear shouts. I turn toward the beaten paths winding into the meadow. A group of monks runs past the beekeeper huts, shouting at each other in a hurry.
‘Why are the monks running?’ I ask. A flurry of black kites swoops past us and...buzzards.
A distant memory slams into my head, hard.Sooty buzzards curl against my neck. I fasten a leather creance to their talons before the hunt.A folkteller carries the histories of our sorrows,a woman tells me sadly.
Caught in the memory, I find myself standing up, running after the birds.
‘Don’t go!’ Eliyas protests.
The birds soar toward the orchards and I chase after them. I realise how far I’ve run only when I catch up to them.
