The pain is not physical; it’s spiritual, as if my soul has been ruptured from its corporeal roots. Even though I’m desperately mouthing the Divine’s seventy-seven names, my soul can no longer sense my Heavenly bonds, the connection severed. Any Heavenly Energy within me thins like a frayed thread.
I need to run, or I will die—
The Eajiz reads my intent. ‘Be still now.’ His hand comes to a rest atop my head.
My vision begins clearing, enough for me to see that though his gazeis trained on me, he is addressing the two guards at the gates. ‘She might run. Make it clean and healable.’
One guard grasps my left leg.
‘No, I—’
She snaps it, a crack splitting the air. A stifled scream tears from my throat, salty saliva stinging the skin of my lip. The Eajiz catches me with his right arm. My head spins and vomit crawls up the back of my throat, leaving me no choice but to empty chunks of half-digested flatbread over the lambswool of his coat. He does not flinch.
He speaks, unfazed, his breath a puff of smoke. ‘She won’t be running now.’ His voice is casual, like what he’s done is nothing but a passing occurrence.
I am an animal cornered beneath them.
My mouth opens and blood spills out, dribbling down my chin. ‘M-my soul, my bonds.’ I panic.
‘A shame. Even with power at your hands, you are reduced to this, crawling beneath someone else’s feet. So tell me, foolish girl, why you have attacked this citadel?’
He lifts his hand and a small pictogram engraved in black-threading rests at the centre of his left palm. The dye is an indent of a black and red line. A singular Alif of the Adamic language. Small but prominent, and I recognise such a pictogram. I’d seen that marking years ago. It’s the mark of the Sepahbad-vizier.
I take in the warrior’s pale mask, a blend of wolf and raven, in disbelief at the odds, before recalling Hyat’s grim warning.
Thismust be the new Sepahbad that my uncle referred to. This is that dark-haired right-hand warrior I saw, when the previous Sepahbad invaded our capital and killed the emperor and provoked my uma’s death.
This is the warrior who helped slaughter my clansmen.
A raven soars above the Sepahbad before perching upon his shoulder. From my peripheral vision, I spot other soldiers who look like they’ve just arrived from the village. The Sepahbad turns his head slightly and gestures once. The soldiers disperse into the citadel until it is only us and the guards positioned at the gates.
‘You have not answered my question.’ Under his mask, I make out hard hazel eyes.
Through the pain from my left, I force out, ‘I-I did not attack firstand... I never had any intention of... r-running.’ I brush hair from my face. ‘I came to enlist.’
The Sepahbad pauses and stares at my features. Above his mask, a wrinkle forms between his brows. He unpeels his mask, letting it dangle around his neck.
‘Shepherd girl,’ the Sepahbad says wryly, and I still.
‘Monk?’ I whisper in dread. It’s the young man who had bartered for honey on my behalf.
His lips twist up, but I am the fool because I’d wrongly assumed him to be a monk. He’d never claimed to be one. How can someone who appeared so generous – so in tune to spirituality – be the Sepahbad, applauded for his brutality?
The Sepahbad releases me and I stagger on to my good leg. With his mask hanging from his neck, his features are clearer. Like in the bazaar, one might call him unnaturally beautiful. The black and gold embroidery of his tunic ripples in the dark. A three-pointed bone-stone pendant rests against his collarbone. He looks only a few years older than me, but Eajiz bear the long, cursed lifespan of jinn. The truth lies in the Sepahbad’s gaze, hinting at a wisdom far exceeding human proportions.
But whatever kindness he had worn in our first encounter is extinct. His gaze is sharpened by a dark keenness, such that if he were to peer into one’s eyes, he could discover their griefs, angers, dreams, the very anchors of their soul, before crushing them between his fingers.
‘You are a shepherdess but also an Eajiz,’ he remarks while, on his shoulder, the raven cocks its head. He faces the guards. ‘What have you learned?’
Imagine the ice-tonged paths of Ghaznia. Cold, and so still.It works. The heat within me recedes, leaving only cool anger. My uncle warned me if I fail the Sepahbad’s questions, I must accept death.
‘After a raid, she was sold as a servant to this village. Her master was ill and died. She is free of her contract and wishes to enlist,’ the guard explains.
‘I see,’ the Sepahbad says to her, though now he is observing me. ‘Is that all?’ I nod carefully. He glances at my injury. ‘Would you like your leg set?’
I hesitate, recalling my uncle’s warnings about the nature of the Sepahbad. He sounds coaxing, perhaps a comforting friend. This is a test. ‘No. I came for a simple purpose.’
‘Ah,’ he says almost pleasantly. ‘Would you like more honey?’
