My blood curdles at his poisonous words. They strike so wrongly, but rooted beneath the pain is hard reasoning, a revelation I cannot refute.
He continues, ‘Some beings are consumed by greed, coin; they servefor nothing but their own indulgence. An unworthy direction, but still it’stheirdirection. You – you have none after your master’s death, not anymore; or perhaps you had none to begin with. In you I see a girl never brave enough to return to her own empire. Bowing her head to her master, following the shepherd’s path at a sheep’s hide. A cowardice inherited by blood. It’s hard to fight poison when that poison is a part of you.’
‘Not poison,’I deny, but behind him, the shadow simpers closer, canting its head.
‘You never returned to your true lands in Tezmi’a, and look where it’s brought you, under the edge of my sword. Better your hands than mine.’ The Sepahbad’s tone is spun silk, but it doesn’t lessen the cruelty. He teases the Zahr blade in my direction.
We both stare at it. My neck strains to quell the shaking inside my body.
But I recall that sensation – the one of pure unadulterated life – pulsing and pounding behind my ribs. The will that craved a sense of belonging in my clan.
The choice is clear.
With trembling hands, I push away my khanjar. The Sepahbad nods and flicks his blade in my direction, which clatters almost righteously at my knees. The gold-threaded handle glimmers. I reach out and press the flat of his blade to my forehead in acknowledgement.
Pride runs dry, but I never held any to begin with. Not when I was the emperor’s daughter.
‘We both know my decision,’ I whisper, anger swelling in the rifts of my heart.
He considers me for a long moment. ‘And what would that be?’
He’s forcing me to proclaim my new allegiance. ‘Sajamistan.’ The utterance fills me with disgust. They ask me to cast aside my clan, my name. To become them.
‘Have her leg set and bring her to the infirmary,’ he orders the guards before standing. His gaze drops to the empty space between us, as if that chasm holds something that I cannot perceive. But that is fate, an empty space on a tablet scribed by the Divine to thread together two souls. In another life – if I’d become Azadniabad’s vizier – I’ve no doubt this Sepahbad-vizier and I were destined to meet like this anyway, an empty space between us as we stand on opposing sides.
He bows low in surprising sincerity before turning away. ‘You have traded death to become an initiate. You will go to Za’skar, the city within a city where jinn and humans live together as one and Eajiz train to become their masters. I wish you well, initiate. Keep my blade as a reminder. If your oath is broken, your last duty ends with this blade and your blood running through your fingertips. Remember, there is no worth in one possessing no purpose.’
My kneeling legs buckle and I land on my hands, looking down at snow tainted by blood and vomit. My lips curve up, a panicked laugh caught in my throat. On the heels of relief, misgiving: this was too easy and I would be unwise to think he does not harbour suspicions about my intentions.
In the split moment before he disappears through the gates, I glance at his hands. His knuckles are calloused, gilded with faint scars.
Uma would deem him a hawk.
11
Za’skar City, Al-Haut port, Al-Haut Province, Sajamistan Empire
In the cramped, miserable caravan pulled by donkeys, I cling to the edge nearly falling out. The shadow is beside me, watching the passing scenery. My fingers graze my left earring, hanging uselessly at my lobe. We ride to the royal port capital Al-Haut in Sajamistan, home of the scholarly city of Za’skar.
As we cross the capital walls, the caravan jostles and shudders to a stop. A head pops through the camel-skin tent, belonging to a lithe young man, perhaps in his late twenties, who springs on to the cart, frightening the other voyagers with his rippling grace.
His coppery brown eyes are lined in sormeh; he has narrow features and the dusky red skin of desert inhabitants. His clothes have the typical sharp lines of Sajamistani attire: a high-collared pale tunic of fine linen with amber buttons, hemmed by stitches made of raven feathers, pale baggy trousers tight at his ankles, and a shawl crafted from tawny feathers tossed around his chest.
His curly hair is tied into a topknot, the tail of black muslin strewn around his head in a casual turban to shield the gales of gritty sand. The shadow of a beard bristles along his square jaw. On his arms, raven motifs gild his skin in the dye of blue- and black-threading. Even his earring is a bleached yak-tail bone in the lobe.
From his neck dangles a martial mask of bone-stone. His eyes begin to survey the passengers until they land on me, lighting up. My fingers dig into the tent of the caravan. Breathing hard. He must be an Eajiz from Za’skar.
Under the monks, I once wondered if I’d meet other Eajiz. But not like this. Never like this.
‘May death be a peace upon you, new initiate,’ he greets me. His dialect is the Sajamistani court vernacular, purged of the accents found in the other provinces.
‘Who are you?’ I ask.
‘Unfortunately, your trifecta overseer, Yabghu of Squadron One, rukh.’
‘Rukh?’ I echo.
‘Like the bird,rukh. We call low-ranks rukh. In this army, each initiate is placed within a trifecta: a group of three low-ranks mentored by a higher ranked warrior – an overseer.’ Yabghu explains impatiently. ‘Name?’
