‘Those are poisonous,’ Yabghu snaps. ‘The pazktab children must have tainted her dishes while serving her meal.’
‘See it as a gift,’ a gruff voice says with a chuckle. I turn and an old crone of a man in scholarly robes leans against the teak partition, lips turned up mockingly. ‘The pazktab students are simply welcoming her to our city with what her kind prefers – to be one with Brother-Nature.’
Laughter threatens to spill from my throat, to tell the scholar that this isnothingto the threats of the eight great clans of Azadniabad. I built resistance to red scorpion poison at the age of fourteen. Instead, I push back from the table and stand, the nearby soldiers and overseers staring up at me. My neck prickles from the weight of them. No-Name comes to my side.
‘I will go,’ I tell Overseer Yabghu, but privately, there is a quiet relief. Now I have another reason to cling on to my anger.
14
After a night of beating myself with an iron whisk, as per Yabghu’s orders, I walk toward Little Paradise gardens for trifecta training. It is early, before the dim blue of dawn when the birds have not chirped, but the sun has started to awaken. At my side, No-Name steps tentatively through foliage fed from an oasis, picking through tall tulips and purplish saffron.
A weening light shines upon baby-horned bulls slumbering atop the fountain tiles, musk-scented water pouring through long qanat systems. Red sparrows warble quietly inside the azure bowls, clustered little babes yearning for a lick of Paradise waters. I am careful not to disturb the creatures as I make my way to a crop of almond and poplar trees, my waterskin filled with freshly brewed kahvah.
After climbing a low-hanging branch, I unsheathe my onyx. No-Name crouches against the base of the tree, and I try not to look at her.
‘What is that?’ she asks, pointing toward the fountains. Ignoring her, I balance on the limb through the nine stances with my training knife. ‘What is that?’ she repeats.
‘What is what?’ I snap just as a hoarse yell breaks through the clearing. Below the branches, I recognise dark blue tunics and loose, ill-fitting trousers with gold hemp cords yanked tight at the waist. It’s Eajiz from the pazktab school.
I watch as three of the students surround another against the fountain.
A small boy with a swollen cheek and bloodied teeth shoves away the fists of a lanky girl. Before long, his satchel is ripped open as the girl tosses out his parchments and calligraphy set. She digs around furiously and proudly produces his bundle of apples, slivers of melon and dried lamb meat inside palm leaves.
Behind the bloodied boy, an even younger boy wails at the sight of his friend’s demise. ‘By the Divine, don’t hurt him!’ he yells through a broken lip.
‘A brat barely done milking is ordering me what to do,’ the lanky girl sneers.
‘What is that?’ No-Name asks again, half in shadows, eyes pitched
black.
‘Who, you mean. Those are pazktab children beating a boy,’ I tell her.
‘Will you help him?’
‘No,’ I decide, ‘the pazktab children put scorpions in my tea.’
But the boy’s cry has me peeking again. The leader clenches him by the collar, her knuckles digging into his fleshy neck.
‘I am taking all of this,’ she says, as her companions stuff the scraps of food in their satchels. ‘But to be polite, we’re leaving behind an apple. We have manners in stealing.’
I open my waterskin, knowing I should keep practising my nine stances before training, but somehow unable to look away from the children.
‘What if he runs to the Qabl monks?’ a student points out.
The girl scratches her kerchief. ‘Okay.’ Then she gives the boy a half-measured kick in the legs. He cries out, cradling it. ‘Taken care of.’
I sip from my kahvah, marvelling at the pragmatism.
But the little one with the swollen lip staggers to his feet and pounces on the girl. She rears back into my tree. The force jostles the branch, knocking over my onyx knife and kahvah before I can blink.
What in the Gates of Hells.After scrambling down, I stride over and grab my waterskin.
The girl looks startled by both the falling objects and my sudden presence. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘Your...’ I search for the appropriate word, ‘trainingknocked into my tree.’
‘Who are you?’
