‘A khan of one tribe can hardly win against an empire. We are ants to them. When your uma married the emperor, she was shunned from his courts in a matter of weeks. His other wives and the Azadnian nobles could not bear a humble woman of the steppe-people in their lavish courts. They think us barbaric because we listen to the wind, and move with the herds, settling along the troughs of the valley and eating from the basins of the land, cultivating the little we have.’
I sank beneath his knowing gaze. ‘With no dada, I do not belong here nor there. I’ve heard the chiefs’ concerns about me.’
His finger tilted my chin. ‘You are not lacking, but between two worlds. Perhaps one day your difference will be of great worth to us all.’ He moved the thread, shaping intricate feathers on my reddened arms.
‘Did you know,’ he traced the glyphs, ‘on your skin are the shapes of the Heavenly Crane. Centuries after the Great Flood, it was this ancient crane who freed Nuh’s descendants, including our ancestors, from the jinn invaders. The Heavenly Crane belonged to the first Azadnian tribe. And now it’s the symbol of your father’s empire. When you yearn for him, look at the threading. A piece of his empire and history is upon your arms now.’
‘What of you, Khan?’
He thumped his forehead against mine. ‘You speak our language, tell our stories. You hold our history, and now,’ he snipped the thread, ‘I have threaded your arms. You carry a piece of my heart, daughter of my favoured sister.’ He winked.
The wind rattled the wooden lattice of the tent, plastered by felt mats to brave against the cold stoles of daybreak. I shuddered with it. ‘Then I will speak your stories with my entire soul, my Khan.’
He smiled and said, ‘I traded this for you.’ He handed me a pair of oxidised earrings, beaded with welded old coins and hawk feathers, engraved in swirls.
As he clipped them on, a deafening cry rang through the tents, shattering our peace, and my smile disappeared. The khan jumped to his feet. Outside, his apprentice, a young hunter of fifteen years, rode in on horseback, drenched in blood.
‘A raid,’ the boy gasped out. ‘At the Tezmi’a gorge. They attacked the escorted caravan party and broke through the dam, flooding the northern pass.’
The khan was whisked away on to his red horse.
We followed the tribesmen into the centre of the pastures. Raids had always been common throughout the Camel Road – soldiers ravaging oasis city-states, empires vying for a slice of the trade routes. We had always been able to defend ourselves; I assumed the khan could thwart any invaders. But two more of our best archers poured into the settlement, carrying corpses. A lifeless boy was passed to one of my uncles, neck dangling back from the torso.
‘Haj?’ Uma cried as his father cradled his corpse.
‘No.’ I staggered forward but Uma yanked me back.My hunting partner. My milk-brother.
‘And they’ve captured Hawah,’ the archer spoke quietly. A disquiet rippled across the tents and grasslands, dispiriting even the mules.
It was not our first raid, but it was the only one whose consequences felled my closest kin. I was unable to look away. Then I was greeted with a sight even more terrifying than my cousin’s body.
My stomach lurched and bile rose. ‘U-Uma, what is that shadow?’ I stuttered. For a darkness had sprouted from Haj’s neck, writhing like spilled ink. It rose like a black serpent, and one milky white eye fixed upon me.
‘Uma!’ I cried out. The shadow frothed over his body like a swarm of locusts, turning in my direction.
Uma clenched my hand. ‘Run inside our tent. Grab my blade. Do not come out.’
‘What is that shadow?’ I sobbed.
She covered my eyes. ‘It’s a body. You need not look.’
‘But the demon, the jinn.’
‘What demon? What jinn?’ Uma shook her head. ‘You are frightened. Run inside. And heed my words. Donotcome out.’
Why didn’t Uma see it? Why didn’t Uma see the shadow atop the boy’s corpse?
Belonging...
year 508 after nuh’s great flood, era of the heavenly birds
Hawah never returned. This was only the beginning. Raids steadily increased and with them, more bodies. Those who weren’t killed were captured by enemy tribes, into marriage or servitude.
On the morning of the winter solstice, weeks after Haj’s burial, Uma handed me her finest, thinnest dagger to hide down my breeches.
‘If they take you, you will need this,’ she explained.
I handled the needle-like blade, my heart buzzing. ‘But I cannot win against older warriors. Besides, I am better with a bow and arrow. Or with my birds.’
