‘Are you certain?’ Mufasa’s chuckling tone grates on me like he is the emperor administering a poison test.
My willpower snaps.‘Yes, scholar.’
He waves a hand dismissively. ‘The same pattern of violence continued and continued until the Zahrs rose to power on the heels of invasions, taking the Camel Road to maintain their rule on its trades. At the cost of thousands.’
My ears feel hot. Uma was right, they hate us. They lie even about our sorrows.
‘Every Azadnian dynasty, from the Stone Empires down to the Zahrs, used the Camel Road as their fodder to fund expansion and stoke more war against their sworn enemies. They never cared about the people on the land, not when the land of the Camel Road was more valuable than any human life, to feed their rule.’
And what of your empire, that threw me out of my birthlands in the first place?But the scholar speaks more, and it becomes harder to breathe. My senses clog, my surroundings blurring like I am underwater until I am floating out of the planes of my body.He is wrong, I repeat to myself five, and then ten, times.
I know how to defend against attacks. There exists a countermove for every offence, but how does one defend against an unseen manoeuvre? This battle is not one that can be blocked with fisted hands. The room begins to sway. I wish to crumple, but in a space full of enemies, I can do nothing except become still and obliging.
To distract myself, I start counting, skipping in twos, fives, tens, hundreds. Again and again. Behind the scholar, wedged in the corner of the chamber, No-Name is silent as the shadow she is. She is almost invisible, but when my eyes meet hers – I think the first time I’ve purposefully sought her attention – her body solidifies.
I imagine her small, scarred hands covering my ears; I imagine I am not in this room, and all of the liar’s words are muffled. Though Mufasa speaks, I find a counterbalance. An argument is only effective when acknowledged. I must ignore it.
It helps. When the scholar finishes his tirade, I remove my gaze from No-Name.
The flush in my cheek subsides, veins no longer burning. I send thanks to my father for teaching me tears are a weakness. Glancing around, I imagine the emperor.
You are my left-hand vizier, his voice reminds me.And tacticians in one moment of patience prevent a thousand regrets.
‘You have one last chance.’ Mufasa lifts the parchment I received at the start of class. ‘Re-answer this question for me, but without your molested version of history. Perhaps then I will reconsider your potential in my halqa.’
I know better than to throw this chance away. My mouth opens to respond before I realise... I do not recall the question.What was it?
A pressure builds between my eyes and I recognise this sensation, where I confuse words and time before failing to recall anything. I’ve time-blanked.
Mufasa’s eyes narrow, holding my parchment. ‘Answer the question, rukh.’
‘I-I do not know, scholar. The question, can you tell—’
‘Answer it.’
‘I cannot!’ I speak louder.
He slams his hands on the desk. ‘Worthless.’ He faces the class. ‘This is not a past we are learning, but a conviction. You train to become the greatest Heavenly warriors to stave off another, greater evil. Or else...’ He dips the corner of my parchment into a smokeless-fire lantern. Ash weeps down like grey tears. I pretend it weeps for me.
‘... you become another forgotten aspect of history, a failure for the future to laugh over.’
But that is only the first day.
For the next two weeks, to make a point of his disdain, Scholar Mufasa ignores me. Though he poses questions that I know – martial conundrums that are simple – he refuses to pick on me.
‘Explain the hierarchy of bone density in Eajiz warriors, dating back to Temirkhan.’
I answer before he selects a student. ‘Seven, like the levels of Heaven. A warrior begins iron-bone training with a spiritual bone density of three. With each ranking, it becomes a multiplicative factor of seven. The highest Eajiz warriors of the seventh rank have a bone density over 700 times that of a regular mortal.’
The scholar carries on as if I had not spoken, picking on a student who regurgitates my answer.
Later, he asks, ‘Tell me, in the Battle of Arsduq between the forces of Warrior Temirkhan and the Magician Junja Jazatah, who was the hawk and who was the heron?’
For a moment, students take their time to scribe answers. I discard the parchment and stand on my cushion even as Katayoun yanks on my sleeve. Still, the scholar bypasses me.
My mouth opens anyway. ‘When one blazes through obstacles to achieve their goals, with ideas calculated in absolutes, they are a hawk. When one pays attention to little details, understands the world as complex contradictory parts and shifts strategy to take advantage of changing circumstances, then they are a heron. An apt leader is a heron but at times is required to make bold, hawkish decisions. Temirkhan used the glaciers of the Black Mountains to eviscerate Arsduq’s southern pass. He is the heron.’
The scholar pauses. ‘You spoke without permission, and thus, I did not listen. Why listen to the words of a girl who taints our history?’
