We switch positions. Aizere exhales and stabs the tree without breaking her gaze from me. Her hand snaps back but she too does not flinch. For a second, we glance at each other’s twin injuries.
I turn around in time to see Cemil raise his finger and swoop into second stance. Through three breaths, his finger punctures a circle-shaped crater in the tree. To this, our overseer remarks, ‘You’ve improved, Cemil,’ making my jaw clench.
Then Yabghu pitches me a sidelong stare. ‘And you, at least... understand the cost.’ He raises a finger callously, and drills a precise hole. The sheer force causes a hole to erupt on the other side of not one, buttwotrees in a row, frightening a flock of perched humas, the birds’ smoky shrieks carrying loudly across the entire metropolis.
‘Rukhs must begin with finger taps,’ Negar explains across the week, as we make our way through gruelling finger taps to punching in the form of iron-bone fists. ‘Even the distance between each finger is a precise science. The goal is to create a hole in the trunk by sheer strength without breaking your fingersorutilising Heavenly bonds. It’s a mathematical application of iron-bone multiplied by force. With this, youuse the First-Stratum through your bonds, to cause holes in four trees simultaneously. The goal is to eventually master Ifrit’s Strike of Death, where the martial artist uses their finger’s vibrating internal Heavenly Energy to target an opponent’s bond location like acupuncture.
‘An Eajiz must strikes in multiples of three. The lower the multiple, the greater the force required to debilitate the opponent. The higher the multiple, the larger the risk, for going too far may break each of your fingers. If done wrong, your opponent could be paralysed. If done right, their bonds are disabled and they collapse. If taken too far, they die. Weaponise your opponent’s energy against them until they cannot rely on their own bonds. Be merciless. Only when they lose hope is your battle won.’
A sudden thought reverberates through me. I recall how the Sepahbad defeated me outside the Ghaznian citadel, disabling my bonds. ‘The Sepahbad is capable of this?’
‘Every Qabl master is.’
With my uninjured hand, I grip the khanjar the Sepahbad had bestowed on me, the hilt naked without a slash. I want that power.
As we progress, my overseer instructs Katayoun and me to spar with our affinities, first with only the manipulation of Heavenly Energy to reinforce our offence. Gradually, he permits me to use my nur to face Katayoun’s affinity: a virtue of fortitude, where her bonds create a Veil to intake and deflect the opponent’s Heavenly Energy.
When I hold my own against her, Yabghu allows me to face Cemil. On the day of the sparring, with No-Name’s arm clinging on my shoulder, I grit my teeth before stepping into the gardens. This is my chance.
Without a greeting, Yabghu lifts scrolls of parchment while chewing on an arak root. ‘Many of the scholars report that you are failing your classes.’
I snatch away the scrolls. My heart twists in resentment and his voice enters my mind again.
Failing, as expected, the emperor whispers as No-Name stretches her arm around my throat. I swallow panic, pressing a hand against my chest as if it can lift the weight there, but it simply grows.
I want to change it; I want them to perceive me as better, until they bow at my feet. I long for approval, Ilikebeing right, riding that high the same way I craved passing the emperor’s poison tests. To proveto them an Azadnian is equally matched; that my clansmen deserved to live. How will I return to the Zahr clan with intelligence if I wallow in the lowest ranks?
‘Have you asked Katayoun or Cemil to help you?’ Yabghu asks, leaving me unable to answer. ‘You can moan about unfair treatment but I watch you during mealtime and training; you are alone. That’s probably why the pazktab children taint your meals with sand and bugs. You turn students away; you provoke their ire too. Remember, rukh, your success here is determined by alliances. And shared pain, whether it is surviving war or training together, is the best form of solidarity.’
‘Scholar Mufasa has already made an example of me,’ I point out. ‘Why would any rukh help me?’
He pats my shawl in a shrewd version of comfort. ‘Prove yourself. The captain told me he sees potential in your affinity – your strength. If you fail like this, forget any hope of moving to First-Slash. He will never draft you for his Marka squadron.’
‘That has yet to be decided,’ Captain Fayez puts in, trudging toward our trifecta. As the most senior in the squadron, he rotates, observing the trifectas under his command. Today he will watch our sparring.
Cemil snorts from the marbled archway of Little Paradise gardens. His noise disturbs the sparrows splashing in the azure bowls.
‘You seem confident,’ I say but my bravado is empty. Cemil does not insult me further, and the truth of it is scathing. He finds me so pitiful, I am no longer a prospect of a rival.
In a clearing surrounded by poplar and citrus trees, Cemil dips his finger into a geometric glass fountain and closes the distance between us, pulling my arm into him. He’s never touched me before.
‘What are you—’
He reaches up, wet finger grazing my cheek feather-light. It takes me a second too long before I break away, an ever-present nausea curdling in my gut.
‘Why did you touch me?’ I snap at him.
He shrugs with a mocking smile. ‘As the Qabl sages say, an ignorant opponent suffers the greatest loss.’
From the corner of my eye, No-Name huddles against a citrus tree. ‘No good, no good,’ she repeats, rocking back and forth.
Cemil returns to his side of the field and tightens the black muslin rounding his temple. He slides on a martial mask, bone-stone glintingunder red sun, and I withhold a flinch. In a bow stance, his left hand twists a marbled khanjar with two ivory slashes scored across the hilt, blending into the light.
Discarding my robes, I roll up my tunic sleeves and exhale meditatively, loosening stiff limbs and evoking a warm surge of Heavenly Energy. I do not don my mask.
The captain walks between us, his muscles gliding smoothly. His black eyes hold steadfast like an iron will. Of course the man is the embodiment of iron-bone. And in his voice, I hear its hard conviction.
‘I look only at a warrior’s pride and strength. A simple calculus, if you wish to earn my favour. Now begin.’
