I give them a disgruntled look.
‘It’s good she came. The captain might be selecting the Marka squadron tonight...’ Yabghu’s voice trails off as the crowd of trifectas abruptly stops at the citadel.
‘Bow,’ Yabghu suddenly orders us.
From a distance, our captain’s voice cuts through the air. ‘May death be a peace upon you.’ Other soldiers bow to a figure entering through Za’skar’s gates.
‘Bow,’ Yabghu hisses again because I have not moved. Shock has frozen me. I rub my tired eyes.No, my sight is not mistaken.
The anger takes me by surprise. That it is still so whole and pure after a year – when I had kneeled before him in the frost, with the deaths of my parents as my hidden wound – is a relief.
A flock of advisers and two senior officers stand between us, surrounding him. Crouched against his neck is a courtly raven that fixes its beady eyes in my direction. The power of a clan’s vengeance: it cannibalises itself without end, and I thank its resilience as I stare at the Sepahbad, willing every ounce of my bloodied oath into the microcosm between us.
As if sensing its prickle, the Sepahbad turns slowly. The wind exhales a bout of sand into a dusty swirl and I hold out a quivering hand to stave it away. The belly of the clouds rumble, bloated and grey, with an occasional blister of moon, yet no rain falls. Heaven’s ominous warning is not lost upon me.
Just as the Sepahbad faces me, I know better than to stare. I drop into a bow, only daring to look up when our shoulders brush as he guides his snorting white steed into Za’skar.
‘May death be your peace.’ He greets the trifectas softly.
My gaze lingers on his receding back. Cemil stares after him, too, but for reasons opposite, a hunger swimming in him.
He rubs at his jaw before casting a sidelong glance. ‘You look shaken.’
‘It feels like years since our encounter.’
‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘It was he who recruited me into Za’skar.’ Cemil and Katayoun still at the revelation while Yabghu looks unsurprised.
Cemil presses me further. ‘Are the rumours true, then? Did you see into his eyes?’
‘His eyes?’ Katayoun asks.
‘He can control the Heavenly bonds within his eyes,’ Yabghu answers.
My thoughts slide back to his attack at the Ghaznia citadel, a part of me curious about his manipulation of Heavenly bonds. ‘That is what he used on me.’
My words echo louder than I intend. Other soldiers turn, Dara and a Third-Slash named Dil-e-Jannah.
‘Impossible,’ she scoffs. ‘You’d be dead.’
‘It was a misunderstanding,’ I speak quickly, omitting that he’d snapped my leg as well. ‘I looked into his eye bonds, and I could not move before he used Ifrit’s Strike, disabling my own Heavenly bonds.’
‘Count your blessings that you live,’ Yabghu says grimly. ‘The Sepahbad’s affinity is a virtue of the original cosmic sphere. The scholars call it Spring of Heavens, for he can control the substances that make up the springs of life. Based on the conditions he set with the Heavens, he can pull water from the clay, air, rivers or the corporeal body. Wielding eye bonds is a rare ability, even for Seventh-Slash warriors. If you use it, opponents are forced to fight you almost blind, for if they look into your eyes, the Heavenly Energy paralyses them for a split moment. Eye bonds guarantee an affinity hitting its mark. This is the move Sepahbad Jezakiel used to defeather– the former Sepahbad – in a Duxzam battle, to become our martial-vizier.’
My mind flashes to a distant memory of my girlhood, recalling the female general I saw then.
‘Why did Sepahbad Jezakiel overthrow her?’ I ask.
‘He took advantage of the fallout she faced for aiding Akashun’s insurrection against the Zahrs,’ Yabghu explains.
‘I’ve hardly seen the Sepahbad in Za’skar,’ Katayoun comments.
‘He returned today from the Camel Road,’ Yabghu answers. ‘With the strange disappearances in our borderlands, and the melees in Yalon province, led by Emperor Akashun—’
‘Akashun,’ I interrupt, the sound of the warlord’s name another shock. More wind lashes my face until I am forced to raise my shawl over my head.
This is the bitter reality outside Za’skar’s gates: my clan is fractured; Warlord Akashun still rules Azadniabad, and raids grow between our empires. Nothing has changed. Another reminder of my purpose.
