I blink hard. ‘The best power is subtle. Flowers grow beyond anyone’s estimation. Think of the Great Flood, the raven, the crane. In Azadniabad, we believe Brother-Nature’s wrath is immense. I’ve seen it.’
‘Flowers are not made for battle.’
‘Great warriors have died by mere flora. How did Eskander the conqueror die?’
‘He was poisoned...’
‘By a blue-dotted dahlia from the Unseen world. A jinn-poison.’
Her eyes redden. ‘Well, I cannot control the Unseen. It’s enough for me to train in iron-bone.’
‘Well, flowers can be poisonous.’ I incline my head and my lips curve up bitterly. ‘If it’s poison we must study, I can help you with that.’
She begins pacing in circles around the glass fountains, the francolins inside slanting to follow her movements. ‘Fine. But I only know the flowers I tended back home.’
A curiosity piques my interest and I remember what she told me. ‘You are from Khor?’
Arezu glances away. ‘Yes.’ Like Cemil.
Khor is an established trading node in the central Camel Road, south of the Tezmi’a pass. I turn away Arezu’s word, not wishing to know more. She is nothing but sand flying on the breeze, pricking skin but easily dismissed.
‘So this is where you disappear to before the fast?’ Yabghu’s voice cuts through the air, as he crests over the hill.
‘O-overseer,’ I stammer.
‘What is this, rukh?’ he snaps. ‘I’ve caught you again with pazktab children.’
Arezu’s gaze swings between us. ‘We are her students.’
‘What she means is, these students are targets at the pazktab school. They have no clanhouse nor patron to protect them. So I thought to teach them... as a good deed,’ I hastily explain.
Yabghu’s eyes twitch. ‘In our months of training, not once have you expressed piety. Pray that I never see you again with them.’
Something strange happens. Arezu throws herself at Yabghu’s feet with flushed cheeks.
‘Please!’ she cries out. ‘By the Divine, she teaches us. Do not doubther good deeds!’ Yabghu tries to leap back but Arezu clings to his leathery clogs. ‘She is our only hope to withstand the pazktab schools!’
Yabghu grits his teeth as Arezu’s tears wet his pale trousers. ‘Enough, child,’ he relents. ‘I believe you. Perhaps my rukh can be well intentioned.’
I struggle to maintain a neutral expression as I help Arezu up, bending to her ears and breathing, ‘Thank you.’
‘Master, do not expect me to do that again,’ she only whispers back.
An idea strikes me. I brush Yabghu’s sleeve. ‘Overseer, perhaps you can help me train them for the hour?’
His eyes drop to my hand on his arm. ‘By the Heavens, I will not—’
Arezu’s eyes dampen again, and he falters. ‘Only this once.’
After I convince Yabghu to guide the students through the First-Stratum of summoning, other pazktab students begin to take notice of our morning work. By midday, fifteen pazktab students have joined us.
My recruiting is not finished. After trifecta class on the monastery’s terrace, I intercept Katayoun. I tell her about my intention to enter the Marka.
‘You have fallen under the same mad spell of ambition as Cemil.’ She does not sneer nor raise her voice, as if that too is an effort that she does not intend on wasting.
‘Ambition is not a sin,’ I retort back. ‘In my first month as an initiate, I watched you. You completed the monks’ tasks well, but never more than what they asked of us. You are unremarkable. Everything about you is economical.’ Evidently so – she hardly blinks; she cannot muster the energy of being offended. ‘I need you in my Marka. I cannot compete with only children.’
‘Drafting me is as terrible as having a squadron of children,’ she says before continuing down the stairs.
