Chapter 7 #3
Because a different power ensnares you, more poignant and dangerous than any blessing from the Heavens: the deception of bonds. You are chained to it, my mind taunts me, as all I do is watch.
The emperor does not give me time to come to a decision. The executioner’s axe crashes down and blood splatters the entire first row of our clan. A streak tracks down my cheek like a red tear.
Eliyas’s head rolls off into the grass.
Then the screaming begins.
The crimson flesh of his twitching neck is all that is left of the young monk. The older monks yell. It was so quick. My nails have punctured Yun’s arm from squeezing so hard.
This is not real, I chant.
‘My son!’ Dunya wails out, long, listless. For once, I do not take pleasure in her pain.
‘He’s ruined the only good person of this clan.’ Yun bows his head. ‘The emperor has ruined us.’
Uma once warned me, the purest flowers die, never the weeds. Because I like to ruin beautiful things. I will never unite with Eliyas in the next life of Paradise, for I do not deserve it.
The emperor’s solemn victory is cut short. An uproar from the monks splits the imperial guards. Suddenly, I see other monks descending the paths of the monastery. More and more, turning against the guards. But there’s another clash, drawing in from the outer palace walls.
‘Warrior monks?’ Yun lurches up.
My nose twitches and a haze of grey fog swirls through the grounds. The scent of sulphur permeates the air. I see the guards clashing with . . .
Those are raven masks, I realise in dread.
‘They’ve surrounded the gates!’
As if they’d been waiting for this.
I jump to my feet. A siege of our own capital? The breach was never a breach at all. It was a ruse . . . for the real attack was from inside the palace walls, with the help of forces from—
‘Sajamistan,’ I say faintly.
And I can think of no one else but Warlord Akashun who would capitalise on Eliyas’s execution.
‘Azra!’ a scream pierces through the scuffle.
Yun lunges forward but he is too late. My elder sister falls to her knees, an arrow protruding from her chest. Beside her, Belzzar is motionless, dead, on the ground; two of the emperor’s wives are cut down next by a monk; and then more elders are surrounded by raven-masked soldiers.
A mix of forces pours into the palace grounds, some with an emblem on their crisp tunics.
Gold embroidery sewn in lines like Heavenly bonds.
A small three-headed raven embellished across the breast of slit-sleeved, sable-furred cloaks.
Hard masks in a shape between wolf and raven sculpt their countenances through the pale husks of painted bones, a terrifying animation that causes even the shadows to sulk at their feet.
Sajamistani soldiers.
‘Go!’ Yun pushes me away before he runs forward with palace guards. Across from me, I see Dunya, unmoving and stunned, before an attendant wrenches her up, and toward the gates.
An attendant lifts me to my feet.
‘Where is Uma?’ I spin around. But the palace grounds are overwhelmed with Warlord Akashun’s forces joined with Sajamistan.
The attendant suddenly trips into me, her fingers brushing against my waist-sash before she flees.
The force makes me stumble back, but a new hand catches my elbow.
‘Come quickly,’ the emperor barks out. He tugs me to the eastern boundary of the courtyard, which descends to the meadow and stone huts of the beekeepers.
‘Wait! Uma!’ My heels dig into the cold dirt, but he does not stop. ‘We must find her!’
‘We have no time,’ the emperor says, but his cold exterior wavers as he pushes me forward, a cluster of orchard trees obscuring us from view.
‘We must make our escape below the hills, through the forest to the stone huts of the beekeepers, where my soldiers await to take us to Arsduq and Izur prefectures. Yun and Hyat will meet us there with the other clansmen.’
‘What are you saying?’ I hiss, a terrifying anger drifting through me. ‘We are fleeing without her?’
He emits a sound of disgust.
This is my uma. This is his wife.
‘You fool,’ he sneers. ‘You would risk us all to save one life? We were betrayed by one of our own; we must escape. Look above us, do you see them? To oust me, Warlord Akashun has allies from Sajamistan, including the Sepāhbad.’
‘But—’
‘We will salvage this. In Arsduq, I will send a page to the Izuri warlord. By wedding him to you, we will have our alliance, enough for the Zahrs to maintain a stronghold in the north-east before we retake our capital—’
A cry sounds behind us, a voice I recognise. Uma. Hasn’t my purpose been for Uma, to pave a path to a new home? I thought power only mattered if our clan lived and I could be her shelter, her home.
But the emperor grips me, hard. For once, the chill that once sank into my bones cannot dampen my anger. I’m unable to think or feel. I cannot see anything.
Except that my mother was never protected.
‘What of Uma?’ I snap. ‘Dunya? Eliyas? Sajamistanis crawl with the warlords, so how many of our own will you sacrifice?’
‘I would sacrifice another if needed. This is simply your uma’s fate,’ he answers before releasing me, his eyes a glassy abyss. ‘We must go, now. Remember why I do this. For our home. A warrior is incomplete without his sword; you are my blade, Khamilla. I need you. To gain Izur’s support—’
‘Another warlord?’ I cannot control the redness that wells in my vision like an open wound. I wonder whose fate my fallen emperor would determine next.
Shaking all over, I turn around.
‘Where are you going?’ he demands, wrenching me back.
With my head pounding, I raise my pinky, a Heavenly bond from that finger opening into a thin gold line.
The Heavenly bond shoots a hair-width of flashing white nūr into the emperor’s side, forcing him back before I realise I am stumbling up the hill, away from him.
The redness engulfs me entirely. I trip over a stone, but I cannot see in front of me.
I only feel a blade against a neck. I see a smile of blood on a torn throat.
I only see Eliyas’s dead body. I imagine who of my clan will be dead next, like him.
My legs straighten. Keep moving, I chant to myself.
‘I refuse to abandon Uma,’ I whisper.
Desperate, I reach the top of the hill and start running across the field toward the courtyards, where Sajamistani soldiers clash against palace guards.
There, I see her. Uma. But the hope slithers out of me. Raising my palm to angle my nūr across the grounds, I find it is no use. As always, I am an instant too late.
Uma is on the other side, in the trampled gardens. My range is not that far.
Everything slows. A sickness swells in me. Surrounded by Sajamistani soldiers, Uma fearlessly presses her khanjar against her throat before the soldiers realise what she is doing.
But I know, finally, Uma is finishing her own story. Rewriting it to its own fitting end, for what tale had Uma controlled in her miserable life before this moment?
She slits her own neck. The steel carves swiftly through her skin. Her body sways, her head wobbling as if wishing to caper off her frame. Her body collapses.
I sag against the ground behind a citrus tree.
‘By the devil Shaytaan,’ soldiers cry out, the wind carrying the curse.
My vision blurs, sharp grass stabbing into my legs as I kneel. Vomit fills my mouth, and I hurl into the dirt.
‘Uma,’ I gasp out, glancing back around the tree.
Her body burns into the depths of my mind, and will curse me with its gory reminder until the end of my days.
Even from here, the crimson is stark against the flora, remnants of henna-stained hair strewn against the ground.
The skies open, as if the clouds rumble their outcries, as if Brother-Nature recognises the malice of the act and wishes to wash away the stain of sin.
‘A pity,’ a cold, familiar voice says. I glance over to see the masked Sajamistani soldier with dark hair kneel beside Uma’s corpse. The one I spied from the delegation. ‘It seems their kind might be more obsessed with death than our own.’
‘A pity indeed, my Alif warrior,’ a woman replies, coming beside him.
In disbelief, my hand curls around the trunk to steady my swaying feet. It’s her. The leader of the delegation – the Sepāhbad-vizier, a general of generals in Sajamistan.
That is my uma they stand over. No. That was my uma. This is just as she’d promised.
A venomous taste lingers in the atmosphere. I cannot understand it. I cannot understand anything. After all we’d endured, Uma told me death was a better fate than to be captured by Sajamistan again. I thought we could beat this fate. I thought I’d beat it for her.
The air escapes my lungs and I curl into the tree to breathe but the smoke lingering in the wind makes it impossible.
‘The emperor has fallen,’ a cry goes out as a haggle of soldiers marches up the hill, dragging an indiscernible body. ‘He’s fallen!’
They throw a corpse down into the clearing. The eyes are dark and upturned, vanquish written across his bloodied features as if screaming the unjustness of his predicament to the Heavens. The body is covered in severe wounds.
Warlord Akashun’s men are there, surrounding it. Seeing the corpse provokes a sudden incessant dizziness. I want to scream. I want to weep. But I can only stare. That cannot be. I stumble back. That cannot be him.
As the palace guards yell and begin retreating in to the chaos of bodies, I quickly recede through the bramble into the meadow. I run down rocky alluvium, relying on instinctive memory from training – paths that soldiers and their stallions would never risk embarking.
The emperor is alive. He fled to the huts. He is with Hyat Uncle, I assure myself.
As the sky morphs to the pale sheen of dawn, I loop around south, then down toward the stone huts.
‘She’s here,’ a watchwoman cries out.
As soon as I cross the meadow, familiar clansmen turn from their steeds. Hyat rushes forward. I notice, then, the emperor is not with him. I stagger back and sink to my knees.
‘He is not here?’ I choke out. Hyat’s eyes widen. My last hope winks out.
A weak wail escapes my throat. Uma warned me about Sajamistan. They capture and torture us. They cut us apart.
‘Where is the emperor?’ Hyat demands.
Behind him, all I make out is a great, familiar shadow. It steps forward, eagerly into Hyat, as I speak weakly to my uncle through its gangly face.
‘The . . . the emperor is dead.’
The surviving Zahr clansmen begin shouting while Yun stares ahead blankly, Zhasna quiet beside him, pale as a sheet of ice.
My aunt Zunaykha whirls around, jabbing a finger toward me. ‘This is her fault! There was no evidence of the monk-boy’s crimes. For all we know, the girl could have planned his execution with Warlord Akashun!’
‘Uma warned us.’ Zhasna grips her khanjar to her chest. ‘Dunya is never wrong. This is no sister of mine. She is the Qabil of our era, a traitorous son of Adam betraying her own kin.’
I begin backing away as their arguing persists amongst themselves. My hand wrings my waist-sash, brushing against parchment tucked there.
With tremoring hands, I peel open the letter. In disbelief I jam my fist into my mouth, biting hard. I scream.
It’s him. He deceived Eliyas by encouraging him to confide in me, always knowing I would choose the emperor over my brother. He waited for this. He knew my actions would lead to Eliyas’s execution, and capitalised on it to attain the throne.
My thoughts unbalance. The memories of Eliyas’s beheading and then Uma’s death constrict my lungs.
I wait for tears to fall but I know what the emperor forbade from me: my own sorrow. I am never allowed to weep.
I back away into the nearest hut, alone inside. My trembling palms raise, and as I did after the raid that massacred my uma’s tribe, when the emperor ordered me to, I beg to wipe my memory. Make me anew. Make me forget him.
A stroke of nūr flickers out from my hand.
I press it to my mouth, swallowing the light.
I envision it gliding along the tangled skeins of my soul, delving into a cavern of memories, eviscerating every good thing I knew of Eliyas.
This is his fault. He was a traitor and now your clansmen are lost. My mind recedes.
I evaporate the letter with a flash of the white cosmic light but its words echo mockingly.
You acted exactly like I wished. Through and through, you are a loyal dog to the Zahr clan, little bird.
Thank you for ridding me of that foolishly idealistic monk, as if a Zahr with a soul as pure as his has a place in any Azadnian court.
May the boy rest in a grave of nūr before judgement by the Divine.
Now watch your clan crumble as swiftly as your Older Brother.
Let us meet in the dawn of this new era.
Your Blessing,
The Wolf of Khajak