Chapter 16 #2
‘How?’ I demand face down in the dirt, sandy grits of it in my back teeth. His arm eases and my neck cranes to face him, still pinned. For a moment, a deep-seeded fear crawls under my skin, seeing him towering over me in a raven mask, an echo of a forgotten past.
‘My affinity,’ he answers simply before climbing off me.
I hadn’t had an instant to use my Heavenly Energy – I did not see him.
‘His affinity is a virtue of diligence,’ Captain Fayez explains from across the gardens while his thick scarred fingers toy with a bone-pendant.
‘It’s a Messenger affinity; he marks a spot before battle and uses an activated Heavenly bond on his limb to arrive there first, at the speed of a jinn, by travelling through the Veil of the psychospiritual realm.
He simply needs to write a glyph upon his target; he can use water, blood, ink – anything.
And the mark remains there unless he swaps it for a new target.
’ He nods at Cemil, satisfied. ‘Good work.’
‘We are not finished.’ I lift my blade. ‘Again.’
That morning, I spar with Cemil many times, but it is of no use – as a Second-Slash, he disables my attacks, leaving me in the dregs of his affinity.
It isn’t until our eleventh spar that I manage to snake my arm up, but he grapples me to the ground through an ankle lock. He lifts his khanjar and—
A burst of pain explodes down my arm. My vision goes black, for a breath. I squirm on the ground and hear a squelch.
‘Eight Gates of Hells,’ I gasp out.
Through my blurry gaze, Cemil is frozen in place.
I dare a look down, a bout of nausea in my throat.
His blade has crucified my forearm to the dirt, skewered like a slab of meat, tearing right through the gold-threading. Every movement shoots agony up my arm.
‘No good, no good,’ No-Name continues repeating from behind me.
‘You are so helpful!’ I snap at her, but Cemil seems to think I am addressing him.
His mouth opens and closes, smirk gone, eyes wide. He kneels, hand reaching out toward the khanjar.
‘Do not touch me—’ I lurch away, forgetting that I cannot move, making me choke on my words as the blade wiggles against my penetrated arm.
Another test. Another failure, the emperor tuts inside my head. My eyes shut and I curl up, counting up and down to calm my breath, but his voice only grows louder. I’ve failed the scholars’ tests, and, now, the sparrings.
‘Khamilla.’ I feel Cemil’s hands on my shoulders and my neck muscles spasm. ‘Be still and breathe, or the wound will worsen.’
‘Was injuring me intentional, so the captain does not select me for the Marka?’ I breathe out.
His eyes, dark with remorse, search me before he nods toward the khanjar. ‘Don’t be difficult. Let me unpin the blade.’
‘That’s the last spar, the both of you!’ Overseer Yabghu, who was sparring with Katayoun, begins to run over, ripping the arak root from his mouth and tossing it away.
‘I’ve got this, Overseer,’ Cemil throws out. He holds down my wrist. I bite on my other arm, refusing to cry out. He yanks out the khanjar and the pain nearly makes me pass out.
‘We must take you to the Qabl medics.’
I cradle my arm. ‘My overseer will take me,’ I say coldly.
We both glance at Yabghu, who is searching for his arak root. He pauses and straightens. ‘Of course.’
Yabghu reaches me and uses his martial wrappings to staunch the wound, before helping me away from the gardens, blood blotched through my tunic. I catch Cemil staring after the crimson trail on the grass, jaw clenched.
No-Name follows us while we head past sand dunes full of other trifectas training under the punishing sun. It is not until we climb the sandstone steps of the monastery, toward the healing quarters on its third tier, that my voice breaks the terse silence.
‘He is more powerful. Surely, there must be a limit to the targets Cemil can use in battle.’
My overseer tilts his head. ‘Cemil’s limit is three in any given battle, unless he swaps it for another mark.
As he grows stronger, that may increase.
There could be other weaknesses. The Divine can bestow the same affinity to more than one mortal, and yet an affinity adapts itself differently to its wielder’s soul – based on their Heavenly Contract, bonds, morals and, of course, creativity.
Past warriors with the Messenger affinity marked their targets differently.
But Cemil uses his contract with Heaven in this method – by writing upon his targets. ’
‘He uses it well,’ I admit and my overseer does not soothe my fears. ‘Captain Fayez will pick Cemil over me for the Marka.’
Yabghu reads my gaze. ‘As you ask about his progress, he pesters me about you.’
‘Why?’ I face him, fighting the quaver in my tone. ‘He has no need to worry. My path leads to a life of the lowest ranks. Scholar Mufasa swore to never let failed students participate in the Marka; to always make them remain a Zero-Slash.’
‘That old bastard.’ His lips twitch up. ‘As for Cemil, a good warrior never underestimates their rivals, low as they are.’
‘I could hear you, Overseer.’ Cemil’s voice rings out and we turn to see him panting slightly at the bottom, as if he had run across Za’skar. ‘Telling her about the weakness in my affinity.’
Yabghu shrugs. ‘You injured her. It’s only fair. I ought to flog you.’
‘Why did you follow us?’ I break in.
Cemil steps upwards and his eyes drop to my cradled arm.
‘I assume to check if your blade pierced me deep enough?’ I press.
He continues walking forward.
‘To ensure I cannot train and—’
He reaches our step and my voice falters.
‘Overseer, you may leave,’ Cemil says. ‘I can accompany her the rest of the way.’ Then he addresses me.
‘I’m not desperate enough to intentionally injure you before the Marka.
If I wanted to, then on your first day as an initiate, I would not have shattered the poisoned teacup.
’ Yabghu observes us, deft eyes narrowed as if perceiving something.
Cemil presses a finger between my shoulders. ‘Let’s go, before you bleed all over the steps.’
‘I am fine.’ I shake off his arm and step through the monastery’s wrought-copper doors. Above me, a vegetally patterned plaque greets followers with death and peace, in illuminated calligraphy. For me, it’s only a bitter remembrance.
There are as many bonds to the Divine as there are breaths in man before death.
A junior healer spots my bloodied arm, pushing me toward the infirmary, but before the door shuts, I catch Yabghu thwacking Cemil’s head and dragging him away for a flogging.
In the infirmary, I stare at my marred arm in disbelief.
I believed I could succeed in this city, but now it felt like climbing up a mountain only to see you’d merely reached the path’s end and had yet to graze the peak.
Both Cemil and I have affinities effective in short-range battle but the chasm between our strengths is irrefutable.
Across from my floor-bed, No-Name balances on the beryl ledge of a medicinal shelf. Her skin is less pale and her features have altered, eyes wide and green.
My breath escapes my lungs. ‘You . . . look almost like Uma. Why?’
She touches her face before dropping her hands. ‘I suppose you wish me to be.’
I turn away, curling into the bedding. But my aches do not subside.
I miss them. My clansmen. My brother Yun.
My slain sister Azra. The easy nature of Zhasna.
And Uma, most of all. I miss her gentle hands.
I miss her salted chai with two sugar cubes under my tongue.
I miss her wet, broken eyes that calmed when my fingers touched her cheek, weak though mine were.
I miss Uma. In her short life, I could do nothing to save her. And still in her death – I raise my bandaged arm – I have this to offer her.
My eyes shut, hearing Uma. The Sajamistanis surround you like vultures as you flee across the Tezmi’a Mountains, she says.
Their arrows sink into your back; they delight in your screams. Your whimpers become the music of a well-tuned lute as the Sepāhbad takes your hand lovingly in his own before pressing his khanjar against your thumb.
You continue screaming. He slices it slowly.
And then he slices the next finger, and the next—
My eyes reopen and dart to my side. Suddenly, it’s not my head conjuring terrifying reminders for myself – it’s No-Name on the bedding beside me, wrapping her arms around my waist, voice slipping into the forlorn tune of Uma, saying the grotesque thoughts.
Her face has shifted until she’s undeniably my mother.
The horror makes me straighten. No-Name flinches. The answer hits me.
‘Change to who I need.’ I speak the command.
Uma disappears. No-Name’s skin becomes a smooth olive tone, head thick with black curls, an elegant crane-feathered qaftan flowing to her calves, until she is the emperor in the flesh.
Stricken for a moment, I cannot help the bubble of hysteria in my chest, wondering why I had not thought of this idea before.
What else propelled me to master jinn-poisons in a feat of masochism, day after day?
All I need is the emperor to remind me – no, to command me – that it is okay to become a living, breathing Sajamistani to rise in this army. If I can deceive my brain, I will not time-blank. I can pass.
I walk to No-Name-Emperor and he takes my cheeks into his hands. His voice sweeps through the past, mangling into the present. ‘What did I tell you about loss, daughter?’
‘Loss is acceptable to a good strategist as long as it’s never a concession in the greater war. To deceive the enemy, one must become them at all costs.’
From the vestiges of the past, he leans into the shell of my ear, uttering orders I’ve longed to hear. ‘Yes, there is no victory without pain. The pain only ends when a winner is determined.’
‘Now I understand,’ I murmur. He taught me that no fear makes you arrogant.
Too much fear makes you a slave, a puppet to the whispers of a master who longs to control you.
But a good amount of fear will become your wisdom because fear means you hold a stake in a battle.
Fear can save you. I fear this city more than anyone, and with that, I understand its stakes well.
Wrongly, I thought I needed no allies, that I could preserve the part of me that is Zahr-zad while living alongside Sajamistanis. From the way the scholars single me out, allies are all that will save me.
I face No-Name-Emperor, his features similar to Scholar Mufasa. They merge together, one my father, the other a scholar, but both my teacher. I could learn to love the scholar too – I will be a good pupil – for a mere semblance of his satisfaction.
In fact, I smile, it’s a labour of love. Scholar Mufasa must only be harsh because he longs for me to succeed; his style of cruelty is his fashion of teaching as a patriarch.
I will claw my way to the top. It’s exactly what was done with the poison: I felt the pain at first, but, achingly slowly, I built tolerance.