Chapter 25
A week passes until my leg is healed enough to return to classes and trifecta training.
On the steps of the Easkaria, Katayoun halts me. ‘Avoid Cemil. He has not nursed his wounds well.’
‘I will.’
She works her jaw, as if it hurts her to say this. ‘Perhaps your ambitions were not misplaced. You’ve wounded their pride. For that, win your foolish Duxzam. If any warrior can demand even the Heavens for an impossible victory, it is you.’
My tongue fumbles at this. ‘I . . . I will. And I was being honest, in the Wadiq tests. I prefer your silence over Cemil’s company.’
‘Wouldn’t anyone?’ She holds out her hand expectantly. I hand over a pouch clinking with my monthly stipend.
We step through the corridors, as straggling low-ranks eye us. Upon entering the martial history halqa, a long line indents Scholar Mufasa’s forehead, from dismay or approval, I cannot guess. Dozens of Zero-Slashes stare coldly at Katayoun and me.
The scholar stands from his rahle. ‘I declare your Marka victory an embarrassment.’
My head bows, hands curling in.
‘However, pride does not win battles. You used the resources around you – unbecoming as they were – cleverly. And for that,’ his voices loses its edge, ‘we bestow you this.’
He unsheathes from velvet my khanjar and Katayoun’s khanjar, each with one ivory slash scouring the marbled hilts. ‘You are hereby acknowledged as warriors of First-Slash ranking.’
The days bend into a new routine. In one week, Yabghu is to depart for a military rotation up north; we will merge with another trifecta until his return.
He increases the vigour of our trifecta training on the monastery, particularly challenging Katayoun after the Marka.
A stone-faced Cemil and I avoid speaking to each other.
Outside of trifecta training, to prepare for my duel, I apply myself to martial arts. I posit various questions to Sister Umairah, until she tires of me.
‘If Captain Fayez is a master at iron-bone, I cannot beat him,’ I tell her, thinking of the Sepāhbad and his iron-hard fingers, precise and dense.
The grandmaster considers my words. ‘Fayez understands the conditions of reaching enlightenment in battle. I only see veils inside you.’
I startle back. The veils the monks speak of exist most persistently between me and the memories of my past; between myself and my emperor’s demands.
‘I was like you, I desired strength – until it nearly cost my bonds to the Heavens.’ The grandmaster crouches on the cushion before me. ‘Answer me, what does it mean to become the best warrior?’
‘Victory.’
She squints. ‘What do you desire?’
‘To be knowledgeable in all.’
She smiles and I feel gifted with something precious.
‘Any being of desire must suffer adversity. That is Qabl. One must be pulverised into dust particles, one must become nothing until they are asked their name and reply nothing. Ironically, slave of the Heavens, you are a liar when claiming to seek truth, for when you think you long for honesty, you instead ache for the cover of lies, aware that any shred of honesty requires sacrifice. With sacrifice does knowledge choose to reveal itself. Do you know who you are?’ She nudges and I scowl.
‘You do not heed her; you ignore the truth.’ Fear ripples in No-Name’s gaze.
The questions seep feverishly into my bloodstream, like a slow poison. Who am I? My identities wrap like silk binds. I am a daughter of the Zahr emperor; I am a nomad of Usur-Khan from the Azadnian borderlands; I am an Eajīz of Za’skar in the Sajamistan Empire.
And I am Khamilla.
But that truth seems so far away, so irrelevant. Because names are undeniably vast and powerful but so utterly meaningless.
Instead of seeking further help, I back away from Umairah’s knowing smile.
After the Marka, the dynamics in my classes change.
Word of my duel spreads, leading to other First-Slashes seeking me out in the evenings by Katayoun’s urging, to spar, instead of ignoring me as I expected.
To prepare, I train in the wild woodlands behind the barracks, and practise my stretch kicks and stances, so by the time they join me, I am nimble and ready to go.
Combat manoeuvres are reduced to the same mathematical formula: strategy plus brute force and power will equal victory.
At the end of the first week, after finishing a spar against Gulnaz and then Aizere, I remain seated on the sandy fields, struggling to massage blessed black seed oil into my weak leg.
A shadow bends across the packed sand.
‘Khamilla,’ Cemil says in greeting – the first words we’ve spoken all week.
I study him. ‘Why acknowledge me now?’
He crouches on the field, crossing his legs. ‘To understand my mistakes.’ His hand stretches to the clay pot of oil. ‘May I?’
My fingers slow on my shin.
‘What,’ I begin before he snatches the pot, ‘are you doing?’
Cemil waits, leaning over my exposed leg. A silence creeps between us. Though this is unbecoming, after a long moment, I release my leg and nod, if only to find out his intentions.
His fingers catch my ankle on to his lap. My eyes avert, unwilling to acknowledge his touch.
‘Tell me, why you are duelling the captain?’ he says as his hands dig into my calf. Uncertainty floods me, for I do not find this pleasant nor unpleasant.
‘It is the law of power in Za’skar.’
‘Power.’ His smile slips and the pressure of his hands presses into my muscle. I hold myself steady.
‘You could duel other high-ranks.’
His head shakes. ‘There are thousands of soldiers, but only so many Fifth-Slashes, who duel once or twice a lunar year. Why would a different captain duel me, when Fayez was there, telling me that I could challenge him if I help us win? I was close – so close – to contesting Fayez’s power, if we’d won the Marka.
No other high-rank has any reason to challenge me.
I didn’t help us win the Marka even though I warned Fayez. ’
‘Warned him of what?’
‘As soon as I learnt about your squadron, it became as glaring as the dawn that your strategy would be a roving pincer.’ His hand treks down to my ankle, clamping it hard, like iron. ‘The fool did not acknowledge me, even though my strength rivals his.’
‘If he was a fool, then you, too, were the fool to follow him.’
The force of his grip increases and my surprise hampers my next words.
‘Never will I make that mistake again.’ Our eyes meet and he suddenly yanks my leg forward over his own until we are face to face.
His fingers tread away from my foot, but my hand clenches his, arresting it.
He flips our hands together and studies them, interlaced.
I pull mine back. Seize it, I order myself.
When I look up, he is staring as if it is the first and last time that he will do so.
‘You are not yourself,’ I say, slowly realising.
‘I am grateful to you.’ His voice tightens, and my instincts whir.
‘That is difficult to believe.’
‘You’ve reminded me of what is at stake in Za’skar. Perhaps you were correct, honour cannot matter.’
‘Release me.’ My voice drops. ‘An overseer will see.’
He searches me like I hold an answer for him – of what, I cannot fathom. In his face, what I took as struggling detachment shifts to veiled contempt. A cold feeling spears me.
He pushes back into a crouch and offers his hand.
I do not take it, and he frowns when I draw myself to my feet, leaving him to cross his arms, muscles flexing in a way that whorls the gold-threading like a warning.
The dusk darkens his eyes beneath the muslin wrapped around his temple.
A yak-tail bone through his earlobe swings with the lilting breeze.
The warmth of him lingers, making me confused – that I even let him touch me so is a betrayal. I wait for the sick to rise up my throat but it does not. As if my body is betraying me.
‘You will duel Fayez through Duxzam, for it is a law of power.’ He speaks quietly without the honorific. ‘But you do not duel me.’
‘We can spar in trifecta training.’ I go around him but he yanks my arm, pulling me back into his chest.
‘You accepted a captain’s Duxzam. Certainly, you can spar a Third-Slash. A simple knife battle.’ I register Cemil did not ask, he quietly demanded.
Cemil is more powerful than that; he might be equated to a Fifth-Slash.
‘Only a spar?’ I grasp at reassurance, but the decision is not shared as No-Name digs her bony fingers into my shoulder.
Cemil’s teeth flash. ‘Of course.’
Every master warns their students to never spar alone. The thought crosses my mind as I glance about.
‘Khamilla, this will not end well. Leave.’ No-Name’s voice edges to panic.
Quiet the mind. Think of the Qabl monks; a bone-shard to meditate upon.
Other warriors take note of us. Katayoun is at the steps of the Great Library with Aina and Dil-e-Jannah. She spots me with Cemil and frowns, hurrying toward us. Others follow – more and more crawling from the outskirts.
On the sparring circle, Cemil and I bow, clawed palms parallel to our chins.
I bid away the material world. Our surroundings dim, everything fades, and bonds buckle beneath my soul, tightening as Heavenly Energy circulates inside me.
My khanjar blade twists around my finger and I crouch, curled into first stance.
Cemil follows, yet his first stance is a coil of lithe muscles, and his eyes hold a warrior’s measured surety. For a second, I meditate into the spiritual realm, gazing at his bond expansion before regretting it.
The width of his Heavenly bonds imposes on the psychospiritual world, not thin strings, but a golden substance malleable to Cemil’s every whim like melted glass masonry.
I return to my mortal body, my grip on my khanjar tightening.
One blink and Cemil is in front of me; the next my ears are ringing, the air a whoosh of sand like a flourishing storm, pealing grit from his sheer speed. He launches straight and high, his shadow swallowing my form, then he slashes low – without his affinity.