Chapter 39
I defect that night as the rain falls harder.
In the aftermath of Khor, my superiors will be turning to recovery operations before the next battle.
With Khor’s proximity to the Black Mountain buffer, this is the closest I am going to get to the Azadnian wartime capital.
My plan to escape is to use the shadows I summoned with No-Name at the intelligence chambers.
I grab my pack containing khanjars, dried rations and thick wool cloaks for the rain. But I leave behind the Sepāhbad’s blade.
‘I have to piss,’ I tell Katayoun, who nods without caring.
I cross the fortification lines. My gait is assured, as if I’m simply patrolling, until I’m past the streams pouring from the Tezmi’a delta.
‘Usur-Khan?’ Yabghu calls out.
Then I am sprinting through the trails into the jade-rich mountains. No-Name and I summon the shadows but her teeth clench. ‘I cannot maintain it; the shadows are not powerful near your trifecta.’
For hours, we trek along the wet almond trails, following the Tezmi’a River.
I retrace three paths to mislead potential pursuers.
Eventually, I head north-west at the juncture of the steppe-camel trade.
I nibble on measly nuts I pluck from the damp brambles, climbing trees when I hear Azadnian troops through the rain.
After four days, I reach Azadniabad’s wartime capital in Navia before sunrise.
A dim blue eats through the rumbling black sky, illuminating the bustling floral capital.
I rub frankincense attar before summoning the shadows.
They conceal my movements. I trail behind straggling soldiers riding through shell-rock gates in the citadel.
Despite my resolve, my chest pangs from hearing barks of dialect, seeing the lotus monasteries, the familiar woodlands with wild goats, the blue poppy gardens within the rainy fog.
The people appear so content. So kind. They are still my kin. Not long ago I was raised here, living their ways.
I wish I could return. My hands fist.
I hate him.
I climb the wet limestone steps of the administrative ziggurat while concealed by the shadows.
At the top of the seventh tier, I follow a vizier to a council room.
She passes marble and iron doors carved with the Heavenly Crane defeating an eight-headed lion.
My heart hammers hard as I pause. The entrance swings open, and advisers pour out.
The chamber preens with lavish crane portraits and stelae.
A tall man wearing a gold crane-feathered turban stands at the threshold of a floral balcony, exchanging salutations with an adviser.
Shockingly, Warlord Akashun has not changed since I last saw him.
He exudes rough charisma. His ebony beard is clipped, brown skin smooth, and he has the corded build of a warlord.
He argues with another man swathed in a pale qaftan with a gold waist-sash, raven hair swept back—
Hyat Uncle?
The shadows flicker and I stumble back. Seeing the man who stood by my father, the very same who’d prompted my path down to Za’skar, is no relief.
Hyat departs with a tight look. Warlord Akashun moves to the lip of the balcony. Outside, a thunderclap booms through the Heavens. The skies tremble as the rain weeps harder on to the balcony.
Akashun backs inside. I will have to trap him by sealing the entrances of the chamber with dense nūr, so no guards can enter.
I glance at No-Name and her hungry eyes. She drops the shadows.
I inhale the torrent of incense swirling in my bonds.
My fingers crack, the nūr spitting into the doors.
My nūr widens, so compressed that the nearby walls bend inward.
The material of the door singes white, welding shut as if under the deft fingers of a blacksmith.
There is no time for shocked faces, not even a cry from the guards on the other side.
No one will be able to enter the room unless they manage to rampage through sweltering iron and marble.
Akashun, at the commotion, whirls around and spies me across the council room. ‘What’s this?’
My nūr rises into a gushing wave. He pivots back, hands clasped.
‘Nūr,’ he recognises, stunned.
A strip like a Veil, as smooth and oily as silk, snaps forward from his hand. I frown at its strange familiarity before it slithers across the kilim rugs and combusts into black needles, shattering the light and throwing me backwards.
I land in third stance and channel a fourteen-breath meditation, my bonds expanding into the Second-Stratum.
The flow of time wanes in my vision before I summon a stroke of nūr, holding it like a paintbrush.
With two steps, I twist into the air and slam my hands together.
Two coils of nūr burst against his Veil in equal force, the blackness dissipating.
When I land, I see not a man, but myself, standing before my clan, bitter years ascending in cruel memory – a violent cycle that never found closure. To end a cycle is to slough it from its roots, even if it means severing the last ties to my people.
Akashun reels back. ‘I sense them on you, too. Jinn-poisons. Who are you?’
‘I am a Zahr,’ I answer calmly.
His eyes search me and recognition settles at last. ‘You? You’ve come willingly to me.’
I step forward. ‘No. You killed my Older Brother, my clansmen, then my child, and now my home. So, I have arrived to destroy yours.’
Shoving a khanjar’s hilt into my mouth, I lunge toward him.
New-found energy careens through my limbs – the power of grief and anger.
I bound high through the ninth stance, bonds pulsing.
My foot uncoils, heel breaking against his chest, but his hands clasp my ankle, wrenching me forward.
I drop my weight, swinging around his torso in a low sweep, nūr hissing from my toes.
His fingertips smoulder from the dense energy, and he startles back.
I roll to a coiled stance, khanjars between my fingers like talons.
When he swings his blade, I follow, my two knives clashing against his shamshir, scattering orange sparks, before my knee thrusts up to break his balance.
With an animalistic snarl, my arms encircle his neck, yanking him down.
I slam my khanjar into his jaw, but something eclipses from his fingers.
A loud pop, and my surroundings momentarily blur behind a Veil.
Suddenly, his sword slashes my forearms.
Instead of red cuts, my blood ripples like a jinn-poison.
I jump, but he dives into my attack zone, driving into my chest with Veil-fisted hands, over and over again. In rapid succession, I deflect with my forearms, wrist twists, and then a sidestep before spinning again and slashing the nūr-engulfed khanjar across his torso.
Again, something converges upwards, blocking me from penetrating skin, like armour – so fast, it cannot have been him. My palm flicks out, projecting compressed energy. The nūr spits three times but that something sucks it into its oily walls.
‘Fool,’ he grits, as we dance faster, bending and parrying before retreating, air whirling around us in rhythm. ‘You are connected to the Veils by Mitra; you cannot fight it.’
My form hesitates at this.
When he breaks with his sword, parrying to my chest, my wrists flick out before I cross them, jerking his blade down.
I stoop, my foot jamming into his sternum, the blast of nūr sending him flying back to crash against the balcony doors, which fly open into the rain.
But another something catches him. For a second, eyes wink in Mitra.
With no warning, he flies on to my back as if I’m a stepping stone.
My skull knocks to the wet stone, teeth rattling inside my mouth, and I cry out. Pure instinct makes me roll right as his sword thrusts down. With it, something pounds on to my body like stones, pinning me down.
He laughs. ‘It feeds off your blood, little bird. Both of us share a bond; you cannot hurt my Veils. It was so easy to convince Eliyas to bring me your blood from your poison training; he thought I would free you from the Mitra ritual. He was a fool.’
My stomach clenches, remembering Farzaneh’s explanation. Akashun ingested my resistant blood to replace my father, after he died, and complete the Mitra exchange to become its wielder.
‘I’ve searched for you for years,’ Akashun continues. ‘Even when your uncle told me you were dead. Hyat lied. And now I have the opportunity to siphon your blood.’
‘Never,’ I hiss. The pain from the force holding me down burns like slow flames. Is this how Arezu felt, dying in agony, feeling every bit of her body gripped and ripped apart?
I cling tight to my anger as if I am hanging off a cliff, rage extending its hands to pull me from the edge.
As Akashun leans down, my right hand latches on to his calf.
Somehow lifting my left, I drive my blade across his thigh.
With another cry, I part my lips, bonds expanding and fluidly ejecting nūr from my tongue.
It shoots into his chest enough for me to flex upwards, my palm slamming into his nose.
But it’s not enough. Whatever jinn is protecting him from behind the Veil only expands, even as Akashun reels from my blow. Something sharp skewers through my eyes and I scream.
‘If you wished to fight me, why even come alone?’ he hisses from above. ‘But that’s how your clan raised you: as their dog, primal and isolated. A job well done, you’ve made the Zahrs proud.’
The tip of his sword digs into my throat and I gasp, still half blind.
The sheer will in his eyes, the determination of a man who believes he is right, chokes me.
‘The only reason you are below is because you’ve accepted what your father made you.
You are content with the meagre bonds fed to you.
Monks teach only fragments of information because they’re fearful of dipping their toes in the otherworldly.
And for that safety, you will die. But Mitra – it’s the essence of bondage and sacrifice. ’