Chapter 40
Black Mountains, the Camel Road
Dawn breaks and the nūr peters out, spreading and receding around newly formed lakes as the rain slows on the torn continent.
The Simorgh drops me at a crumbled mountain village in the central Camel Road and flies up to the top, curling into mist. My legs buckle and I am giggling, and then I am a sobbing, snotty mess on the ground, unable to understand what I have done.
If I think – about the flood, about anything – I will cease to exist.
Not long after, my cries quiet into my belly. No-Name tries to help me stand. As she grabs my arm, a strange feeling stirs between us. I glance up. Something has irrevocably changed.
Her pale hair grazes her chest; thick crimson scars run along her chest and slither to her knuckles as if she’s made of broken pieces fused together.
Her black eyes, possessing a universe of sorrow, flicker to hope.
And her features appear . . . startlingly similar to mine, more so than ever before.
‘No-Name,’ I say and her face twists at the title.
‘So cruel,’ she answers. A fear gnaws at my liver, because I sense it: a pulse in her hand. Somehow, she has a soul.
I grasp my chest, and it is silent. I feel empty.
‘What happened to you?’
She frowns. ‘You brought me back to the human realm.’
‘Am I imagining this?’ I am not sure what is real anymore, not with the flood, not with this war. She leans and punctures her nails into me. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Watch. The wound will not heal. And you will see that I am indeed real.’ There is satisfaction in her gaze.
A terror stampedes over my instincts. I watch the slice of skin, but the wound does not close. ‘How is this possible?’ My eyes track the cracks in the green cliffs around us, searching for a way out. ‘You do not exist—’
‘I told you. The heart of your soul was sacrificed,’ says No-Name quietly.
‘My soul is in me,’ I hiss back.
But she steps away and the distance between us makes my body ache, as if we are connected. ‘Not entirely. Not until . . .’ Her voice trails off.
Unwillingly, the pieces stitch together like a patchwork quilt. Until Warlord Akashun’s death.
Memories flip like the pages of a text: No-Name encouraging my training, encouraging my access to the gates, encouraging me to kill Akashun. She had grown so frightening, so large, as if my isolation heightened her strength.
Perhaps I am unwell. I summoned the gates. I do not remember yesterday from today. But – but . . .
‘You have been lying.’ My knees buckle.
Akashun had said we are bonded. And in the battle he controlled . . . the same Veils that are the shadows surrounding No-Name. As if.
Words uttered long ago by Farzaneh fly back to me: To gain the knowledge of Mitra from an ancient jinn master, the wielder must sacrifice the heart of a soul.
A nameless soul. They must sacrifice the heart of the soul of their heir.
She explained, when souls were sold to the Unseen, the bodies became soulless.
A horrible realisation sinks into me.
‘Who are you?’ I say thickly.
Her voice is low. ‘I am no one. I am you. In truth, I was a soul, like you, eons ago, before my heart was sacrificed during the Jazatāh tribes era to access black magick. But in the world of souls, you drift in nothingness, scavenged by jinn, unable to do anything but watch humanity rise and fall with the mind of a babe. And in that realm, I have no body. And what remained of my soul, without its heart, was diminishing. I was starved . . . starved for the heart of a drifting soul . . .’
I stumble back. ‘My soul. You took the heart from my soul.’
‘I saw many nameless souls, sacrificed to the Unseen world to create Mitra. And I . . . I devoured them. But not one of them,’ she exhales harder, in wonder, ‘not one of them wanted me.’
My vision blurs. She is a soul-eater. ‘You devoured the heart of my soul? How?’ But it becomes clear. My chest caves in, as I try to breathe. ‘It’s you. You were the jinn master who bartered with my father.’
‘I felt a calling.’ Her hands are shaking as she speaks. ‘I saw it, and I took it.’
‘Your words make no sense,’ I breathe out.
But that means . . . No-Name was once a human, before she became what she is now: a creature from the Unseen.
‘You created Mitra. You made a jinn contract with my father and devoured me as I was born,’ I accuse.
Mitra isn’t a separate source, Mitra is controlled by No-Name.
How many souls has she eaten to survive in her long existence?
She glances at her hands. ‘It is not only because of your father. You accepted me. A nameless soul is dangerous; it has no roots in this world. Your soul attracted jinn-folk and creatures who wished to claim it. I may have eaten the heart of your soul, but I was only a shadow from the Unseen world, curious about your despair. You were strange . . . for some reason, you never resisted me, and that allowed me to grow stronger. The human part of your soul that lived in this world desired my company. You let me come to you, many times, when you were in grief.’
‘What?’ I choke out.
The truth scabs together on a gaping wound.
No-Name reflected my thoughts. She was not human.
She was an empty canvas; she became whatever I desired.
She glutted herself on despair and weakened on my joys because she is a part of my soul.
Other memories drift toward me. No-Name despised my students as if their presence hurt her.
She was happy when I was alone – she fed on me.
But if she is the jinn master that created Mitra, No-Name was influencing Akashun too.
Mitra works both ways – she was using the bond to send jinn-folk from the Unseen to Akashun.
‘You could have stopped Warlord Akashun,’ I say in realisation. She does not answer. ‘If you were a soul-eater in the Unseen, how are you a human now?’ My gaze flits over her.
‘To end our Mitra contract, the wielder must die. You killed Akashun.’
Had No-Name wished for Mitra to develop, to eradicate the Veil between jinn-folk and man, to enter the human world and possess a body?
‘You used me to kill him,’ I whisper. ‘You used me to free yourself.’
‘That is hypocritical, Khamilla,’ she says simply without denying it.
‘I was nothing but a soul-eater, with a single-minded desire like a babe: to live. I would do anything to fulfil it. As for Akashun – he wanted Mitra. I cannot plant the seeds of ideas into someone who does not already possess them. I was a thing floating in the Unseen world. No one can instil hatred; they can only stoke it. Your father began the Mitra ritual; he sacrificed your soul to me. Akashun simply replaced him. I never created their ambitions or their monstrosity. That came from your father. So of course I accepted the Mitra exchange as a jinn master. I needed the heart of your soul; I ingested your resistant blood to grow from aimlessness to a human form. Your blood allowed me to send the jinn-folk across the Veil.’
‘You wanted Mitra too,’ I spit. ‘You never stopped them. You could have. You could have made Akashun stop this war!’
Her eyes steel, as if to make me understand.
‘You know the concept of sacrifice well, Khamilla. You can blame me for the world’s brutality, but it’s embedded in our blood.
Akashun united an empire through his methodologies after the disgrace of your clan.
Azadnian soldiers followed blindly by free will.
You chose to save only the Camel Road by free will.
You accepted my presence in your life by desire. ’
More questions spill out, to keep my mind from splitting. ‘Why would you want something so terrible?’
She looks contemplative. As if nothing is at stake.
A child given a weapon, one who’s learned to walk and whose impulses exceed her control.
‘Because the hierarchy of Eajīz no longer matters. The way Akashun wielded Mitra was nothing near its potential. There are many like me. Old souls sacrificed to the Unseen world that will live again. Mortal men and Eajīz aren’t strength; we are.
I will ensure it, for the Veil between humans and jinn has blurred; the boundary is growing to irrelevance. As it should be.’
‘What?’ My heart goes cold. It’s terrible when darkness is reasonable because it becomes so difficult to resist. Warlord Akashun was never the problem; he was her puppet.
How cleverly she spent these years. Now, as a human, all she has to do is demonstrate that she is the embodiment of Mitra, and mortals will flock to her.
She hopes to free the Unseen world. She intends to create a new order.
‘But why would you want this?’ I say, breathless.
She answers simply. ‘Because I can.’ I begin to scramble back and she inhales sharply. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Away from you.’
‘We are not done,’ she snaps. ‘Whatever enemy you think I am, you are wrong. You are a defected warrior, your clansmen are gone or dead, your lands are flooded, and Za’skar will hunt you down.’
‘Kill me, then.’
She reaches out before pausing. ‘That would be foolish. Why do you fear the jinn-folk when the world of humans is an evil, rotting place? You are angry, but eventually you will tire of that, too. It’s how we are – lock us up, take away our light, and we morph from intelligent beings to disgusting primitive things crawling on all fours in search of any hope.
It’s exactly how you were when your parents died.
You need me. That is why you accepted me and let me grow – why I exist at all. ’
My head shakes. But the further I step away, the hollower I feel, anger seeping away. ‘I will never need you.’
Her expression is solemn. ‘I was imprisoned in the Unseen world for eons, watching humans abuse the magick of jinn out of greed, sacrificing souls. Not anymore. Every soul will be freed. A new era is coming. For now, I will not fight you. Besides . . .’ Her lips play into a coy smile. ‘I am hungry.’
‘You are not my ally,’ I whisper, staring at her features. At how terribly similar we look.
‘I learnt much from you. For that, we are tied together. I am the heart of your soul; you cannot be separated from me for long, or else you lose much of yourself – your will, your conviction, your memories, your bonds.’ She stands and stretches her arms, eyes darkly amused.
‘I will go. Because I am hungry. At the very least, this body I have will not last when it is a state shared between you and me. All is well, though. I know just the body to take on my true form.’ Her teeth gnash as she backs away.
‘I am hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Which food . . .’ Her murmurs fade as she stares at my shadow before an oily Veil wraps around her, and she vanishes.