The Silver Sparrow

In the Hands of Fate

Some time ago, Hasheem had discovered a craving for blood—the unique, oddly sweet scent of it, the sharp, metallic taste that lingered on his tongue, even the way it dripped down his fingers made the killing easier, if not also pleasurable. He didn't always enjoy fighting, but a part of him enjoyed killing, sometimes even longed for it, other times needing it to keep the monster inside him fed and contained.

He had been craving blood for the past five days. Now, more than ever, standing in the crimson-hued Hall of Marakai, looking at the two men who had come with their tidings. Tidings that carried with it a promise of blood.

"I brought him from the west, di Amarra," Sarasef explained, made a gesture at Djari who was standing on the opposite side of the throne, "as a swornsword and blood of Djari iza Zuri, the bharavi of Visarya," he gave it a small pause to check their expressions, "the only daughter of Za'in izr Husari. More precisely, the man your superior wants to see dead."

Standing below the dais, Djari stiffened a little at those words. Still, she remembered, as she always had, to straighten her spine when addressed by title. A part of him wanted to believe nothing had changed, that she was still the same girl he had come to love and care for, but one would have to be blind to not see it, or be completely ignorant to not notice that change.

There was a severity to her presence now; a stinging sharpness, a dangerous gleam that glinted off her like a newly broken piece of obsidian. It wrapped around her like an armor fitted with spikes and concealed blades, made those around her think twice before approaching. It had been five days since he'd last seen her—Sarasef hadn't let them meet since they had been brought there—and Djari seemed to have aged ten years during that time. She had, he noticed, been avoiding eye contact with him ever since they'd stepped into the hall. He knew something about that, knew the feeling like the shape of every scar on his body, and how long they continued to sting.

He also knew that she'd been told about this meeting, just as he had. There was no surprise on her face about what Sarasef had just revealed. The surprise was about something else, something no one had expected, not even Dee.

He followed her gaze to the center of the hall just in time to see the prince turning his attention from him to Djari. Their eyes met, and suddenly something in the hall altered, slipped free of its cloak, stepped forward to stand naked before their eyes. Hasheem could feel the hair on his arm rise to the sudden drop of temperature, could see his breaths turning white as he exhaled the same way he'd felt at the hunting ground. On the throne, Sarasef sat with his hands curled tight around the armrests, watching the two of them as intently as Dee who looked like he'd just seen a ghost. Djari's eyes were glowing bright amber, like Nazir's when he was having one of his visions.

So were the prince's.

And then, when silence tightened its grip around the chamber, when time seemed to have come to a screeching stop, a loud rumble filled the hall. It shook the ground underneath their feet, sent a tremor through the marble tiles and up their spine, rising and rising in intensity as it threatened to bring down the walls. The hall flashed white for a second, and through the opening in the ceiling—the one they called the Eye of Marakai—a spear of light slammed down into ground halfway between Djari and the prince.

It blinded the hall, knocked out their hearing like a fist to the head as it left its mark. The running crack in the marble formed a long diagonal line across the room, ending on either side at Djari's and the prince's feet, as if a god had split the earth open, linking the two of figures for them to see.

For the world to see.

And through it all, as if they had been someplace else, locked together in a battle no one else participated, the prince and Djari never took their eyes off each other, hadn't so much as stirred at the thunder and the lightning that ripped apart ground before them. Djari held the prince's gaze, jaw clenched indescribably tight, face pale as a corpse without uttering a sound. Her counterpart shared that expression, only he was breathing twice as fast as she did.