Tahmu stared at his daughter standing before him, her long neck stretched back to receive the blade.
He was still panting from the deadly fight. The knife that Halid would have used to kill him was red with the traitor’s own blood, and the night was so still and his senses so heightened he could hear the scarlet fluid dripping into the sand.
Tahmu had been the one to take the watch; he would have stood, stretched, and awakened the next man in a few moments, had Halid not come. None of his men had yet roused. His thoughts were jumbled and confused. There was only one thing that was clear to him: Kevla had been right. Halid had indeed planned to kill him.
When no blow was immediately forthcoming, Kevla lowered her head and looked at him questioningly. He motioned to her and they walked away from the encampment, where their voices would not be heard.
“You saved my life,” he said.
Uncertainly, she nodded.
“Did you also speak the truth about Yeshi? That she was trying to poison me when you…attacked her?”
“Yes,” Kevla said. “I would not lie to you now. Not when I have come to you to be killed.”
Tahmu looked at her. The moon’s light permitted him to see her face clearly, even though they were away from the fire’s light.
The fire….
“No,” he said. He flung the bloody knife onto the ground. “You have saved my life. I will not take yours.”
They were silent for a moment. “You do not think I am a kuli?” Kevla asked.
Suddenly feeling very old, Tahmu sat on the sand. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I thought my wife faithful, if not happy; I thought my Second worthy to be trusted with my Clan. Now I learn they have conspired against me, and tonight I killed Halid. I thought my son obedient to the law, but he has dreamed strange dreams and defied my orders. I thought you a demon, and even now you walk through fire as easily as through a door. Yet you saved my life. My world is not what it once was. But your life is spared.”
“No it isn’t,” Kevla said softly, sitting beside him. “There is something you must know, great khashim. I was on a pilgrimage tonight. I was going to go to the Great Dragon and offer myself as a sacrifice. I have committed a terrible crime, and I can think of no better way to atone.”
Tahmu softened. “You attacked Yeshi to try to save me, and these powers of yours—”
She cut him off. He was surprised at her boldness in doing so. “No,” she said. “I did not intend to hurt her, but I stopped her from putting poison in your food, and I don’t regret that. What I have done…oh, great lord, you will have no wish to spare me once I have finished speaking.”
A sudden fear clenched his heart. She had not left the House of Four Waters alone, and he suddenly realized that Jashemi was not here….
Quietly, in a somber voice, Kevla told her father of her awakening abilities. She spoke of the strange dreams that began coming to Jashemi at the same age. She told him of their stolen moments, of the bond that grew between them. There was something final in her words, and Tahmu’s apprehension grew.
Dragon, no…not him…curse me, but do not harm him….
“We found a cave, where we rested and drank,” Kevla continued. “He told me that he had met others like him—others who had the strange dreams, which he believed were not dreams at all but visions. Jashemi felt that my powers and these visions were connected, that they were growing in strength now as part of a way to defeat this Emperor who has been decimating the clans. He wanted to gather these Seers, gather the clans, and stand united against this new threat.”
Her usage of the past tense did not go unnoticed. A wave of unspeakable sorrow washed over Tahmu. He had agreed to Yeshi’s demands to hunt down his children, but what he had not told anyone, not even Halid, was that he never intended to find them. He would let them go, and return having appeared to have made the attempt. Kevla and Jashemi would live—
The sharpness of the pain would come later, he supposed; right now, the ache was dull and heavy and wrapped with regrets, with bitter knowledge of opportunities missed.
“How did he die, Kevla?” he said, his voice deep and sad.
She didn’t answer for a long time. When he turned to look at her, he saw she had buried her face in her hands.
“Tell me,” he said.
Kevla took a deep breath. “There was a bond between us,” she said, “and we knew it to be both wrong and powerful. He was a khashim’s son and I a Bai-sha. And yet, we loved one another. We knew we could never be together, so neither of us spoke of our feelings. But in the cave, when we thought we had nothing to lose, that there were no more obstacles between us, we—he loved me as a man loves a woman, and in those moments I have never been happier.”
He stared at her in dawning horror. The girl was innocent of the wrongdoing, ignorant as she was of her identity, but Jashemi….
Kevla’s voice was hollow as she continued. “He brought me great pleasure, and as that joy washed over me, the Dragon exacted his revenge for our transgression. I opened my eyes, and he was gone.”
“He died…in your arms,” Tahmu said. Such things happened, but usually not to one so young.
Kevla shook her head. “I killed him,” she said. “All that was left was ash.” She turned to look at him with eyes that glinted in the moonlight. “He burned as if with the heat of a thousand pyres, great lord. Fire came through me and took your son in the space of a heartbeat.”
Tahmu’s mind reeled. His stomach churned. Incest and death in the same single, passionate act—He trembled and put his sweat-slick, chilled face in his hands, trying to grasp it all. Kevla sat beside him, making no effort to flee.
“I am cursed,” he whispered. “The Dragon has taken everyone that I ever loved. There is none in this world more wretched than I.”
“Yes, there is,” Kevla whispered.
He did not roar his anger. He did not scream his grief. Swiftly, and in terrible silence, he reached for the knife he had dropped, seized Kevla, forced her to the ground and pressed the blade against her throat.
And yet still he hesitated.
“Do it, great lord,” Kevla whispered. “End my misery and avenge your son.”
He straddled her, as his son had before him, trembling not with passion but with agony. Her face remained calm and she closed her eyes. With a bitter oath, he hurled the dagger into the night and rose.
“I cannot kill you,” he said, “My life is yours this night. But oh, Kevla, you do not know what you have done!”
She sat up. Her hand went to her throat and he saw a thin trickle of blood that looked black in the moonlight. Rising, she said, “You mistake me. I know full well what I have done.”
He turned away, shaking his head. “You know only part of it. The rest—by the Great Dragon, it seems I have made mistakes at every turn of my life. Your mother was right.”
The mention of Keishla seemed to jolt Kevla out of her stony grief. “My mother? What does she have to do with this?”
He made his decision and faced her then, looking her in the eye. He observed with dull surprise that she was almost as tall as he was, and he was no short man.
“Your name is not Kevla Bai-sha,” he said. “In a better world, it would have been Kevla-sha-Tahmu.”
Her eyes widened. “You—you are my father?” At his nod, her hand flew to her mouth and she whispered, “Then Jashemi…did he…?”
“He knew,” Tahmu said heavily.
“By the Dragon…that was what he tried to tell me, and I would not let him speak….” She began to cry, sinking slowly to the earth. “That was the bond between us. That was what we felt, not….”
Tahmu had thought he would enjoy seeing her suffer, but the sight gave him no pleasure. The fury in him was spent. Kevla had not known, and Jashemi had obviously made a deliberate choice to rebel against the laws. The boy’s desire for Kevla—his love, Tahmu mentally amended, for he knew that Jashemi would not be tempted by any lesser emotion to violate so primal a taboo—had driven him to it. To his surprise, Tahmu found himself kneeling beside his daughter and putting a tentative hand on her bowed shoulder.
“Your mother wanted me to tell you, when you came of age,” he said. “Tell you that you were conceived in love, not out of a base desire. Sahlik wanted you and…and your brother to be together, to know one another. I should not have tried to hide you—hide my own shame, bury my mistakes. And now, I have paid for that, with betrayal in my family and the death of my son.”
Her slim shoulders shook. He rose, looking at her sadly. He had no comfort to offer her.
“You’re not a kuli,” he said at last. “Nor was Jashemi. Kulis have no hearts with which to feel love—or to break. Get up, Kevla. Return to your own fireside, and leave me to my men and my wife.”
She sat up, wiping at her wet face. “Please kill me,” she said. “I can’t—I cannot bear this!”
“Your life or death belongs to the Great Dragon now.”
He watched her stumble to her feet, and then slowly walk back toward the encampment. Tahmu’s breath caught as she stepped into the heart of the fire, and disappeared.
He sat for a while, alone in the dark, thinking about his life and the choices he had made. What if he had married Keishla? Would the Clan really have been damaged past repair? What if he had brought Kevla openly into the House, not caring what Yeshi thought? Or if, after his wife had discovered Kevla’s identity, he had acknowledged his daughter then?
He knew Jashemi’s heart, and knew that at the beginning the boy had only wanted to know his sister. If he had been openly encouraged to do so, perhaps this sibling bond would have stayed innocent.
Jashemi…what if Tahmu had listened to his son’s hesitant confession about his dreams instead of threatening? The boy had had no one to turn to who would listen. His traditions offered no acceptance. There was no one for Jashemi, except Kevla.
Decisions made. Opportunities missed. Roads not taken.
And then an image of his son’s face swam into his head, and emotions came crashing down on Tahmu. His knees gave way and he fell to the sand and wept, wept for all the poor choices, the lack of faith, the turning away instead of opening. Wept for his son’s misplaced passion; wept for his daughter, the unknowing instrument of her brother’s death.
Oh my boy, you were the best of us. I am sorry I was not there for you. I’m sorry at my lack of faith, in myself and in you. And now it’s too late.
Sounds reached his ears and he realized that someone had awakened. Halid’s corpse had no doubt been discovered. It was time to return and explain.
His body felt heavy, stiff. But as he walked slowly back to the now-awakened encampment, something resembling clarity formed in his mind.
Perhaps there was, after all, something he could do to honor his dead son.
The advisor stood and surveyed the troops. It would be fanciful to say their solid, well-trained ranks advanced as far as the eye could see, but it was almost accurate. There were thousands of them, at any rate. Their number swelled daily as they conscripted their prisoners from various lands. Fear might not be the best motivator that had ever been conceived, but it served for now. He nodded to the general, indicating his approval.
Horns blew and the troops cheered as their Emperor advanced. It was strange, thought the advisor as he regarded his young lord. The Emperor always looked out of place when he was not indoors. He seemed to gather strength from the shadowed, musty rooms, seeming larger and more intimidating.
But he was the Emperor, and he commanded this magnificent army, and that army had already conquered two lands. If he looked slighter in the sunlight, it was no one’s concern. Certainly not his advisor’s.
The Emperor rode a magnificent white stallion. It blew andsnorted, pink nostrils flaring, and champed at its golden bit. The Emperor sat straight on his steed, the jeweled crown he wore catching the light and almost blinding the advisor.
The Emperor waited patiently for the cheers to die down. When he spoke, his voice carried much farther than it had any right to, and the advisor felt a chill run down his spine. Just when he was ready to dismiss the Emperor, he did something like this to remind all gathered of his tremendous power.
“We stand poised on the precipice of yet another victory,” he intoned. “Two countries have already fallen before our standard. Arukan must follow. Its people are scattered, and our raids over the mountains have been fruitful indeed. Though a barrier, the mountains are not impossible for our army to cross. We will find these isolated clans and sweep across their desert landscape like a sandstorm. Their pathetic weapons are no match for ours; their warriors pale in comparison to you, my army. We will take their women and goods, settle their lands, and continue to move until this world knows no place that does not fly my standard. I, your Emperor, will ride with you on this glorious moment in our land’s history. Arukan will fall!”
“Arukan will fall!” came the cry, uttered with fervor from several thousand male voices. Another chorus of cheers welled up, and the Emperor, looking down at the sea of men in armor from his perch higher on the mountains they were all about to cross, smiled slightly and waved.
The advisor’s gray eyes flickered from the Emperor to the animal huddled at the stallion’s feet. The ki-lyn’s golden chain, so thin and yet apparently so unbreakable, went around its slender neck and arced upward to the Emperor’s waist, where it was securely fastened.
As he regarded it, it craned its neck to look up at its master. Its blue eyes welled with tears and it sighed, deeply.
And as the tears rolled down the soft, golden-brown fur of its face, they turned to diamonds in the sand.