LITMIR.BIZ

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      A NARROW CHAMBER LED OFF TO THE RIGHT OF THE QAYSARIEH PORTAL. A faint scent of dampness emanated from within, overlaid with traces of jasmine. When Arian peered inside, the sight she encountered brought her to a halt. A moment later, her escort became aware that she’d fallen behind. Khashayar, a captain of the Zhayedan army, signaled his men to wait. He strode back to join Arian at the entrance to the chamber.

      “Does something delay you, First Oralist?”

      He spoke to her with the respect her status as First Oralist demanded. More, his manner set an example for his men, who had balked at abandoning Ashfall while the capital was under attack. Yet the order to accompany the First Oralist on her mission had come directly from the Black Khan. The Zhayedan might find little merit in chasing a holy relic while their comrades fought a battle for survival, but they would obey their Khan, and through him Khashayar. The city would have to hold until they returned from their quest.

      Arian raised her eyes to Khashayar’s face. He was black-haired, with dramatic dark eyes under an aristocratic brow. Though he was no relation, in appearance he resembled Rukh, the Black Khan. He was young to be charged with escorting her to Time-back, but his youth was a matter of years, not experience. He carried his command with poise: disciplined, experienced, yet adaptable enough to recognize why Arian’s mission mattered to the fate of his city.

      “What is this chamber?” she asked him.

      “A cistern. We use it to collect rainwater.”

      “There’s a prayer nook in the wall.”

      Khashayar nodded, but his head was inclined toward the sounds of combat beyond the city walls. When she still didn’t move, he said, “It was built at the request of the Begum Niyousha—the Black Khan’s mother. She observed her worship here. The Princess Darya followed her example.”

      A shadow crossed Khashayar’s face. The Princess of Ashfall had been killed during a skirmish on the walls. She should have been safe in the Al Qasr with the rest of the Khan’s household, yet she’d raced to the western gate to prevent her half-brother, Darius, from striking against the Black Khan, her death as chaotic and impetuous as the way she’d lived her life.

      “May I take a moment for prayer before we leave?”

      Khashayar’s black gaze skipped over the First Oralist’s confederates—Sinnia, the Companion from the lands of the Negus, and Wafa, the blue-eyed Hazara boy under the Companions’ care.

      When he hesitated, Arian tried to reassure him. “The blessing is important, otherwise I wouldn’t delay.” A graceful hand swept out from under her cloak, the gold circlet on her upper arm agleam in the muted light. She gestured back at the square they had passed through where the impact of the battle was felt. “I will pray for the deliverance of Ashfall, as much as for our journey ahead.”

      Khashayar gave the order to his men to proceed. He settled himself at the entrance to the cistern, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ll stand guard.”

      “Don’t wait,” Arian said to Sinnia. “Go with the Zhayedan; I won’t be far behind.”

      She waited until Sinnia had departed, tugging Wafa along with her. Hesitant now, she nodded at Khashayar. “I will require privacy.”

      She flushed a little under the keenness of his gaze.

      “I won’t intrude, sahabiya.”

      Something in his expression told her she could trust him, though all had come to chaos in both her city and his. His integrity shone from his eyes, his dedication a bond that pulsed between them in the room.

      Bowing her head, she slipped past him to make her way to the prayer nook. The vaulted ceiling of the cistern sloped down to a sandstone colonnade. Lanterns in rich blue turquoise were hung between columns of gold above an elongated pool. Between two of these columns, a single pillar, almost like a plinth, had been placed in the center of the pool. The glow of torchlight shone on amber walls, whose high periphery was lined with geometries of tiny blue tiles. At the northeastern corner, a mihrab was fashioned against cold stone like the plume of a peacock’s tail, feathered in emerald green, the exquisite tessellation sheened with light. Beneath it, the golden threads of a well-worn prayer rug reflected echoes of that light.

      Arian knelt on the rug. She held words of prayer in her mouth until they bloomed into blessings. Benedictions sought, tumultuous griefs confided. Her fears confessed to the One.

       What were they coming to?

       What hope did she have of turning the tide of this war?

      For years she had battled the tyranny of the Talisman and the greatest cruelty of their reign: their enslavement of the women of the east.

      The Companions of Hira were all that stood between the Talisman and total devastation, fighting to preserve Khorasan’s plural heritage, a battle they waged without recourse to force of arms. Instead, they relied upon the scripture of the Claim, the sacred magic passed through oral transmission; its written counterpart had vanished over time, destroyed by the Talisman’s purges.

      For a decade, Arian had used her gifts as First Oralist of Hira—First Oralist of the Claim—to disrupt the Talisman’s slave-chains. Then Ilea, the High Companion of her order, had assigned her a new task: to procure the Bloodprint, the sole surviving record of the Claim. Anchored by it, the Companions would have worked to overthrow the Talisman. Months ago, Arian had set out on the trail of the sacred text, but the Black Khan’s machinations had brought the Bloodprint to Ashfall instead.

      Now the Talisman’s war had come to the west, to the empire of the Black Khan, and battle raged at his capital. Arian could hear their cries beyond the chamber where she prayed.

      Her forehead touched the carpet in prostration. Tears welled up in her eyes, drifting up into her hairline. Her questions sounded like complaints, as if she’d had a crisis of faith. She believed devoutly in the Claim, but she needed to know why she’d struggled so long to lose the Bloodprint in the end. A devastating loss, mitigated only by a new mission: to find the Sana Codex, an ancient record of the Claim hidden away in Timeback, a city of the maghreb.

      As a last desperate hope, she had set out with her escort to retrieve it.

      I was learning the Bloodprint, she prayed in protest. Why let the One-Eyed Preacher take it? Though I seek the Codex as an answer to its power, is my quest likely to succeed? Do I possess the wisdom to unravel the secrets of the Claim? Will I be able to wield it against one who seems as invincible as the Preacher?

       If I fail, who will count the cost?

      The prayer rug was wet with her tears now. She had already measured some part of that cost. Her family lost to her in childhood. Her sister’s renunciation when they had chanced to reunite. The Black Khan’s theft of the Bloodprint at the Ark. The manuscript had been in her grasp—then gone. Now two further blows had been struck: she’d been severed from the Council of Hira and divided from the man she loved.

      I have Sinnia, she reassured herself. I have Sinnia and Wafa. And this noble soldier of the Zhayedan to guide me, Khashayar, so proud and brave.

      She thought about those instances when the Claim had swept over her like a cyclone, overwhelming her conscious will. She whispered a prayer to the One.

       Make me a servant of the Word. I have seen the darkness of the Claim. If I must use it to destroy, don’t let it twist who I am. I seek no arcane powers; I disavow the rites of blood.

      “Sahabiya.” The soft reminder from Khashayar brought her to the end of her prayers.

       Bless these lands, bless this city,

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