Vast Fields Of Light

Chapter 5

Blood orange sunbeams softly separated the dark sky from the mountains at the horizon, as Dastan sat down on the opposite end of the rug from Tamina and started his story. She listened with growing astonishment as he described how he had been accused of his father's murder; how she had helped him escape to the desert, only to attack him, causing him to use the dagger and discover that it could reverse time; how they fought, tricked and stole the dagger from each other again and again as they journeyed through the desert, the Valley of the Slaves and Avrat.

When he described their night in the tent hiding from the sandstorm, and how this other Tamina had told him the full story of the dagger and her sacred duty to protect it, she noticed the faraway look in his eyes and the softening in the corner of his lips, and she interrupted.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Dastan looked at her and blinked several times, taken aback. "What do you mean? I'm telling you everything that happened."

Tamina watched quietly. "You're smiling..."

He puffed out a short breath and looked down. "That night in the tent..." he shook his head a little, and his lips quirked once. "For a while it felt to me as if we were the only two people in the world." He met her eyes cautiously.

Tamina nodded, her expression unresponsive. She pushed herself up slowly and stood, turned her back on him and walked over to the window, the backs of her eyes prickling. She heard Dastan stand and approach her.

"Tamina?"

She cleared her throat. "We fell in love in that other time."

He sighed. "Yes."

She shook her head and wiped at the dampness in her eyes, trying to contain the heavy ache inside. "I knew - I knew there was something strange about the way you behaved with me. You - you - you love me for reasons that have nothing to do with me," she said, turning to face him and tapping her knuckles to her breastbone. "Not me."

He stared at her in consternation, hair falling over his pale, tired face. "Tamina, that's-"

"You love me because of experiences and memories that I don't have," she interrupted, the pain in her heart forcing something brittle and furious to rise within her and push itself out. "How do I even know what you're saying is the truth? I - I don't know what else you might have found out about me in that other time-" she waved an arm in annoyance and her voice rose in volume- "that you could have been using to your advantage, to - to - to manipulate my feelings-"

Dastan had listened to her words with his brow darkening and his breath starting to heave, and finally he interrupted. "Is that what you think of me, Princess?" he demanded in a gruff voice as loud as hers. "That's really what you think I would do?"

His anger stoked her own. "I'm sorry, Prince," she told him cuttingly, "You clearly know everything about me, but I don't seem to know who you are any more-"

"For God's sake!-" he exploded, then stopped and shook his head in overwhelmed annoyance. "Tamina, I've been - courting you even though we are married - I - I've been - sleeping on the floor-"

"I never asked you to do that!" she snapped. "That was your idea, and now, what, you want me to be grateful? Shall I swoon, Prince, and call you my hero? I have never needed a hero-"

"Well, that works out very well, Princess, because I have never claimed to be one," he told her angrily. "You are the heroic one - your - your bravery and persistence in protecting your dagger-" and he stopped suddenly, and Tamina saw his face cloud over and his breathing hitch sharply. A buzzing pressure at her chest made her hesitate; they stood in tense silence and finally she wiped a hand over her face, realising they were getting nowhere.

"Just... continue with your story, Prince."

Dastan started to pace up and down as he recounted how they had teamed up with Sheikh Amar, travelled to the hidden temple in the mountain and then returned to the Palace in Alamut, enduring repeated attacks by the Hassansins and suffering the loss of Dastan's brothers. Tamina felt an ache deep within her when she saw the haunted look on his face as he described what happened - but what he said about their enemies took over her attention.

"The Hassansins," she said with wide eyes. "If what you're saying is true, then - they are still a threat to us. Nizam is dead, but they are still out there!" Her mind reeled with thoughts of all that needed to be done to deal with this terrible news-

"It's all right," Dastan said, holding out his hands with palms facing downwards in reassurance. "I told Tus and Garsiv all about them before they left - nothing about the dagger," he clarified just as she opened her mouth in worry. "I just - told them I believed them to be working with Nizam - and where they might be found..." He tried to nod in a reassuring manner. "They will find them, don't worry."

She stared at him in confusion. "But your brothers left to find Kosh."

"Yes, they did. They can do both. It is a big army," he replied. "And - I also stationed some of my soldiers around the city walls, and the Palace. They are hidden from plain view," he explained. "I do not think the Hassansins would try to attack the city so soon after Nizam's betrayal was exposed. But even if they do, we are ready."

She listened to him explain it all as if it was simple.

"Well... it sounds as if you have taken care of everything," she said with slowly increasing sarcasm. "Clearly I have no role to play in the protection of my own city-"

His eyelids lowered a fraction and his jaw jutted out in annoyance.

"I do not see what is so terrible about doing everything I can to help you, Princess-"

"I never asked for your help!" she argued through gritted teeth. "That other Tamina may have wanted your help - but not me. I am the Guardian of the dagger, Dastan, and these decisions were mine to make, not yours-"

"Tamina, I volunteered to help you in that other time, and I intend to do the same thing now," he told her defiantly. "If I can do anything to prevent our lives ending up as they did in that other time, I will do it - and I make no apology."

"Tell me, then," she snapped back, "tell me how that other time ended."