Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Twenty-Three: Call Me Djari

'Find something to smile about, my prince. Store them like candies in a jar and take one when you need to smile again.'

Lasura couldn't remember who had said those words or when. One could forget the person who had changed one's life but not the message. 'Never expect gratitude from a good deed you've done, only results, or life will always be disappointing.' He remembered the speaker for that one. The former Salar of Rasharwi was not a man to be forgotten even if you wanted to.

Neither was Djari iza Zuri. Not for the way that lightning had struck out of nowhere when they met. Not for how she'd made him come to the White Desert only to be dragged out here for no benefits of his. Not for how she'd jolted awake from a nightmare tonight and was trying not to cry in front of him. Or to cry without waking him up. He wondered if she knew he was awake, and for how long.

The nightmare was something Lasura thought he understood. Sarasef had told him how he found her, and she had cried out words that led him to believe the dream had much to do with it. A tragedy, to be sure. A common enough misfortune, if you knew the world for what it was. Rape in the Black Tower happened. Maids and handmaidens flinched around powerful men for a reason. His own woman had been dragged to the other princes' rooms before to make a point.

Women, Lasura corrected himself. They had many points to make, apparently.

Such had been his life in the Tower, and by then he had come to know the reactions attached to these things, could identify it, here, with some certainty, in the way Djari was trembling. Bad experience had its uses. It helped you see things many couldn't, trained you to survive all kinds of shit in the future, taught you that throwing a tantrum only worked when someone was listening. He had a feeling Djari knew that last part better than most, if not also a decade too soon. He wondered if she'd ever thrown one in her life, and realized he couldn't imagine it if he tried.

He stared quietly at the ceiling, waiting to see if she could go back to sleep. The cavern they'd picked as shelter for the night on their way to Al Sana offered little insulation from the cold, and the fire had died some time ago. She wouldn't get up to build a new fire if she needed one, of course. It would ruin the pretense that both of them were asleep. Pathetic, his father would have said. Perhaps also his mother. They agreed with each other more often than they thought they did, actually.

"Would you like me to build a new fire, iza Zuri?" he decided to ask. It bounced off the rocks around them, made an echo that ended up sounding twice as loud as he'd intended.

Djari stiffened. A short moment passed, before she decided to sniff back her tears. He could hear it, of course. The desert at night allowed you to hear things you wished you couldn't. "No," she said. "You can. If you want to."

He found himself smiling at those words. Dear thought about other people. Not everyone did. He liked that about her. There were boundaries to be observed with Djari, however, and he should tread carefully. "It's all right," he said, and decided careful had never been one of his virtues. "Want to talk about it?"

Silence wedged itself between them like an unwelcome guest at an intimate dinner. The wind outside grew louder, and with it came the howling of wolves that gave him the chills he could do without. The moon was high, and a surprising amount of light filtered through the translucent white rocks above. It allowed him to see many things he shouldn't––the charred remains of the fire they'd built, the patterns of the rock on the wall and ceiling, the outline of Djari's back that moved as she breathed, how uncomfortably tight she'd wrapped the blanket around her.

Her hair, he realized, was glowing almost white in the dark.

"No," Djari replied. It had taken her a long time to decide. "I do want to talk," she added, "about other things. If you will not go back to sleep soon."