Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Thirty-Two: A Name Not Forgotten

There was blood on the ceiling. How it had gotten there, Djari had a feeling it was better she didn't know. The look on Saya's face as she waited for her first question tonight, however, told her not knowing wasn't an option. It never was for the ruling figures of a Kha'gan, and while she had been able to walk away from discussions she didn't want to hear as a child, that privilege had died with her father.

'There will come a time,' her mother had said, 'when you can no longer hide behind my gown. When that day comes, remember, Djari, that every Bharavi was a child once, before she decided to become something more.'

She hadn't had her mother's gown to hide behind for a long time, but she had had her father's zikh, and then Nazir's. When her father was gone, and Nazir's zikh too occupied by the Kha'gan he must protect, the sight of Hasheem's back, his strong, reliable shoulders had been the shade she utilized. Standing in that room, breathing the air still filled with the stench of death and decay, knowing her sworn sword had been a part of it, reminded her that place of refuge, too, was gone.

"What happened here?" Djari asked and hated how vulnerable it sounded. She had come all this way to learn about his past, and now that it was staring at her in the face, she found she wasn't ready for the answer.

Saya regarded her quietly from the other side of the room for some time, arms crossed over her fully formed breasts, her shapely hip pressed against the table, one long leg stretched out over the other. A beautiful woman. An adult who could fight. A grown up looking at a terrified child. Another presence in Hasheem's life she wasn't a part of.

"Three men came to see my father five days ago," Saya explained. She strode toward the big rug in the middle of the room and flipped it over to the side. "This is what's left of them. Their remains are buried behind the cottage."

Dark, crimson stain covered the wooden floor beneath the rug to the last inch. Djari winced at the image of dead bodies that sprang to mind and the smell of dried blood that had doubled in intensity. It took an effort to voice the question she thought she already knew the answer, but she needed to be sure. "He did this? He killed them?"

Saya snorted. "Killed? There was a kidney where you're standing, maybe a piece of intestine too. Whose, you wouldn't be able to tell even if you managed to put the pieces back together. No, your sworn sword didn't kill them, he butchered those men. What," Saya said, pausing to look at her with something between disgust and spite, "exactly did you send to my father, to Al-Sana?"

Djari tried to swallow and found the task difficult. She could say she had no awareness of his past, but it would sound like a lie or a child's excuse, if not also a shameless show of ignorance. He was her sworn sword, after all. It was her business to know. But what she couldn't swallow was the fact that he had done this. The Hasheem she knew wouldn't. He couldn't have.

"You had no idea, did you?" Saya said, shaking her head with annoyed disbelief, then turned to the prince who had been standing quietly by the door, observing everything from afar. "But you do."

Djari turned to the Prince and saw the same evidence in his expression. He drew a breath, chewed on it for a time, before releasing an audible sigh. "It's not the first time, as far as I know," he said. "But iza Zuri would not have been aware of those...incidents. This is not her doing, I assure you." He paused, as if he'd just remembered something. "I take it he knew those men?"

Saya stilled for a time before acknowledging him with a nod. "One of them seemed to have recognized him from somewhere, but we didn't hear the conversation that made him decide to tear them apart," she explained casually. "Why? What do you know?"