Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Sixty: A Second Chance

'Love is a deadly gift that exacts great sacrifices.'

Zahara shuddered at her own words, almost spilling the content of the remedy she'd just finished mixing. The truth of that statement hit somewhere too close to heart, too close to the part of her she needed to die.

The part that had, just four days ago, sent her running down corridors, climbing through windows, and risking her life to save the man she'd wanted––needed––dead for two decades. There had been valid explanations for that, she told herself for the tenth time that evening. She needed Lasura to rule and end the war, and she could only do that with Muradi's power and influence over his side of the desert.

It was a worthy sacrifice, surely, for her to betray her people by keeping him alive and leaving her past behind. One could try to forget when forgiveness wasn't an option, or move on from old wounds and scars for something more important than vengeance. Their conflict had to end, and it had to begin with both sides being able to lay down their hatred, or there would never be peace on this peninsula. It was logical. It was the right thing to do. It made sense, even. No one would blame her for it. Or they would, but great deeds always came with great sacrifices, didn't they? She decided that they did.

Still, it didn't explain how afraid she was, or how unacceptable the thought of him dying had felt when she'd rushed over to save him from the healer. It was bothering her even now, to see him lying here, so helpless and fragile on a dirty bed, in a prison cell he used to throw people in. She ought to have felt conflicted about saving him. She should have been deeply unsatisfied to see him alive. She couldn't, with confidence, say that either of those things were true.

A breeze came through the window, bringing with it the sound of prayers from the nearby temples. They were holding services three times a day now, before dawn, at dusk, and at midday. Some of the temples were half destroyed in the quake, leaving only one or two walls standing to keep the noises in. On a morning like this, when everything was still quiet and calm, the clashing of prayers from different temples amplified the chaos and the tragedy that still haunt the city. The chants were mostly in Samarran, others in Khandoor and Rashai. Together, they formed one indistinguishable noise of humans, singing, at the same time, a song of hope dug completely out of despair.

She looked through the small window, out toward the whitewashed courtyard of bricks and stones built in Samarran style and remembered, though not for the first time since the quake, that she was in the land of her enemies, treating their guards, their soldiers, their victims, and trying as best she could to save as many lives as the gods would allow. They came to her now, these enemies, people loyal to Muradi, soldiers who had fought in the Vilarhiti, traders who'd handled Shakshi slaves, owners who kept some, still, in their households and factories, but they also came to her as fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons. You couldn't stand in the middle of all this sufferings and still call yourself human if the only things you could see were enemies and allies. She'd been raised better than that, by humans, not beasts.

Still, it felt like a crime. She wondered how many of these people she'd healed, should they survive, would end up killing her own people in the war to come? Would she not be held responsible for that, one way or another?

The only way to stop that from happening, she decided, was to end this war, at least for a few generations, if not once and for all. And the only man she knew who could bring it to an end, or had any chance of doing so, was still lying there on the bed behind her, drifting between life and death, at a time when he was needed the most.

The city was in chaos, the mess needed to be cleaned up, and the dead needed to be taken care of. Four days had passed, and they were still counting casualties and missing people. Parts of the city were beginning to stink with bodies still trapped under debris. People were still looking for their families and loved ones. She'd gathered more than a hundred lost children into the Barai for parents to come look for them, knowing half of those children would likely end up orphans. There were problems with supplies, with contamination, with hundreds other things that needed someone's attention. She had done what she could with Akshay's support and cooperation, but she was still a Shakshi woman, trapped in a land ruled by Rashais. These people needed their leader, someone who had their trust, who could carry the burden, who had the power to make it all right.