Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Sixty-One: One Man On the Throne

'There is only one man on the throne,' Eli had written in his journal. Most people knew those words by heart, not many people understood them the same way Akshay did. You'd have to be close enough to the man who sits on it for that, or spend enough time serving one to see what he really meant.

There was always only one man on the throne, only one who must lead his people into war, only one in charge of making decisions that could change the peninsula. There was also only one man standing here, behind the parapet of the Barai's tallest watch tower, looking down at the destruction of a city he'd lived, loved, and conquered, one man to listen to its damage report, to carry it all on shoulders that must never sag at any weight, on legs that must remain steady at any cost. The throne elevates its king above those he rules because people need a target. They need someone to blame for mistakes and misfortunes. You have to be able to take it if you were king, or they'll find someone else who could.

For more two decades, Akshay had been serving a man who could, and it wasn't until now that he began to notice the sagging of those shoulders, or the unsteadiness of his king.

And yet it was understandable. The moment he'd awakened and been told about the quake and flood, the Salar had demanded he be taken to higher ground immediately to see the true extent of the damage. Aware of how often things get omitted, sugarcoated, or blown out of proportion in reports, he made an effort, as always, to be in the field himself for facts, figures, and hard evidence when possible.

Only this time, no facts, figures, or hard evidence, however accurate, could do the reality justice. One could be given a report detailed enough to rival Jarem izr Za'id's and not be prepared for the bird's eye view of the damage, even if one had no ties at all to the city.

And Samarra was much more than that to Salar Muradi. It was his city, the most beloved jewel of all five provinces, a place he'd spent decades expanding its piers, commissioning its factories and streets, setting up markets, and rebuilding everything after the last quake, which happened to be a milder one by half. He'd lived here as a prince, had survived its streets before training under Niroza, and traded with its locals long enough to count himself one. Rasharwi was where he ruled, but Samarra was where he'd lived. There were memories here, the kind people retained for life, from a place they might or might not willingly call home.

The city was all gone now, its rubbles covered thickly by smoke from the funeral fires still burning amongst collapsed buildings. Not thick enough, however, to conceal the market squares filled with dead bodies and the wounded, or the harbor's debris that had been washed up so far inland it formed a wall of garbage three streets away from shore. Not nearly thick enough, not by far, to hide the complete destruction of his fleet of battleships––a project he'd spent lifetime to achieve whose funding was still being paid off along with the Madira. Everything he'd done, every plan he'd made for the future of the peninsula had depended on the strength of Samarra. It was the lifeline of the Salasar, just as Makena was for the White Desert. Now that the city lay in ruin, trades were going to be stalled, prices of everything were going to rise, people were going to die, one way or another, from starvation, diseases, or shortage of resources. The Salar had wanted Samarra as his base because it was the best weapon to fight Azram. Now, the city itself needed to be rescued, and rescued immediately.

Not an easy task by any measure. The last time the quake had happened, the restoration of Samarra had depleted the Black Tower's reserves for three years. This time, there would be no funding or support from Rasharwi, not as long as the Salar intended to occupy and seize it from the prince regent.

It had become clear to Akshay in the past few days, the unspoken solution everyone had been dreading to point out. If you knew anything about how a city was run, you'd come to that same conclusion eventually, and no one understood it better than Salar Muradi, who had always been clear about what he prioritized between the security of his throne and that of his people, his Salasar.