Imperial

40. Soraya

The battle raged in the valley below, but Soraya remained safe in her camp on the hill top. Safe for now at least. There was no telling what dangers the end of this battle would bring her.

"It's not a pretty sight," Goshtab said from behind her. He sat comfortably in a chair a ways behind her, under the open tent that the servants had set up so that they could watch the battle while being shielded from the sun.

It had been mere hours since her troops had engaged, charging down the walls of Shiraz, and still the fighting continued. It was impossible to see much detail from her vantage point at such a distance. Even the troop formations were unclear. The soldiers were so mixed up in the fights that she couldn't tell which men were fighting who, or who was on her side.

The only indication she had was of the small column of fighters towards the center of the maelstrom. They moved uniformly through the chaos, although their progress was slow, but even from this distance she could see the bursts of flame that constantly erupted around them before dissipating into the air. It made Soraya recall the fireworks at the palace during festival days. Short lived and gone in an instant, but beautiful.

"There's no use watching from there. The result will be the same regardless of how much you torture yourself," he called in his scratchy, elderly voice. "Come, sit down."

Soraya scowled at him, but he spoke with reason. Torturing herself would do her no good. Now she could only leave her fate in the hands of the gods. She turned and sat down upon the beautifully embroidered seat next to his.

He regarded her coolly, his filmy eyes seeming to read her thoughts.

"It's not the same up here," he commented, gesturing to the quiet camp around them. It seemed so empty, so haunting, without the soldiers there to fill it with noise and movement. "Down there, they're fighting for their own lives. But if all of those men are brutally murdered in the battle, the responsibility will be yours entirely."

Soraya moved to shoot Goshtab a glare, but hesitated. Despite his words, his tone wasn't malicious or even threatening. It was the wisdom of his experience that he was giving to her now. How many lives had he been responsible for in his decades in power? How many deaths? It was merely a fact of the powerful, that all blame and glory fell to you.

"Have you ever fought in battle?" Soraya asked, her gaze returning to the raging field down below.

Goshtab scoffed. "Never," he said. "I held a sword once, when my father though to train me amongst the other young recruits in the palace. Never tried swordplay again after that."

Soraya turned to him curiously. "Did you lose that badly?"

"Oh, no," Goshtab replied flippantly. "I won every match. I was a shoddy swordsman, it's true, but I'd managed to threaten every one of those other boys into letting me win." He turned to her with a mischievous smirk. "After that, my father was finally convinced that my talents were of the mind, not the sword."

Soraya nodded, trying to imagine a youthful Goshtab glaring at the other children until they lowered their gazes and admitted defeat. It wasn't hard to picture.

"I suppose your son is the same as you," Soraya said.

"In the ways that matter," Goshtab replied evasively. "He will be a strong leader for the House of Varaz when I'm gone. That's the best I can do."

Soraya glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. For however conniving and devious the old man seemed, for however cruel, he genuinely cared deeply for his house and family. She supposed everyone had to care about something. As things went, family wasn't a bad weakness to care for.