The Silver Sparrow

An Unforgivable Sin

"Some mistakes," her mother had once said, "are not forgiven by the gods."

But she was the chosen one, wasn't she? The gods had plans for her, hadn't they?

Djari had never voiced those thoughts, even though they had been the reasons behind her every disobedience, every mistake she'd made. But one could take privileges and blessings only so far before they run dry, and sometimes pride had its consequences. Pride, Djari knew, had been one of her sins among many, and she was about to pay for it tonight, here, in the isolated canyons of the Djamahari.

They're coming for her.

She bit down hard on that thought, swallowed it down before it reached her face. She had seen it coming for some time, and if her intuition hadn't been right, the tightness of Hasheem's jawline and the way he'd jumped every time someone made a noise near their wagon confirmed it. She knew, from that suffocating tension and the pungent sense of dread shown by both Hasheem and Khali, what exactly was about to become of her.

In a way, it shouldn't be any different. Eventually, she would have to share a bed with her husband, a man of her father's choice, a stranger if one were to look at it from that angle. For the past fifteen years she'd prepared herself to live with such an arrangement, had accepted it as her duty to the khagan. In that way, she should have been prepared.

She wasn't.

The nightmares of her mother being attacked had returned, repeatedly, for the past two nights. They felt more real now than when she'd had them back at camp, and the surroundings had changed in these new ones to resemble where she was, almost like a premonition. She wondered sometimes if Nazir's gift had also existed in some amounts within her. A disturbing thought, that, considering where she was.

And it was her mistake that had put her there. Sheer impulse was what had gotten her running to the stable as soon as word had come about Hasheem having attacked Nazir. Her lack of patience, carelessness, and pride were to blame for riding out of camp alone to gain time with him. What she'd wanted to accomplish with that time, she wasn't so sure. It had never occurred to her to wait—that had always been among her flaws—but the moment she'd seen the band of men surrounding him, she knew this mistake would not be forgiven by the gods.

The metal doors clanged opened, yanking her back to reality. Like instinct, Hasheem jumped back to shield her with his body, his knuckles bone-white and trembling as he rolled them into fists. He had been trying not to show it—the fear that had been eating him alive and terrorizing him for the past few days—and had made a point at hiding his face, turning his back to her as much as he could. It hadn't worked then. It definitely didn't work now.

"Stay behind me," Hasheem croaked, his voice broken from disuse, or from panic, she wasn't sure. Their gags had always been applied during the journey but had yet to be put back on since the last meal. She thought perhaps now they wouldn't need to do that anymore. At night, deep in the canyons of the Djamahari, nobody would hear them if they screamed.

Two men came in, unarmed as they'd been instructed. The leader had made it clear no weapon was to be taken anywhere near Hasheem, and contact was to be as brief and as far out of arm's reach as possible. The boy will kill you with a tied up hand if you're not careful. Give him a weapon, and he'd kill the whole fucking lot of us, still tied up.

Whatever Hasheem was before he'd become her swornsword had put them on extreme caution. They called him the Silver Sparrow, and whatever that meant, there was a reputation that preceded it, and they weren't taking chances.

The bigger one of the two grabbed the chain attached to his ankle, the other took the one to his wrists. She remembered how he'd almost strangled one of them to death with those chains two nights ago for coming too close to her. It had taken three men to save the man before beating Hasheem unconscious. They'd starved him on purpose to weaken him since then, and now, together with the damage they'd done, he didn't seem to have much of a fight left.