The Silver Sparrow

My Sin to Carry

She remembered the smell of burnt human flesh, how different it was from goat or lamb. Or perhaps it was all in her imagination—a poor conclusion derived from seeing dead bodies that could be yours or someone you knew. Why would it be any different from animals? Were they not made from flesh and blood and bones just the same?

Zahara had seen those bodies before, in one of the villages on the outskirt of Sabha Za'in izr Husari had burned. Muradi had brought her along to witness the damage, of course (he would never have missed such an opportunity to prove his point.) The memory she'd managed to tuck away for years came back to her that day while they were lighting the pyre.

She remembered thinking then, that he had taken her there to demonstrate how right he had been, that he would find satisfaction in proving her people to be as big a monster as he was. She also remembered how Muradi had stood in the middle of the rubble, in a field burnt to ashes littered with corpses you could no longer recognize, staring down at a charred figure of a mother holding her child as though it had been someone he knew, and had seemed to forget she was there entirely. He'd issued the necessary commands, retreated into the privacy of his own room at Sabha, and stayed in complete solitude for two days. When he'd reappeared, the room had been destroyed to the last piece of furniture, and he had wanted war. It had taken his advisors half a day to convince him to delay that war, but since then no expense had been spared to prepare for it.

One could say that Za'in izr Husari had created an even bigger monster with how he'd chosen to respond to his wife's passing. One could also say, that a woman might have changed the fate of the White Desert forever if Za'in were to win this war for them.

History and future had always been made and changed by one life, one decision, hadn't they? Some people had that power to alter the lives of generations, while others were born to follow, to live with the consequences. Zahara couldn't help but wonder then, if she also had such a power, if her death would mean anything, do anything to him?

'You could have been an exception. You and Lasura,' his words resurfaced in her mind, as if in answer to her question. 'I would have given you the world, the freedom you wanted, even put your son on the throne and given him control of the Salasar.' An opportunity had been given then, one so large she had decided to crush without hesitation.

Was I a fool? She asked herself then. Should she have taken that hand? Should she have bent to him, given him what he wanted and in doing so achieve what she couldn't do as his enemy? Could things have ended differently had she not dedicated her entire life to vengeance?

Would you have really done those things, for my heart in return?

She would never know that now. There was no point in thinking what could have or should have been. In the end, she had to accept the fact that she had achieved nothing for her people, besides being made into an example of what might happen if the White Desert were to fall.

Let it not come to that, Zahara thought as she watched the smoke rise from her feet and up toward the sky, creating a curtain of white clouds around her, filling up her lungs and beginning to blind her vision. Let me be the last, not the first to burn at Sangi.

It must have been the smoke that gave her the wrong impression, Zahara told herself, but she thought she saw him in the crowd, fighting his way toward her.

She wondered then if Zuri iza Sa'an also had a vision of her husband coming to save her before she died.

***

She had a brass ring on her finger, plain with a few carvings and no stones set in it. Her hand had wrapped across the child's face—boy or girl he could no longer tell—as if to shield him or her from having to see what was happening. His mother had done that once or twice when he was young and terrified of thunders. Mothers, Muradi remembered thinking then, feeling safe all wrapped up and protected in her arms, could be so fearless, so strong.