The Silver Sparrow

Stay With Me

'I need you to be what I am not, to be my eyes and ears when I can't see, to fight my enemies and stop me when I cross the line.'

Those words, said on a quiet night a lifetime ago, when they had been in a different place, a different time and two different people, came back to her as her swornsword stepped into the Prayer Room.

Hasheem was wearing a crisp white tunic stitched with gold, a robe of black velvet lined with silver wolf pelt hung loosely over his shoulders. His hair, unbraided and neatly combed back had been gathered into a half-bun, revealing the gold ring on his right ear he had never removed and a clear outline of a face that seemed harsher than before from the weight he'd lost. Even then, even with those dark shadows around his eyes and the fading bruises on his face, there was a presence to him that was foreign to her. A presence of command, of coldness, of something sharp and bitter she hadn't witnessed back at camp. The man she knew had always been gentle, careful, and warm. The Silver Sparrow of Azalea, the young assassin standing in front of her now wearing silk and velvet and fur like someone who had worn them all his life, was not.

A lifetime ago. Two different people.

And it had felt that way in the throne room, when he'd appeared with Sarasef, wearing similar clothes, holding himself with a presence more regal than the prince himself as he talked to these people. Everything seemed to change when they walked into his life.

Walked back into his life, Djari corrected herself. Hasheem, after all, had a whole other life before they'd met, another story, another circle of people she never knew. Another woman, there, somewhere, who knew him in ways I don't.

Where was her swornsword? She looked at him now and all she saw was the Silver Sparrow, an assassin, a stranger.

He stepped onto the platform, holding her gaze with a severity to his grey eyes she hadn't seen before. Next to her, Prince Lasura stiffened a little, put himself in a defensive stance even if discreetly. People here seemed to move around him with caution, she had come to notice. Then again, this was, after all, the Silver Sparrow of Azalea, Deo di Amarra's gold ring assassin.

And he was angry. At her.

"We need to talk," he said softly, but in the way a pillow on your face was soft before it sought to suffocate. "Here, if the prince would be willing to leave or we can take this outside. Your choice, Djari."

The command in that tone was unmistakable. This man, her swornsword and blood, the one who had so far obeyed her every wish and been nothing but gentle with her was not taking no for an answer. She didn't like it, but it would have to happen. They had to talk and get this over with.

She drew a breath, turned to look at the prince, to ask him to leave, but there must have been something in her eyes that gave him a different message—one that made him step up to Hasheem and stand his ground instead of excusing himself.

"Your preferences aside, Sparrow," said the prince, with a heaviness to his tone that matched the way he'd planted those feet on the ground. "Djari iza Zuri came to me. Our business is not done. The way I see it, you can either join the conversation or you can wait for her to finish. That is the proper respect for the lady I would expect you to know, coming from court and all."

There was a hush in the room, as if the ghosts of Eli had sucked in their breaths listening, followed by a piercing silence so loud it could crack the sarcophagus had it been allowed to last. Hasheem turned to the prince with an agonizing slowness, cold, grey eyes lit up at least three shades lighter, his calculating, unprecedented calm gave off the same atmosphere as a physician carefully considering the idea of dissecting a man for the sole purpose of studying his organs. Alive.