Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Three: No Time to Cry

It was cold on top of the mountain. It was always going to be cold if one wanted to climb somewhere high. Djari wished they could have buried her father somewhere warmer, lower, so people could visit him more often, but there were foxes and wolves down below to dig up his grave, and there was nowhere else Za'in izr Husari would have wanted to be buried except next to his wife. For everything he had and had not accomplished, everyone knew this had been what he wanted.

On the edge of the cliff overlooking the Djamahari mountain range, Nazir stood quietly in his zikh––a tall figure in white against a backdrop of white rocks and white mountain––staring at the horizon and the emptiness down below in the eerie hour before dawn. There was a hardness to his face now. A new, permanent expression written by a small frown that lingered, a grimace waiting to materialize, and an ache held back somewhere behind the gentle smiles that now never quite reached his eyes. You could tell a lot about people's lives from the lines on their faces, her mother had said. Hasheem had a face like that. One with too many wounds, too many scars to dig up and understand.

She wondered if she had that face too, now. It felt more difficult to smile, to laugh, to cry, to walk, to run, since she came back from the Black Desert. Her limbs felt heavier, colder, took more effort to move, like she was always dragging someone's corpse behind her, looking for a place for burial and had yet to find one.

More than one corpse, she corrected herself. She had, after all, been responsible for hundreds of dead bodies on that plain, including that of her father. All for a single decision she'd made to run out of camp toward her swornsword, for her own needs, her own heart.

Some mistakes are not forgiven by the gods.

Or men, for that matter. The evidence of that was written on everyone's faces at camp, in every tear that had been shed by a mother, a father, a wife, a son, or a daughter of those who never returned from that ride to save her. It was written, just as clearly, on the faces of everyone who had loved and lived loyal to their kha'a. Resentment, no matter how well guarded, always showed. It was a matter of time before someone said it, before someone pointed a finger as to who was responsible for the death of those people. Even if she could live with that crime, Nazir would never put up with it, and the khagan would fall apart. She knew that future was coming, and every day she spent at camp felt like watching a trail of flame creeping toward dry grass, every minute a countdown to when things would erupt into flames.

There were more trails of smoke than one, for that matter. The smaller khagans under their protection, having been won by Za'in izr Husari himself, had already begun to seek independence. They had to be subdued, put in their places, convinced that nothing had changed. Now, Nazir had to find a way to hold them in his grip by proving himself as powerful a kha'a as their father. Not a small task, given who their father had been.

It all happened too fast for them to prepare, too fast for anyone to adjust. But life waited for no one, her father had said, and mistakes were meant to be fixed, not to drown oneself in. She could do that. She could fix it by marrying as well and as soon as possible. Support from a large khagan could end the internal conflict. It could strengthen their influence in the White Desert, earning them more powerful allies, make their enemies think twice before attacking them. If she could win a kha'a or a khumar who could solidify Nazir's rule, and prove herself to be the responsible, dependable leader they all needed her to be, then her father's death and that of hundreds of White Warriors wouldn't be so meaningless. Perhaps people would forget, and forgive enough to trust their ruling family again.

The mistake must also never be made again.

'You are doing this to sever the ties. To walk away.'