Fahroz caught his eye. She knew he was wondering just what had happened, but she seemed content to let the answers go unsaid, so he kept his questions to himself.
They took a set of stairs down and finally came to a round structure with oval windows set into it. He couldn’t see inside; the windows were covered by drapes the color of coriander. They came to a door, and Fahroz stopped. She motioned to it. “You can speak with her alone for a time if you like. Or you can join us.” She pointed to another, similar structure further along the path they were following.
Nasim nodded and the rest continued on, leaving him alone. He turned to the door, feeling suddenly anxious. Who could be here waiting for him?
He reached out, his hand hovering above the simple wooden handle.
Foolish, Nasim told himself. You’re being foolish.
He pushed the handle to one side. It struck home with a hollow thud, and he opened the door.
Inside was a room with carpets upon the floor and two small lamps upon the wall shedding the barest amount of golden light. He could not see anyone yet in the dimness, so he stepped inside. Only then did he see the form of a girl at the rear of the room. She was sitting, facing him, but his eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness, so he could not see her features.
He closed the door and at last recognized her.
By the fates… It was Kaleh, the girl from Ghayavand, the girl who had helped him escape.
She was kneeling on the richly colored carpets, hands on her knees, eyes closed. Ages seemed to pass before she finished drawing breath, ages more before she finished her exhalation. She was young, perhaps only eleven, but there was something in her-especially now that she was tranquil and unmoving-that seemed ancient.
Nasim watched her for a time. She was taking breath, a ritual he had never managed to find peace with. It brought only memories of his younger years, when everything was confusion, everything was chaos. He envied those that had mastered it. It seemed to bring them such peace, a peace he hoped to one day find, but in the years since leaving Mirashadal, he had begun to wonder if he ever would.
“It’s taken you time to reach the village.”
Her voice made him jump. “What are you doing here?”
She opened her eyes slowly-as though she didn’t wish to disturb her own breathing-and gazed upon Nasim with emotionless eyes. “I’ve come to find you.”
For a moment, Nasim could not find words, and when he did, he could only manage one. “ Why?”
“Sit,” she said, motioning with one hand.
He did, crossing his legs instead of kneeling as she was. Only then was he able to see the bright red burns along the right side of her face. It traveled down her neck and was lost beneath the simple white shift she wore, but he could see red skin along her right wrist as well.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, forcing him to pull his gaze away from her wounds.
The words registered, but Nasim couldn’t comprehend her meaning.
“The girl in Alayazhar.”
Rabiah. She meant Rabiah.
“Were you close to her?” she asked.
It seemed so distant now, and it felt strange for Kaleh, a girl who barely knew him, to console him for the death of his friend, one that he loved so dearly. “Does it matter if we were close?”
She stared at him, her face unreadable. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
She said these words with such lack of emotion that it made Nasim’s blood boil. It felt as if she were dismissing Rabiah, dismissing what she had done in her life.
He stood and jabbed his finger down at her. “Why are you here?”
“I came for you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve come to believe that Muqallad is wrong.”
“Just like that?”
There was sadness in Kaleh’s eyes. “Sit.”
Nasim wanted to scream at her, and he didn’t even know why. She was someone who had helped him when she stood to gain little. He looked at the burns on her face and wondered if it had been punishment of some sort. As he stood there, her ancient eyes boring into his, the anger drained from him like snow beneath the summer sun.
When at last he managed to sit and face her, she said, “It’s not so simple as you think.”
“Things always seem that way, but what could be so complicated about leaving a man like Muqallad?”
“It is complicated, as you say, because he is my father.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
N asim felt the blood drain from his face. His fingers tingled and a ringing like struck crystal sounded in his ears.
“Muqallad is your father?”
She nodded, holding his gaze. She looked like a doe, ready to bolt.
If Muqallad was her father, then Sariya was her mother. By the fates above, a child borne of the Al-Aqim. What power she must hold. He had seen it with his own eyes, and still the possibility seemed ludicrous. Impossible.
“How old are you?”
She looked down at her hands, which she wrung for several moments before speaking. “I don’t know.”
“Sariya and Muqallad were awoken only five years ago.”
She stopped wringing her hands long enough to stare at them as if they belonged to someone else. “My mother tells me that I’ve grown faster than a child should. She thinks it’s because of Ghayavand.” She looked up to Nasim. “Either that or the spell Khamal cast over her before I was born.”
Nasim looked at her wounds again. They somehow seemed redder than moments ago. Angrier. “How did you get those burns?”
Kaleh turned her cheek to hide the burns from Nasim. “I came here to find you, but my father guessed my purpose. He followed through the doorway I created and fought the Aramahn to find me. I think he hoped that you would be here as well, for he stormed through the village, searching for you. In the end, he killed three before he fled under the threat of the others who came to protect the village.”
Nasim thought back to the men and women stationed around the village. “Will he return?”
“ Neh. He’s hampered by the bonds of Ghayavand. He can create doorways of his own, but not this far from Ghayavand, and with so many qiram warding the village, he won’t be able to break through again.”
“He has two pieces of the Atalayina now, doesn’t he? He’s fused them.”
“He has, which was why he was able to follow me, but even so, the bonds placed on all the Al-Aqim are strong. He will not be able to come again.”
“I’ve dreamed of those times, when the bonds were placed on the three of them.”
Kaleh smiled. She shifted from her kneeling position-wincing so badly Nasim cringed in sympathy-until she was sitting cross-legged like Nasim. For the first time, she seemed a child of her age. No longer were her eyes deep and ancient. Instead, they made her seem humble, as if she knew what she was about to ask was unreasonable.
“There’s a reason I came here, of all places,” she said softly. “I had hoped to find you. I had hoped to learn more of you, more of Khamal.”
“Why?”
“So that we can stop my father.”
Nasim stared. “Forgive me, Kaleh, but you have been with your father, preparing the way for the akhoz, for months and years. I know this.”
“I have done those things.” Her eyes went far away, as if she were reliving the ritual that took place on Rafsuhan, the one that had consumed the children of the Maharraht. “But I was fooled. Tricked.”
“Then what changed your mind?”
“I’m no fool,” she said sharply. “I’ve read texts-books and scrolls hidden away by my father. They spoke of his desires when he came to Ghayavand. They spoke of the desire of all who came to Alayazhar-for higher learning, for raising humanity above pettiness and anger and war. They spoke of a desire to find within ourselves the capacity to welcome all that we are, and to share. Our knowledge and our love and our pain.