'Three left turns, then the second right,' Akshay recited the directions he'd been given as he ran through the maze of tunnels. One wrong turn meant he could be lost in here for life, and it was likely no one would find his corpse until it rots. Niroza could also have given him the wrong directions to make that happen on purpose, although he couldn't see the point of killing him now, or in this way.

'You can't go back through the main gate,' was Niroza Naeem's reason for giving him the directions through these passages. 'If someone wants Ranveer dead, he will first need to get rid of you. You'd be killed or captured by the time you arrive.'

It made sense, and he had agreed. Luring him out of the Barai had been necessary, and he'd fallen for it. He was willing to bet they were planning to use him as their scapegoat too, and it didn't take much to guess who exactly had ordered the assassination.

It was a brilliant plan, he had to admit, but one he should have seen coming from the moment the Salar reappeared. Now, he was racing with time. The healer could be there with the poison any minute. He might already be too late. This was stupid, careless, and––

A sound. A vibration from somewhere below. Akshay halted his steps to listen, to feel it again under the soles of his feet. He knew this feeling. Had experienced it as a child.

Fuck.

***

It began with a hum, a rumble so small you could only hear it if you were paying attention. Rhykal seemed to be the first one who felt it, judging from the way he froze dead on the spot, eyes wide like an injured animal picking up a predator's first scent in the air. Lasura felt his hair stand on end as he realized what was happening, what his premonition was trying to tell him, what Djari's was, and, most importantly, where they were.

No. Not this. Not now. Not while they're in here.

The tremor came half a breath later, rising from the ground underneath their feet, branching out toward the walls on either side, rattling the sconces in their holders as it crawled toward the ceiling. The quake grew louder, heavier, faster in speed as the tunnel shook and creaked from all directions.

In the back of his mind, the image of the god Yahwah, smiling, teeth slippery and wet with blood. With Djari's blood.

"Run," said Rhykal, just before everything turned to hell.

***

The tremor jolted him awake, or maybe it was the sound of his bed shaking, he wasn't sure. No, Ranveer corrected himself as he tried and failed to pry his eyes open the second time. The bed wasn't shaking, the ground was, the entire building was. He could feel it in his bones, could hear the repetitive sound of furniture lifting clear off the floor, and the impact that followed as they dropped. Around him, a chaos of noises erupted. The sound of glass breaking, coming from the windows. Some things fell off from somewhere high, knocked over by a force that grew in strength, in power every time it shook the building.

It was no dream. He'd never had that sound a sleep in his life. Could always tell between a nightmare and what was happening around him at anytime. Get up, he yelled at himself in his mind, trying to snap out of that half-conscious state. Get up or you will die here!

Someone was in the room with him. He could hear the heavy yet frail footsteps as they approached. It wasn't Akshay. Akshay's footwork was decisive, precise. Akshay would have rushed over and gotten him out a long time ago. This man was coming with another intent, something that made him reluctant, something he'd been forced to do.

Get up!

Nothing moved. He was still swimming in that half-world between dreams and reality, trying to pull his limbs out from under an invisible weight that held them in place, pressing them down into the sheets. He opened his mouth to scream, or he thought he did, but no sound came, not even a whimper. Where are the guards? Where is Akshay? There should have been guards outside his door.

There were guards. He could hear them now. Amid the shouts and screams of servants running for cover, there were people banging at the door, trying to get in. It would be locked, of course. Whoever had come to assassinate him had been planning this for some time.

The room shook harder, louder as he lay on the bed like a dead weight. The ceiling creaked above him, then the sound escalated into a piercing cry of wood being twisted out of their joints. This quake was going to kill him here, or the assassin would. He had to get up and fight, or crawl under something before it all came down.

Above him, somewhere slightly off to the right, the chandelier was groaning as it swung on its chain. The footsteps stumbled a little as they reached their destination. The bed frame shook heavily as the man grabbed a hold of it for balance, then managed to right himself back up, judging from the firmer placement of his feet that followed. The man's clothes made a sound as he leaned forward. The swinging chandelier went quiet all of the sudden. Came down.

His eyes flew open at the sound of impact, at the same time the assassin pinched his nose shut, and pressed a vial of something against his mouth.

***

'If you will throw your life away, then give it to me. I'll take it. I'll make it worth your while. What do you say?'

The memory came back to Akshay, clear and precise, like the day it had happened. He remembered that hand too, one so sturdy and strong that had been extended in front of his face, covered in soot, in blood, in red, raw patches of skin freshly damaged from digging through a burning pile of wood to save boy's life. 'Get up, Akshay,' he'd said. 'I'm not here to die in the fire. Not for you.'

And yet it hadn't been enough, that hand. In the end, he still hadn't been able get himself up, hadn't been able to get his limbs to move in the middle of that fire. He was alive at all because he'd been carried out on the prince's back, arms wrapped tight above those strong shoulders. The prince, who had later become the Salar of Rasharwi. The prince who could have died that day, for trying to save him. Who nearly had.

My turn to save you. Akshay gritted his teeth as he pushed himself up from the floor, ignoring the panic that still had his heart racing at killing speed. The quake had knocked him off balance, the tremors that kept going was making it hard to find his footing. Still, he had to push forward, to get out of this alive, and quickly. Don't die, my lord. Not yet. Not on my watch.

Calm down. He willed his heart to slow and tried to rearrange his thoughts. Think. Think quickly. What did Niroza say? What were the directions? The way out of the tunnel and into the Barai wasn't far from here, if he remembered correctly. He was close, very close. He just had to make it before the tunnel collapsed, before he found himself caved in and trapped in here.

It would eventually collapse. He was under the mountain, inside the fucking Djamahari. This quake felt worse than the one they had in '53. He would know. He was there when it had happened, almost didn't survive that one, in fact. And that was outside, under the sun, in the city, where there had been open spaces to run, to find shelter.

The Salar was also lying in bed, he realized belatedly, in the section of the building that had also collapsed back then, and killed everyone in it.

He picked up his feet, sprinted forward as he recited Niroza's directions in his head. The tunnel creaked louder and louder under the Djamahari's weight. The mountain above him growled and bellowed, like some gods' only child tossing and turning in an unstoppable tantrum. He turned the last corner as per Niroza's instructions, saw the door at the end of the hallway he was supposed to reach-–

Froze dead in his tracks as he saw the fire.

***

It hit them like the fist of a vengeful god, Lasura thought as the initial quake knocked them all off balance. The ones that followed never gave them a chance to regain their footing. Run, Rhykal had said. Run where? had been his first question. The passage couldn't be more than six paces wide. Every corridor had the same ceiling structure that could collapse at anytime. Saya went for some of the doors and tried to yank them open. They didn't budge, not the ones close to them in any case.

The tunnel screamed and shook where they stood, made a sound that reminded Lasura of thunder, of something hollow and rigid being hammered to pieces with them still inside. None of them made it further than a few steps before the first few bricks that lined the tunnel began to fall. The walls––everything around them, above them––were shouting a warning, a promise to come tumbling down if they didn't get out of its wrath at once. The sconces were shaking in their metal arms, spilling oil, spitting fire on the ground, on them as they jumped out of the way.

"Fuck," somewhere behind him, Rhykal hissed in fright, in terror.

He turned toward the man, saw Djari and Rhykal staring at the same thing above them. A loud, cracking sound erupted from the ceiling between him and the two of them. He looked up and saw a jagged line snaking its way across the ceiling. Made a sprint toward her just before it came down.

Didn't make it in time.

***

"I'm sorry, my lord," the healer said as he forced the Salar's head down with all his weight, trying to hold his hand steady as the man under him clawed and tore at his wrist. It felt wrong, even now, to kill a great man this way. But the lives of his family were at stake, and everyone tended to their kins first, didn't they? Didn't they?

He decided that they did, even though the gods were screaming their wraths, and the Salar, weak as he was, kept trying to fight his way out of this fate. He had thought of leaving the Salar to die in the quake to keep his hands and conscience clean. He could do that. But how many times had this man defeated death when left to chance? And what would happen to him and his family if he were to survive this too?

After all, the gods had been on the Salar's side. They might be still, even now. There hadn't been a quake in Samarra for fifteen years. It had to be now, on this exact hour and minute, when he had come to kill the former Salar of Rasharwi.

The rightful Salar of Rasharwi, he corrected himself. "Forgive me," he said, leaning harder with his weight. He liked Salar Muradi as a ruler. He was the kind who built universities, funded researches for medicines and healing, gave his daughter the right to attend schools, the future she needed. But you did what you did to survive. To make sure your children survived, especially when you lost the mother a long time ago.

The ground was shaking harder under his feet. The impact of things falling and breaking around him sounded like music––a requiem fit for a king, an emperor, a loss to put the whole world in mourning. He would go down in history now as the one who'd done it; the healer who'd poisoned the greatest Salar Rasharwi had ever known. Something to be proud of? Or cursed by latter generations for centuries to come?

The Salar put up a struggle worth his name and reputation to prolong his last breath of air. He'd imagined the task to be more physically challenging, but here and now, the man, the undefeated conqueror, was a sick, weak, and exhausted patient lying in a helpless position. A moment later, his eyes grew wide as he finally gasped for air, parting his mouth open.

He tilted the vial of poison and poured its content down the Salar's throat. Emptied it.

***

It must have been his imagination, or a wishful thinking of a dying man, but somewhere in the middle of the crumpling ceiling, amid the rubbles and debris that kept on falling around him like rain, he thought he saw Zahara standing by his bed, looking down, smiling over the final hour of his life she had survived to witness, at long last.

'There are things you cannot have in this world, and my heart is among them,' she had said. 'It is beating to see you die, never for you to claim.'

Did it beat still, he wondered, to see him die?

He supposed it did. And he was dying––there was no way out of it. His time had run out before he could accomplish what he wanted to do with his life. Some dreams were never to be realized, he supposed. A dream of a land united. A legacy to match that of Eli. A slice of life worth remembering, without war, without losses, without sacrifices. A better death than dying under a collapsed building, with poison in one's belly.

The manifestation of Zahara smiled as she placed his head on her lap, running her hand gently through his hair. It was a good dream at least, if unrealistic. Zahara had never been gentle. Not with him. That wasn't her.

The ceiling creaked louder above the bed, forming a line that told him he wouldn't survive the impact if it came down. And he was feeling it now––the poison that was beginning to spread through his limbs, putting them to sleep, numbing all his senses. A good poison, he thought, for how much it felt like a rest, how little agony it brought, and the image of her it had given him. A kind ending, for a tyrant who had killed many.

He reached for her wrist and brought it to his lips, to kiss the same tender spot he used to kiss. "Do I make you happy now?" he asked that out loud, to the product of his own imagination. There was that dream at least, a parting gift he could give her. The freedom she'd always wanted.

She smiled and said something he couldn't make out. Couldn't hear. It was a strange smile. Somewhat sad, almost kind. A new one he hadn't seen. Zahara could always surprise, after all these years.

And then he thought of his son, of their son. Lasura would have to finish what he'd started. He would have to live and fulfill that destiny, one that had been drawn so long ago, somewhere in the Vilarhiti.

Live, my son. No matter what happens, you have to live to do what I couldn't. What we've failed.

***