Zahara wiped the sweat off her palms when she heard the key turning. She had been listening to their conversation from the adjacent room they'd brought her in. It wasn't the first time she had to come up with a plan on short notice, and by then she had somewhat managed, but being prepared didn't always come with certainty or confidence. One needed a good backup plan for that, and she had none.

The door opened and in walked di Amarra. She made sure to stand in the middle of the room, facing him, which was an effort. He seemed a little surprised to see her waiting but rectified it quickly. She congratulated herself for that achievement. She knew she might also die for that achievement. Agitating the Red Mamba had dire consequences, always.

"I don't believe you've met," said the Red Mamba, turning to Sarasef who had followed him into the room. "The former Salar's––"

She took two steps forward, made sure he didn't get to finish that introduction. "My name is Zahara iza Narareesha, daughter of Ravi and the late Kha'ari of Mahdawara Kha'gan, the last remaining Bharavi of the Vilarhiti." She stretched out her hand toward the grand chief, palm open and facing toward the ceiling––a gesture known in the White desert, and Black. "Wife," she added, crisply, "to the rightful Salar of Rasharwi."

The room grew deadly still as the two men stared at her and the audacity on display. She kept her hand out, pretending she hadn't noticed the rapidly increasing effort to hold it high and steady. She had no idea if he would take it, or what she would do if he didn't, but the only way out of this prison, she'd decided before they entered, was forward, not back.

'Always stand your ground when you're without power to negotiate,' Muradi had said once, to her son. 'And likewise, be afraid––be very afraid––of someone who has nothing to lose.'

It helped to remember that her readiness to die was the deadliest weapon she had acquired––and still possessed––since the fall of the Vilarhiti. There was power in being a cornered animal if one knew how to use it, and after twenty years of surviving Muradi, she knew how to use it better than anyone alive.

Sarasef considered the gesture with a disarming stillness that stretched an interval of two breaths into a liftime. Or perhaps she had simply lost count of how many she'd taken. It was difficult to count with how fast, how loud her heart was beating.

More difficult still, to not jump at the touch when he took the offered hand and bent forward. The Grand Chief lowered his head gracefully toward her open palm and paused just before his forehead made contact, then resumed his upright position.

There was meaning in that. There was always meaning in how close, how easily, how lightly or otherwise one offered greetings or obeisance. It could tell you many things about someone you hadn't met. She had declared herself a daughter of Ravi and demanded obeisance. He'd accepted that position, but for ceremony, only for ceremony. A calm, reasonable man, one willing to negotiate but not easy to move.

"May Marakai give you strength, Grand Chief," she said, hoping he'd catch the meaning behind it. Sarasef wasn't a religious man, not by reputation, but Marakai the sky father was the god his men worship, and unlike Rashais who called every other gods' worshippers besides Rashar's heretics, the White and Black deserts had always recognized other people's gods whether or not they worship the same diety. It didn't matter who you prayed to where they lived, what mattered was water, and sometimes that came from worshippers of other gods, other times from killing worshippers of your own god. She had put forth a reminder here that they were both people of the desert, and that they could be allies if he desired so. They were both trapped here, after all, and similar in their need of a weapon against the Red Mamba.

Whether Sarasef understood the gesture, it didn't show. The fifty-seventh grand chief of the Rishi remained decisively calm, quiet, impenetrable. His presence reminded her of some old, massive structure the wind and sun couldn't alter having had a century to try.

Deo di Amarra turned to her, breaking the silence. "I take it you've been listening to the conversation?"

She nodded. "As you desired me to. You chose this room for a reason, did you not?"

A laugh, in earnest. "I'm impressed how well you've filled all those roles. Descendent of Ravi, daughter to a Kha'ari, Bharavi of the Vilarhiti, and...ah yes," he said, pointedly, "wife to the Salar of Rasharwi. You stand before me now as his woman? You've accepted that position, willingly?"

She managed a calm, collected smile, though not entirely sure she succeeded in hiding the effort. "It's what keeping me alive, is it not? Isn't that's why I'm here? Because you need me to control...your pawn?"

He stilled for time, catching, of course, the path she was trying to lead. "Need is a big word, my lady."

"No bigger," she replied, catching his eyes, "than the pawn you're trying to leash, my lord Advisor."

"A pawn who would do anything to save you, I'd imagine."

"A pawn," she said straightening her spine, "who would not survive if I'm dead."

Silence stretched between them like a tightrope upon which they were to walk, and she had been ready to walk it for some time. She would make the first step here, armed with whatever weapon she could salvage, before a spear was behind her back.

The challenge was observed, registered, and being remembered for life. He said, light as the stroke of a quill that decided who should live or die, "Are you threatening to kill yourself, my lady, unless I offer something in return?"

A memory crawled up her spine. She snatched by the hair, and tossed it forward. screaming. "Unless you have eight thousand prisoners to keep me alive, I would suggest you find me an incentive."

He stared at her and raised the cup to take another sip of wine, taking his time to swirl the content. "The prisoners are still there, being held in Rasharwi."

"So are you," she said, "by Sarasef of the Rishi, the last time I checked."

The swirling stopped, the wine cup paused in midair, the hand that held it tightened. "The game you are playing," he said, "is dangerous, iza Narareesha."

So was life in the desert, so had her life been in the past twenty years. "Danger, my lord di Amarra, is a warning for someone with something to lose. You and Muradi have stripped me of that a long time ago. You cannot take from me what I don't have to give. Your threat," she said, "is as fruitless as your poison."

"I wouldn't be so sure," said Sarasef, who had been listening quietly until then. "She is right, Deo, you do need a bigger threat to keep her alive, one I happen to possess and am willing to trade."

He turned to her then, leaving no room, no time for preparation. "I have your son, iza Narareesha," he said. "Prince Lasura is alive. He will die if and when I say so. I need only to release a certain information. I believe that is enough of an incentive to keep you living, or do you require more?"

There were times, Zahara thought, when she could mask her vulnerability with little to no effort, when she could believe a lie she'd spoken to the point of forgetting it was so. This time it took all she had to stay her course, to remain standing, and to not cry in front of these beasts.

'I have your son,' he'd said, had used it to force her on her knees.

But for everything those four words had carried to demand her surrender, there was also an accompanying sliver of strength only a parent would recognize. She realized then, that neither of them had children, and knew what it meant for a mother to hear her son had been taken by an enemy, and was being threatened with death.

And Lasura was more than that now. He was the future of the White Desert, of this peninsula, of a centuries-long war that could end now, in their generation.

She turned to Sarasef, to both of them, gripping the old lie she could recite like a prayer to Ravi, and delivered it with the same precision she'd succeeded for decades. "His son, you mean. The one I've always wanted dead?"

Sarasef's breath hitched at the response. She seized the moment, the small gap of opportunity, and forced the door open. "Hear me, Grand Chief, before we waste all our time any further. You can take me hostage, bind the only man who can give you what you want in chains, and force him to do your biddings with clipped wings and cuffed ankles, or you can help him take back the throne, give him the power to seize what you want, and make sure he hands it to you with my influence." She remembered then, something Muradi had said, and brought it forward. "Why create a dangerous enemy when you can have a powerful ally? Our needs are aligned here, my lords, there's no need for this hostil––"

"Are they?" Sarasef's tone was sharp, and for the first time dripping with venom. Something she'd said seemed to irritate him, offend him, even. "From my understanding, the father of that son you despise wants to take back the throne, a disaster for the White Desert, for Citara, for you, should he succeed. How does that serve your interest? Why is that an outcome you find acceptable? Explain to me, as someone who calls herself a daughter of Ravi, why I should believe your true intention is not disguised, because the last time I checked, no Bharavi would ask me for this. It would never be an option."

There was something in those words, in the way hers irritated him. There seemed to be a sense of familiarity, an awareness that appeared to have come from experience rather than common knowledge. The last time I checked, he'd said. She looked up at him, gasping, as it dawned on her. "I'm not the first Bharavi you've met..."

"No," he said. "You are not."

Her heart was beating fast again, but for different reasons. "She made a deal with you..." It began as a hunch, then became a certainty. There was a reason why he had bent to her and had given her a chance to negotiate. He'd been approached by another Bharavi. "What did she offer you in return?" She paused to breathe. "Who is she?"

Sarasef crossed his arms over his chest, a gesture that told her whatever he'd agreed to was not in his interest to alter. "There was no offer. I am bound by a life debt to her sworn sword. The sworn sword you called a traitorous man whore, or so I've heard."

She remembered, of course, everyone remembered someone they despised. "The Sparrow... He's alive?" And not just alive. A deserter, a former slave, a male escort from Rasharwi had become a sworn sword and blood to a Bharavi. Was it even possible?

"He saved my life," said Sarasef. "And now serves Djari iza Zuri, the Bharavi of Visarya. He is the reason I'm standing here, why we are having this conversation. Your son is being held by the Visarya as a gesture of good faith, to make sure this alliance happens. He is alive because of that man whore you believe has shamed your bloodline."

It came back to her now, one particular gossip back in the Tower, if not in the entire city of Rasharwi, how Deo di Amarra and Sarasef of the Rishi had fought for ownership of the Sparrow. The story had become a part of his legacy, and why his price had doubled overnight then tripled in less than a year. Sarasef's affection for the boy had never been a secret, and now a life debt had carved it stone. It explained his anger toward her and the blade of words he'd sought to cut her with. It also explained his willingness to negotiate, to listen to a Bharavi, to her.

She also remembered her education in the White Tower, how she had been trained to spot and recognize the patterns the gods were weaving for the world––a skill only experienced Bharavis tend to achieve without the aid of visions given to oracles. Now, for the first time, she could almost trace this intricate design the gods had begun decades ago, even if it might be too late for her to make use of it.

But how could anyone without a vision have seen it coming? This destiny––this power––that had been bestowed upon an insignificant orphan boy? Who would have thought a raid survivor, raised among enemies, would find his way into Deo di Amarra's care and be given a chance to bond with Sarasef of the Rishi? No one would have believed a Shakshi slave could free himself from captivity, return to the White Desert, and by pure chance ran into a Bharavi who made him her sworn sword and blood––a Bharavi who happened to be the daughter of Za'in izr Husari? It shouldn't have happened. He should have been executed on sight, or dead by sunrise somewhere in the desert. Now he was the key, the cord that strung and bound everyone together, dragging them all toward a great change no one had been able to accomplish in hundreds of years.

It was too much of a coincidence, too intricately woven to be the work of a man.

And yet...something about it bothered her. Something about how smoothly, how well accommodated it all was.

She turned to Deo di Amarra, her chest filled to the brim with something she could only call a hunch, a feeling, perhaps something given to a Bharavi instead of visions. "You knew," she said. "You knew this from the start, when you took him in, while you trained him, while you helped him escape. You sent him to the Visarya..."

The room fell into a crowded silence. No one moved, no one seemed able to breathe. Sarasef's attention shifted from her to the Red Mamba, who had, despite all this, been listening calmly, quietly.

"All good entrepreneur sees potential." Di Amarra shrugged.

Sarasef shook his head. "You told him, specifically, to go west."

A small chuckle. "I sent him home. The entire White Desert is west."

"So," she added, "was the Visarya's settlement that season."

He turned the wine over, admiring the pattern on the goblet, or something else they might have missed. "Coincidence happens."

"Not to you," said Sarasef, a slight discomfort in his voice now, perhaps also a trace of anger. "You weren't buying a slave for five hundred thousand Silas when you stole him from me. You were betting on the gods' side, the winning side. The chosen one..." He paused to breathe the same time she did. "...is not Prince Lasura or Djari iza Zuri... It's Hasheem. It's always been him."

"A brilliant observation." Deo di Amarra smiled, raised the cup in approval, and sipped his wine. "Perhaps he is the chosen one, or maybe they all are. Hasheem, Lasura, iza Zuri, Muradi..." He turned to her, and stopped short of saying something. "Perhaps they're all key pieces on a board, in a game played by the gods, while the rest of us are strung along as sacrifices or spectators. Perhaps we've been tossed into the world completely blind with no more than hints and clues of how to get by from oracles and signs from divine beings. Perhaps that's what life is, and why we're here: to entertain a bunch of bored, condescending bitches and bastards with few things to do and too much free time. An amusing thought, isn't it?"

Not to Sarasef. "You are no spectator," he said.

"No," said di Amarra. "I'm the bookmaker."

Someone who plays the game at god level... someone with access to information, to their plans...someone trying to use the knowledge to manipulate an outcome...

Another revelation occurred to her then, first as only a shadow, a touch of light on the surface of something well hidden in the dark. Zahara stepped forward to take a closer look at those eyes, that red hair as described by gossips, the resemblance she'd missed for two decades. "Except you're not in it for money," she said, with newly formed certainty.

"A bookmaker is always in it for money, my lady," countered di Amarra. "I've always been motivated by money. That's no secret."

"No," she said, "that is no secret. It's a distraction, a deception you used to hide your identity. What you want has never been money or power." They snapped together now, the pieces of this puzzle. "It's vengeance."

The wine in his hand paused in midair, the yellow in his green eyes intensified as he stared at her, his breathing became light, like that of a ghost or a spirit. She knew then that she had been right, that she had managed to find the best weapon against the Red Mamba, perhaps the deadliest one on this peninsula if she could find a way to use it.

"I know who you are," she said. "I know who your father was. I know what happened to you and your mother. I even know who did it."

It was a pleasure, an immense pleasure, to see the Red Mamba's face paled a shade at the revelation. She might die for that, right here, right now, if she kept going.

Too late, however, to put the sword back in its sheath. "I was trained in the White Tower for four years before capture." She was supposed to relocate to Citara and run for Devi, had even chosen her future Deva and would have been married that summer had the Vilarhiti not fallen. "Anyone who's been in the White Tower that long knows the story. I'd put money on the Ma'a Devi and every Ma'a Devi before her always keeping an eye on your movements. Your secret," she said, taking another step forward, "is only a secret on this side of the desert, and it will stay that way, or it will not, depending on my generosity and how much it benefits me to keep it so."

Deo di Amarra, who seemed to have forgotten the wine in his hand, was still unnervingly calm, but you could see a snake getting ready to strike underneath that facade, and hear the rattle of its tail if you listened carefully enough. "Be careful, my lady," he said, "I may consider that a threat just now."

She smiled, then, sweetly. Poison should always be masked by something sweet.

"I am a Shakshi, my lord di Amarra. Where I come from we don't make threats. We make demands and offers, then kill each other when agreements can't be reached, and I have not yet made my offer. I am about to."

She turned toward the table by the window, made a gesture for both men to join her. It was about time she stepped back into the role she had been trained for in the White Tower, about time she took control of her life, her destiny––if not also Muradi's––and the future of this peninsula.

"Take your seats, my lords," she said. "The negotiation you're here for, will be with me."

***

A/N: My deepest apologies for the unacceptably late update. My life has not only been a mess of unfortunate events and I'm exhausted all the time, but these three chapters were so complicated (because I also had to figure out what exactly is going on) I had to finish the entire sequence and make sure everything checks out before dropping them. But here's a triple update for you guys. Also good/exciting news coming next post :)