'Love is a deadly gift that exacts great sacrifices.'

Zahara shuddered at her own words, almost spilling the content of the remedy she'd just finished mixing. The truth of that statement hit somewhere too close to heart, too close to the part of her she needed to die.

The part that had, just four days ago, sent her running down corridors, climbing through windows, and risking her life to save the man she'd wanted––needed––dead for two decades. There had been valid explanations for that, she told herself for the tenth time that evening. She needed Lasura to rule and end the war, and she could only do that with Muradi's power and influence over his side of the desert.

It was a worthy sacrifice, surely, for her to betray her people by keeping him alive and leaving her past behind. One could try to forget when forgiveness wasn't an option, or move on from old wounds and scars for something more important than vengeance. Their conflict had to end, and it had to begin with both sides being able to lay down their hatred, or there would never be peace on this peninsula. It was logical. It was the right thing to do. It made sense, even. No one would blame her for it. Or they would, but great deeds always came with great sacrifices, didn't they? She decided that they did.

Still, it didn't explain how afraid she was, or how unacceptable the thought of him dying had felt when she'd rushed over to save him from the healer. It was bothering her even now, to see him lying here, so helpless and fragile on a dirty bed, in a prison cell he used to throw people in. She ought to have felt conflicted about saving him. She should have been deeply unsatisfied to see him alive. She couldn't, with confidence, say that either of those things were true.

A breeze came through the window, bringing with it the sound of prayers from the nearby temples. They were holding services three times a day now, before dawn, at dusk, and at midday. Some of the temples were half destroyed in the quake, leaving only one or two walls standing to keep the noises in. On a morning like this, when everything was still quiet and calm, the clashing of prayers from different temples amplified the chaos and the tragedy that still haunt the city. The chants were mostly in Samarran, others in Khandoor and Rashai. Together, they formed one indistinguishable noise of humans, singing, at the same time, a song of hope dug completely out of despair.

She looked through the small window, out toward the whitewashed courtyard of bricks and stones built in Samarran style and remembered, though not for the first time since the quake, that she was in the land of her enemies, treating their guards, their soldiers, their victims, and trying as best she could to save as many lives as the gods would allow. They came to her now, these enemies, people loyal to Muradi, soldiers who had fought in the Vilarhiti, traders who'd handled Shakshi slaves, owners who kept some, still, in their households and factories, but they also came to her as fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons. You couldn't stand in the middle of all this sufferings and still call yourself human if the only things you could see were enemies and allies. She'd been raised better than that, by humans, not beasts.

Still, it felt like a crime. She wondered how many of these people she'd healed, should they survive, would end up killing her own people in the war to come? Would she not be held responsible for that, one way or another?

The only way to stop that from happening, she decided, was to end this war, at least for a few generations, if not once and for all. And the only man she knew who could bring it to an end, or had any chance of doing so, was still lying there on the bed behind her, drifting between life and death, at a time when he was needed the most.

The city was in chaos, the mess needed to be cleaned up, and the dead needed to be taken care of. Four days had passed, and they were still counting casualties and missing people. Parts of the city were beginning to stink with bodies still trapped under debris. People were still looking for their families and loved ones. She'd gathered more than a hundred lost children into the Barai for parents to come look for them, knowing half of those children would likely end up orphans. There were problems with supplies, with contamination, with hundreds other things that needed someone's attention. She had done what she could with Akshay's support and cooperation, but she was still a Shakshi woman, trapped in a land ruled by Rashais. These people needed their leader, someone who had their trust, who could carry the burden, who had the power to make it all right.

She finished mixing the medicine and went to the bed where he lay, struggling to survive both her anger and exhaustion to stay focused on the task at hand. She touched his forehead to check for signs of fever, and was glad to find none. Some colors had returned to his face and lips. He was breathing more easily and even tonight. She gave him the medicine, unwrapped some of the bandages to clean the wounds, and sighed in relief to see no signs of pus forming. There had been so many new wounds, most of which would leave behind scars. She realized then, that she remembered all his scars. It bothered her that she did.

"Will he be all right?"

She turned to see the speaker. The young Bharavi was standing by the door like a ghost who'd been there for some time and just decided to make itself seen.

"Your sworn sword or my husband?" she asked.

A small pause, followed by a reply that sought to chastise. "The Salar," she corrected.

She looked at the girl, who must have been less than half her age, and seemed to have come to her bearing daggers. Verbal or physical, they needed to be addressed, those daggers. She said, "Do you have a problem with me, iza Zuri?"

The young Bharavi stilled for a time, but showed no intention to back away. "I thought you wanted him dead."

A direct answer, short and precise, spoken in perfect Shakshi she hadn't heard for a long time. This was Za'in izr Husari's daughter, she reminded herself, raised as the god's chosen one.

"Is that a wish or a presumption?"

"A conclusion," said Djari iza Zuri, "from what your son has told me."

Another dagger thrown, this time without awareness. "He confides in you? My son?"

"We talked," she said. "He's saved my life, many times, your son."

"The Salar's son, you mean."

A silence, one held intentionally to make a point. She decided to ignore it. "He believes I would kill his father?"

"He wonders why you haven't."

"And so do you."

"And so do I."

"That's why you've come? To find out if I'm an enemy or an ally?"

Za'in izr Husari's daughter straightened under that doorway, like someone who had every right to be there. "I'm just trying to stay alive."

Fair enough, she supposed. "What do you think will happen to us if he dies? If I were to kill him now?"

The girl chewed on that for a while, before drawing the conclusion she should have before coming here why they hadn't been executed or sent to the capital.

"And if he doesn't?" asked Djari iza Zuri. "What happens to us if he wakes up?"

A valid question, and one she wasn't going to lie answering. "He will want to kill you and the Sparrow."

The young Bharavi drew a breath, and nodded. "We have to leave, then."

"I said he will want to," she replied. "Doesn't mean he can."

The girl blinked, twice. "You believe you can stop him?"

That touch of hope on her face, in her eyes, reminded her Djari iza Zuri was still very young. She had been that young once. It was tiring. "That depends," she said. It was time to ask. "Do you intend to win the war, iza Zuri, or to end it?"

She hadn't thought of that, judging from the confusion on her face. "Can you end one without winning?" she asked.

"Does anyone ever," she said with a tightness in her own chest, "win wars?"

A thoughtful silence, from a girl her wayward son had chosen to confide in and protect. Zahara knew, from seeing the young Bharavi's face at that moment, that Lasura had chosen someone better than her. Someone who could bring peace to this peninsula with her decisions. Decisions shaped by her next words, at this very moment.

The revelation hit her like lightning, like discovering a pattern drawn by the gods. This power to change to the outcome of the war had also been given to her.

Again.

She turned to look at Muradi, at Ranveer, at the man who had given her that chance once, and was now doing so again. This was the only way to end it. Whatever comes, however wrong it seemed, and regardless of how many people would call her a traitor, this was the only way.

She reached for his hand, wrapped her own around it, and brought it to rest on her lap, into the light. They were to be seen, his and hers, intertwined.

"I have been given a chance to end this war once, when we lost the Vilarhiti," she said to the girl, who was listening. "I chose hatred. I chose vengeance. I chose to set it on fire and raise a son against his father." She could have negotiated, made demands, discussed with logic and reasons. He had been willing to do that, over wine. "For twenty years I sought retribution from the only man who had the power end it, when I could have done something more." For twenty years, she had done nothing but thrown away every opportunity given for the sake of her own pride. It had to end here, now, her old path, to start anew.

"If you want peace, iza Zuri, then we'll have to work together to bring peace. You asked me what will happen when he wakes up, and I can't promise that he will let you live." Muradi had his own reasons, his own plans she was often not a part of. "I can, however, promise you that I'll try to help you survive, to put you both on the same side, to end this war with as few lives sacrificed as the gods will allow it. I will do that, if you promise me to fight for peace, not war."

Djari iza Zuri, still standing by the door, neither moving back nor forward as she listened, held her silence for a moment, and said, "You believe he's willing to do this? You trust him?"

Did she? Could she trust Muradi to that extent? Somehow, and this time, the answer was clear. "As the Salar of Rasharwi, no." She smiled and squeezed the hand she was holding, finding her strength, her energy again out of nowhere. "As my husband, I do."

It had been a while, Zahara realized, since she could say something with such clarity and confidence, without another voice inside of her yelling to be heard. That morning, for the first time since Vilarhiti had fallen, among the ruins and rubbles of the quake and the clashing songs of prayers that didn't remind her of the White Desert, she began to feel it again, what it was like to have a home.

Sunlight came through the small window as the prayers died down, chasing away the cold as it pushed back the shadows. She watched as it reached Djari iza Zuri's face, softening the harsh lines of her cheekbones, making her look sixteen again. There was hope in this girl still, she could see it among the signs of breakage Fate had left behind, and a lot of light, in a world that promised only darkness and dire consequences. This was someone who could still listen, someone who still had the strength to do the right thing, someone willing to sacrifice a lot more than she had, for something much bigger than pride and vengeance.

She began to see why her son had been drawn to it, this light that surrounded Djari iza Zuri. You could break this girl a hundred times, and she would only shine brighter, like obsidian, not bitter and poisonous, like her.

And then, when those eyes glanced at the hand she was holding, she saw that same light fade away for a moment. "Even," she said, in a voice filled with sadness, guilt, and perhaps a touch of envy, "if the world condemns you for it?"

Zahara remembered then, that there was another man Lasura had looked at with bitterness and resentment, that Djari iza Zuri wasn't just a Bharavi, but someone who had also been born into responsibilities as the chosen one to end the war, that she would forever be the target for condemnation when battles are lost, and mistakes are made.

"There are," she said, "what we do for duty and what we keep in our hearts, iza Zuri. They need not intertwine and neither requires you to choose only one. You cannot win your battles without a place to land on when you fall, or with a heart that beats for nothing and no one. Love always come at a price, but it's what gives us the strength to fight, not our weakness. Do what is right, but don't lose it, no matter what happens."

It was as much for her as it was for Djari iza Zuri, those words, perhaps also for her son whose whole life ahead seemed to have been changed because of this young woman. The world was more often changed by how far one would go for love than by someone who runs from it, and she was ready now, to stop casting it aside.

They spoke no more after that. Djari iza Zuri left after a moment of shared silence, with an expression of someone still trying to decide what to do next. She had a feeling things would turn out all right, that the young woman her son had fallen for was someone who could be reasoned with, who had what it took to do the right thing, someone kinder than her.

But just then, dropped upon her like a vision, or a touch on the shoulder from the gods, an unshakable feeling that she had been wrong about something sent a shiver down her spine, one that would return many times thereafter.

That face, those eyes as she stared at the hand she was holding, the vulnerability you couldn't miss when she'd said those words, the pain that surrounded her presence, all pointed toward a possibility too terrifying to easily cast aside.

If there was one thing that could break Djari iza Zuri to pieces and turn the outcome of this war upside down, it was her sworn sword, the one they called the Silver Sparrow of Azalea.

The apprentice Deo di Amarra had referred to, all these years, as My Masterpiece.