'There is only one man on the throne,' Eli had written in his journal. Most people knew those words by heart, not many people understood them the same way Akshay did. You'd have to be close enough to the man who sits on it for that, or spend enough time serving one to see what he really meant.

There was always only one man on the throne, only one who must lead his people into war, only one in charge of making decisions that could change the peninsula. There was also only one man standing here, behind the parapet of the Barai's tallest watch tower, looking down at the destruction of a city he'd lived, loved, and conquered, one man to listen to its damage report, to carry it all on shoulders that must never sag at any weight, on legs that must remain steady at any cost. The throne elevates its king above those he rules because people need a target. They need someone to blame for mistakes and misfortunes. You have to be able to take it if you were king, or they'll find someone else who could.

For more two decades, Akshay had been serving a man who could, and it wasn't until now that he began to notice the sagging of those shoulders, or the unsteadiness of his king.

And yet it was understandable. The moment he'd awakened and been told about the quake and flood, the Salar had demanded he be taken to higher ground immediately to see the true extent of the damage. Aware of how often things get omitted, sugarcoated, or blown out of proportion in reports, he made an effort, as always, to be in the field himself for facts, figures, and hard evidence when possible.

Only this time, no facts, figures, or hard evidence, however accurate, could do the reality justice. One could be given a report detailed enough to rival Jarem izr Za'id's and not be prepared for the bird's eye view of the damage, even if one had no ties at all to the city.

And Samarra was much more than that to Salar Muradi. It was his city, the most beloved jewel of all five provinces, a place he'd spent decades expanding its piers, commissioning its factories and streets, setting up markets, and rebuilding everything after the last quake, which happened to be a milder one by half. He'd lived here as a prince, had survived its streets before training under Niroza, and traded with its locals long enough to count himself one. Rasharwi was where he ruled, but Samarra was where he'd lived. There were memories here, the kind people retained for life, from a place they might or might not willingly call home.

The city was all gone now, its rubbles covered thickly by smoke from the funeral fires still burning amongst collapsed buildings. Not thick enough, however, to conceal the market squares filled with dead bodies and the wounded, or the harbor's debris that had been washed up so far inland it formed a wall of garbage three streets away from shore. Not nearly thick enough, not by far, to hide the complete destruction of his fleet of battleships––a project he'd spent lifetime to achieve whose funding was still being paid off along with the Madira. Everything he'd done, every plan he'd made for the future of the peninsula had depended on the strength of Samarra. It was the lifeline of the Salasar, just as Makena was for the White Desert. Now that the city lay in ruin, trades were going to be stalled, prices of everything were going to rise, people were going to die, one way or another, from starvation, diseases, or shortage of resources. The Salar had wanted Samarra as his base because it was the best weapon to fight Azram. Now, the city itself needed to be rescued, and rescued immediately.

Not an easy task by any measure. The last time the quake had happened, the restoration of Samarra had depleted the Black Tower's reserves for three years. This time, there would be no funding or support from Rasharwi, not as long as the Salar intended to occupy and seize it from the prince regent.

It had become clear to Akshay in the past few days, the unspoken solution everyone had been dreading to point out. If you knew anything about how a city was run, you'd come to that same conclusion eventually, and no one understood it better than Salar Muradi, who had always been clear about what he prioritized between the security of his throne and that of his people, his Salasar.

Akshay wondered, looking at the Salar from behind the almost visible barricade he'd put up, and the outline of his back that kept all his expressions and gestures hidden, if he was still deciding whether to surrender the city to Azram, or he'd already made the decision and was trying to cope with it. He would never let you see it, of course. In the end, a ruler rules alone, fights alone, and takes his losses alone.

"How long will the food and supplies last?" the Salar asked, still with his back turned to him.

"A week, my lord, give or take a few days."

A small silence, to accept or think, he wasn't sure. "Have you barricaded the city gate?"

"Not with enough men to make a difference, I'm afraid."

"I see," he said. "Signs of Azram's army?"

"None yet." Luckily, there had been no report of it so far from the scouts he'd sent. "The news of your return has been kept a secret within the Barai up until the quake. Even if he knows now, it would take a few more days to mobilize and send out an army. We should have a week at least before that happens, perhaps longer."

"A week is wishful thinking," said the Salar. "Azram will come immediately, with a small army to escort me back to Rasharwi where I will be killed along the way. He knows the city is in trouble, that we don't have enough food or men to fight. A small army doesn't take much time to organize. I'd give it four more days before we have to deal with Azram."

He would come to the gate, for sure, to demand the Salar's surrender under the pretense of bringing his father home to keep the people in line. And if that didn't happen, if the Salar closed the gate and declared his son as the enemy, the homeless, starving citizens of Samarra would drag him out of the Barai in exchange for food and supplies from the capital before a siege was even called. No matter how he looked at it, there was only one way out.

"There's still time, my lord." It pained him to say it, to this man, most of all. "You can still leave the city undetected. I can organize an escor––"

"And go where?"

Two voices, speaking as if on cue, one from the man before him, the other from a woman standing behind.

The Salar, who had been the first to say the words, turned immediately to the figure that had emerged from the door behind Akshay.

A lungful of breath drawn, held for a time, followed by a noticeable sigh of relief. "You found her," he said.

Akshay realized then that he had yet to inform the Salar about the Lady Zahara, who had, since that morning, been healing the wounded outside the Barai.

"She found you, my lord," he said. "The Lady Zahara was the one who saved you from the quake and the poison." She'd done a lot more than that, in truth, for the past few days.

She was doing much more here, now, for the one man on the throne everyone was only allowed to watch and admire from afar.

It was a change so small you could barely see, but one impossible to miss if you'd been paying attention––the slight disappearance of a weight from his shoulders, the steadiness that returned to his feet, and the sliver of peace, of renewed energy, of something that crossed all his boundaries to arm him with a vulnerability that made him dangerously human.

The Lady Zahara walked toward the Salar with a presence that scarred, crossing the line no one had been allowed to cross, stepping over the carnage of his walls she'd struck down with barely an effort. She paused to stand next to the Salar, not in front, not behind, and turned to address Akshay with an air of authority not unlike the man whose side she'd taken.

"No one is leaving the city," she said. "Samarra is ours, and we will save it without Azram's aid. This is where we make our stand. The battle is not lost. It hasn't even begun."

"With all due respect, my lady," Akshay said, eyeing the Salar who had opted to watch and listen in silence, "we have no money, no resources, and not enough men to fight any army from Rasharwi, large or small."

"We can get the Raj to contribute," she countered without pause, without hesitation. "We'll negotiate with Niroza to get food and supplies from Makena by sea. We'll form an alliance with Sarasef, who will give us an army."

"The Raj and Niroza, my lady?" The idea wasn't just ambitious, it was ridiculous to begin with. "You are asking thieves to donate."

"Thieves or not, this is their city," she said, stretching her spine to stand with her full height next to the Salar. "Their businesses are here, as the major source of their income. It's in their interest to save it. We also have Leandras Naeem. We can use him to negotiate with Niroza."

Akshay shook his head. It all sounded logical, but the implementation was much more complicated than that. "If by some miracles we managed all that, my lady, an alliance with Sarasef is still out of the question." That was the problem from the beginning, even before the quake. "Saracen is dead, the terms of alliance you brought require that we send his brother back alive. The moment Sarasef knows it was Leandras who killed him, he will want retribution, and Niroza won't let that happen. The Salar can only choose one ally between the two, or they will fight each other here, before we even get the quake's damage under control or deal with Azram. How do you propose to fix that problem?"

"We lie," she said, resolutely, turning to the Salar, as if to make sure he saw to it. "We tell him Saracen died in the quake."

"There were witnesses..." Hundreds of them, in fact.

"Then have them silenced." She wheeled on him. "And don't tell me the two of you haven't done that on a regular basis."

Akshay parted his mouth to protest, and realized he couldn't negate that statement. The Salar still remained thoughtfully quiet as he listened. Whether he was taking it into consideration or waiting for her to finish, it was hard to tell.

She turned toward the Salar again, to the man who had the power to make all these decisions. She said, "You threatened to kill eight thousand people of mine just to keep me alive, I'm sure you can find a way to silence a few hundred to save your people. You are the only one who can force the Raj to donate, the only one who knows how to negotiate with Niroza and Sarasef. The city needs you, not Azram, to save it. It needs a leader who can give them miracles, who can do the impossible. There will be no talks of surrender. You owe me your life and I didn't save you for that. Hold the gate, Akshay," she commanded without removing her eyes from the Salar. "Hold it and make sure Azram doesn't set one foot in this city before the Salar gets this done."

It was that moment, when Akshay began to understand why the Salar had risked his life and throne to save this woman. She was his equal, in strength, in intelligence, in pride, in everything Akshay had come to love and admire about his Salar. If only Commander Sa'id could see it, if only she wasn't a Shakshi, and him a Rashai, then maybe, just maybe, the throne didn't have to be a seat for one. It could be his, and also hers.

He knelt then, to the two of them standing side by side, to the greatest conqueror he knew and the woman who'd saved his life, in more ways than one. "This is your wish, my lord, my lady? You will stay and fight?"

The Salar smiled then, though not without difficulties imposed by the distant cries of the city down below. "You heard my wife," he said. "I owe her my life, and she requires a miracle. Hold the gate, Akshay. This is where we make our stand."

For a moment, despite the impossibility of all these plans, Akshay thought they might, just might, be able to win this fight after all.

The thought didn't last long. It lasted until the scout he'd sent to keep an eye on Azram rushed through the door, panting as he dropped to the ground in obeisance to the Salar.

"An army has been spotted, my lord," he said, still trying to catch his breath in between, "about two days west of here."

Akshay closed his eyes to the nightmare he hadn't seen coming, and then realized something was wrong with the report. "You mean east of here?"

The scout shook his head. "No, Captain. It's not coming from Rasharwi." He swallowed and glanced at the Lady Zahara. "It's coming from the White Desert, carrying the serpent flag of Citara."

***

A/N: I nearly died gushing over the fact that they're now a team writing this. So happy to be able to get them to this point and hopefully it didn't seem forced. 

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