The horse didn't like him.

Lasura came to that conclusion as he stood pretentiously tall in the stable, staring at the colt Djari had picked for him whose agenda that afternoon, he was certain, involved making his life exceptionally miserable. Not that he was in any way new to the situation. Most people took pleasure in making him miserable for reasons he no longer tried to understand. In a way, he and the Sparrow had some things in common, except the prick usually got paid outrageously for getting fucked (and paid per hour, mind you), while he pretty much had to pay them to not fuck him twice.

And now he was going to have to prove himself a better man than the Sparrow, accept the offering of this horse to ride, and the foreseeable future of being thrown off its back then trampled to an embarrassing death without complaints. No one was forcing him to, of course, but with Djari standing there nitpicking him from the shape of his ankle to the dirt in his nails–– most likely against the memory of her appallingly perfect swornsword––his wretched male ego was inflated enough to make him jump off a cliff and die trying to show off he could fly. Which was, technically, what trying to trump the Silver Sparrow of Azalea felt like. The man would probably look better than him trampled to death by a goat wearing some secondhand rags thrown out by a beggar. Still, it did nothing to stop him from trying. Ego had its uses, he supposed, in these situations. Like making you suicidal enough to commit suicide when suicide is needed. That sort of thing.

And so he stepped toward the horse, feeling Djari's measuring gaze like a spear on his back forcing him to walk off a plank to his doom. He sucked in a breath, puffed up his chest to appear large and intimidating in front of the colt. The horse––Summer, he was called––raised its hoof to strike at the ground, pinned back its ears and bared at him a full row of gleaming white teeth.

This is not going to work, Lasura thought, looking over his shoulder toward Djari for some suggestions. She replied with an expression akin to that of his grumpy geography tutor waiting to see if he would misspell a country or a river during examination, only his tutor never had a whip in his hand and looked so ready to use it.

He reached over with the bridle and Summer lunged forward, snapping. At the same moment, the sound of Djari's whip cracking from behind ripped apart the silence of the stable, and straightening every horse in it along with the two stable boys and a dispossessed prince of the Black Tower. One of those might have pissed his pants, judging from the stench he was getting. Lasura looked down between his legs and thanked Rashar it wasn't him.

Ravi, he reminded himself. He was in the White Desert now, thanking Rashar around here might get him castrated, and he wasn't going to lie, Lasura, Eunuch of the Black Tower, did have a nice ring to it for some disturbing reason he'd rather not explore.

"Open the gate and stand back," she said.

He thought of defying that order, only his limbs had already obeyed the command without his consent.

"Summer." The name came from Djari like a spear, matched by the index finger of her free hand pointing down, sinking its imaginary tip with surgical precision into the ground in front of him. The horse stiffened, tilted its head slightly to the side to avoid eye contact but didn't have the nerve to completely turn away. "Come."

It could shut up a crying baby, that tone, and it didn't take long for Summer to walk out of his stall to stand in the exact spot she was pointing toward. "Try again, Prince Lasura," Djari said, nodding for him to put the bridle on.

The horse, this time, stood obediently still from start to finish, after which time she reached over to rub its neck and slapped it gently in approval. Summer, who immediately relaxed from the small gesture, nuzzled her affectionately in return. It was a combination of love and respect every experienced horse trainer struggled to achieve, and Djari iza Zuri, at sixteen, mind you, had it down to perfection.

"He'll be all right now," she said. "Just take it easy on the reins. He works better with a gentle hand until he learns to respect you." She ran her hand gently along Summer's neck, an absentminded smile forming on her lips, in her eyes. "Hasheem used to give him a full rub down the night before he had to ride Summer. It worked like a charm to get him to behave like a puppy every time. I told him he must have magic fingers because it never worked when I did it."

Lasura watched and listened in a strange mixture of awe and disgust. It was her first smile in the past three days since he'd been here and also the first conversation she'd made with him that didn't involve laying down rules and the warning of threats (or threatening him into submission). And it was, of course, over a memory of her beloved swornsword. Lasura used to roll his eyes when Dee had one of those Sparrow fanboy moments. He reminded himself not to do that here.

"Magic fingers indeed," he said, trying to keep his tone level, fighting the highly enticing urge to tell her where those fingers had been, but she was holding a whip, and self-preservation was his only talent besides his unparalleled ability to lure people to piss on him on a regular basis.

Such pretension didn't escape her keen observation, however.

"Why do you hate Hasheem?"

Because he shits on everything I do, Lasura wanted to say. His sense, thank Ravi, was still intact. "Do you always say the first thing that comes to mind?"

She frowned at him, the same way a trainer might frown at an animal that didn't behave. "Do you always avoid answering an honest question?"

"From someone I barely know, yes." He was pretty certain that was what most people did. "And it's personal."

Her frown deepened. She had many levels of frowning, this girl, and he seemed to be an expert at unlocking them. "I have no interest in your personal issues, Prince Lasura," she said crisply. "But this has to do with the safety of my swornsword, and I need to know if I am trying to keep alive someone who might bring him harm."

Bharavis, Lasura thought, are so predictable. "In which case you will have me killed?"

"No," she said, chewing her bottom lip. "Nazir needs you alive. He also puts me in charge of your safety."

Which, of course, was the only possible reason why she wouldn't have him killed. "Right. So there's nothing much you can do about it, is there?" My mouth, Lasura thought belatedly, as always, is going to get me killed one day.

Djari seemed to agree. "I can let you die."

"And fail to carry out your duty due to negligence? I don't think so." If his mother was any indication of what bharavis were like, then Djari iza Zuri should find the failure to execute her sworn duty to perfection equally inconceivable. He was willing to bet she was going to protect him with the same vindictive tenacity his mother had for wanting her husband dead. Which meant that he could probably push his boundaries to a point. The kha'a, of course, never mentioned he had to survive with all his limbs intact.

She pressed her lips together, like someone who'd just swallowed something inedible by mistake. "I don't like you," she said as-a-matter-of-factly, out of principle.

No shit. Lasura shrugged. "I'm afraid life is full of feces and people you don't like, my lady," he said, climbing onto Summer's back and turning the colt toward the exit. "You'll just have to live with it like everybody else. Shall we ride? Or would you prefer to stay here and agonize about that misfortune a little longer?"

She made no response to that as he turned Summer away and out of the stable to wait. Djari took no time in saddling her own horse to join him. They rode out of camp in the late afternoon, her on the horse he'd ridden to meet the kha'a and he on the colt she had trained to follow verbal commands. It allowed him to remain under full control during the ride. A precaution, he supposed for her to travel alone with a stranger.

They were alone most of the time, except when passing a few checkpoints along the way. Alone, because no one else was to know where they were heading. The kha'a had decided to keep him somewhere away from camp under the deception that he'd already left while they waited for Citara's verdict on what to do with him. Since the kha'a had left for Citara immediately after the meeting, requiring izr Shalyk to remain at camp in his place, it fell on Djari as the only one left besides her nan'ya who knew his true identity and could execute the plan. A risk, to be sure, but a necessary one.

The ride took them through the narrow entrance of the southern camp, then out into an open plain backed by the chalk-white Djamahari mountain range looming majestically in the distance. Around them, thousands of white rocks littered the ground, some as tall as three times a man's height, others as small as a pebble. There was a sheen to them that, with the right angle, caught and reflected the sunlight like crystals. The edges were sharp, too, like obsidian when broken, only white.

This is it, Lasura thought, trying to keep his jaw from dropping as he passed through the plain of endless white rocks. This is the heart of the White Desert that gives it the very name. So white it could temporarily blind someone if not for the golden sand that gave the eyes something safe to focus on. Besides the heat issue, Lasura could see why Djari had opted to leave late afternoon. In the glare of the sun set high above them, it would have been an agony to ride through this. He had seen these white rocks before on his way here from the Black Desert, but there, they had not been this numerous or epic in proportions. The Vilarhiti, on the other hand, despite being a large part of the White Desert, was composed mainly of silvery-grey, snow capped mountains of the north that ran all the way to Khandoor. Some of these rocks could be found there, but it was a joke compared to what he was seeing now.

"Does it snow around here in winter?" he asked, trying to comprehend what it would be like if the sand, too, was ever covered in white. He remembered being in Khandoor highlands when it was blanketed with snow, how blinding it had been in direct sun, but these rocks had a stronger sheen to them, and at night they almost glowed in the dark.

Djari shook her head. "No," she said, shifting her weight, telling him to be careful about the subject. Djari rode like she had been born on the saddle, and whatever discomfort she felt just now hadn't come from riding, he was sure of it. He decided not to press further. There was a wound there, small, but a wound nonetheless.

And then, when the sun dipped a little lower, and the air grew a little colder, looking straight ahead and everywhere but at him, she said, "I've never seen snow."

For another person, another woman, or a lesser company, Lasura might have responded with some form of sympathy or a question. For Djari iza Zuri, an offered sympathy would have been an insult, and a question would show ignorance on his part. She was a bharavi, after all, they wouldn't have allowed her to venture too far from camp. Such things could be understood if one thought about it carefully enough.

"It's just white," he said, keeping his eyes ahead and his tone leveled. "Like a sea of salt, or sugar."

She breathed visibly and adjusted her reins for no reason. He had a feeling she wanted to know more, but decided not to voice it. "You have been to many places?" she asked instead, this time turning to look at him.

"I have had the privilege, yes," he told her, then decided to add to it. "I go on hunting trips with my father sometimes."

She nodded. "And your mother?"

"Is allowed to go anywhere she wishes." Only she rarely did, except to visit the Shakshi quarter.

"Because of the prisoners?"

He nodded. "Because of the prisoners." Everyone knew that story, he supposed.

Another pointless fiddling with the reins. "How are they?" she asked rigidly. "Those prisoners?"

At least in this, he was able to reply with some comfort. "Fertile, fat and bored." Lasura allowed himself a small grin at the thought. "My mother's words. They are given a designated shelter, work, and compensation. They live better than a lot of us, actually." Which was the problem. The Shakshi prisoners from the Vilarhiti had been cared for differently from those taken from raids like the Sparrow who were then sold as slaves. They were given jobs, from which they were paid with food and necessities. The Shakshi quarter, an area large enough to hold ten thousand people and growing, had always been fenced off from the citizens of Rasharwi. To those who lived in poverty, it came at no one's surprise that the salar might be seen as favoring them above his own people, and it did cost him the throne.

"A life without choice is not better than poverty." She looked at him now, her yellow eyes as accusing as her words. "Being clothed and fed makes them weak. You can't survive in the desert being weak."

He remembered having the same conversation with his mother. It ended with a fist in his jaw. For the sake of holding peace, he should be keeping his mouth shut on this, only keeping his mouth shut was among the lessons even Dee had given up teaching him. "They're not going back to the desert now, are they? Even if they were to be freed tomorrow." It was meant to wound, and the blade did go through. He could see it on her face, in how she shifted her weight.

"It is not a law I agree with," she admitted, to his surprise. "But he should not have taken them in the first place."

"What," he said before he could stop himself, "do you think Citara will do to us if they ever sack Rasharwi? What would your father or any kha'a have done? What would you?"

She raised her chin at that. "I'd let them go, give them a choice to live where they want."

"Go where, iza Zuri?" There was an anger in him now he couldn't contain, or he didn't care to. "To another khagan they were fighting with the day before? Would they be taken in?" He paused to breathe, to make sure his next words came through steadily, deliberately. "My father is a man of vision, a practical man, a ruler loved and respected by our own citizens. He does not kill or enslave people out of hate, or prejudice, or vengeance. Do not forget, my lady, that he was also merely a prince at the time and must obey orders from the salar just as you must obey the laws set by Citara. Things are not always as simple as the fight between gods and monsters you may have read when you were four."

Djari's small hands tightened into fists around the reins. The horse felt it and slowed down the pace, its muscles twitching nervously. "A good man would have freed them afterward," she said though not with the same conviction as before.

"Into a city full of Rashais whose sons and fathers had been killed in the war by their kind? Without protection. Without aid?" It was the point where his mother's fist had slammed into his jaw, ridding him of the chance to bring up his next arguments, which she knew but had never allowed it spoken, and it came up out of him, if unfairly so, thrown instead at Djari. "There is a housing project planned for the Vilarhiti to relocate the prisoners back to the valley, to free up space in the city and to eliminate the conflicts. It had been put on hold to build the Madira for the citizens of Rasharwi. It could have been finished in two years from now if he remained salar." It could have been finished, mother, if you hadn't robbed him of his throne.

Lasura realized, belatedly and as he tried to catch his breath, that he had just raised his voice at a bharavi, and if she was anything like his mother, it might cost him a limb, or two. To his surprise, she had listened to all that with a thoughtful reflection, observing him from the back of her horse like someone who was trying to solve a riddle. She said, after a moment of silence, "That is why you call yourself a Rashai? You have great respect for him. You love your father."

Do I? Her words fell like stones in his heart, sinking their weight into a place where they would permanently sit. It had never occurred to him until then that he saw himself as a Rashai, as his father's son. But looking back at his own speech, recalling the words he unknowingly used, that truth was no longer something he could deny. Us. Our own citizens. Their kind and not his. Since when had he been saying it that way? Had he already chosen a side and not been aware of it?

No, this was something else. This he knew to be false. "I was born in Rasharwi," he said, not quite to her, or anyone else had they been present. "It is the only home I know. My father is the closest thing to a parent I've ever had. No matter which side I choose in this war––and I have yet to choose one––you can't take that away from me."

She listened, quietly, attentively. It unnerved him in a way. He was not accustomed to being heard, not with such attention. She tilted her head a little, looking curiously into his eyes as if trying to see something hiding there. "You hate your mother."

Probably. Definitely. Understandably. "I should," he heard himself say. "I don't always succeed." Can anyone ever really hate their mother? He wondered. Can I?

Djari made no comment and turned back to look at something else straight ahead. The hard edges of her face softened, polished smooth by the light of the sinking sun. She looked younger now––as she should be––and less intimidating than the skin she'd always put on. She looked ... normal, small, and ordinary. Like how he felt most of the time.

The open plain narrowed as they rode on, until it became a passage that could barely fit two horses. After a time, Djari brought her mare to a stop and blindfolded him before they continued. From then on he was not to know the location of where they were heading, she had explained. It became clear to Lasura then, why she had needed him to ride this particular colt. The horse was obedient to a fault and could be trusted to follow her without being tethered, which came in handy in this situation. That level of horse training, however, was unheard of in the Salasar, perhaps also in the White Desert as far as his limited knowledge went. She knew horses, he'd give her that.

The ride involved a few steep climbs and enough small turns to make counting a chore he gave up halfway through. The breeze grew stronger as they ascended, and with it came a surprising scent he did recognize, carried along with the faint smell of trees or some kind of vegetation that hadn't been there before.

"Are we close to the sea?" he asked.

"No." A small silence followed her reply. "But we are close to the Samarra border. How did you know?"

Samarra, of course. How could he forget? "I can smell it."

"The sea?"

"Yes." The ports of Samarra could stink to the high heaven sometimes during fish auction, coupled with the salty smell of the sea and the humidity, the combination was something hard to forget.

Another silence. Another question held back. An expression that might have been shown but he could not see. She hadn't seen it––the beach, the sea, the harbor––he could tell. But something seemed to be holding her back from wanting to know more. It would be harder, he supposed, if you knew what you were missing when the chances of having it were next to none.

They didn't talk after that, or rather she had made it clear there was to be no conversation afterward. When they arrived at the destination, she took off his blindfold, showed him the cave that had been prepared as a secret shelter for the ruling family during times of war, and walked him through the storage of food and supplies.

"Used sparingly, these should last you at least two weeks," she said on her way out. "I will leave you a horse and a bow to hunt. If you ride out, don't cross the place where the lone tree grows in the middle of the path. There will be another checkpoint beyond it. Officially, you have left our territory as of this afternoon. If you are caught without a permit to enter, you will be killed without trial." She turned, as if remembering something all of the sudden. "You do know how to build a fire? To hunt with a bow?"

Lasura resisted the urge to groan out loud. Who did she think he was? The salar's pampered seventh wife? "I am a prince, iza Zuri, not a cripple."

She looked at him and waited, her face an impenetrable wall of rocks and stones he kept wanting to have a swing at with a pickaxe.

Fucking bharavis. "Yes, I do know how to build a fire and hunt with a bow."

Djari nodded, satisfied with, though not necessarily convinced of, the answer. "I will come with more supplies if you are to stay longer than two weeks," she said, turning back toward the exit of the cave. "Try not to get yourself killed, Prince Lasura."

Lasura sighed. Two weeks was a long time holed up alone with only a horse as company. He might find her as unpleasant as an itchy rash strategically placed exactly where he couldn't scratch, but it was better than nothing. "Come back sooner, then," he said. "In case I accidentally set myself on fire trying to light one. Princes do that when they're bored."

A smile flitted across her lips. It disappeared a second too soon to mean anything, a second too late for him to forget he'd earned it. A surprise to Lasura how fulfilling that felt. "Or just come," he said, "and I will tell you about the sea and the snow."

Djari paused in her tracks and stiffened, as if being ambushed or surprised from behind. She stood there, a small silhouette under the curved entrance of the cave, the warm yellow light of the late afternoon sun flooding in all around her, casting a long shadow that reached all the way to where he was, thinking, making a decision, coming to one. She turned to him halfway, a vulnerability on her face, an invisible arrow shot out of nowhere plunging into his heart to wound, to scar, to mark the beginning of something he would later regret for life having invited himself here and opened himself to the possibility. "And Hasheem," she said. "You will tell me about Hasheem. I want to know everything about the Silver Sparrow of Azalea."