A cool breeze brushed softly against his cheek and brought with it the faint, cool scent of sage and mint that grew around the valley. He paused to look at where he was—something he hadn't done since he arrived. The night was clearer then, and while there was still no moon in the sky, the stars could now be seen far across the desert where there had been none before. He noticed for the first time the golden, smooth-as-silk dunes that seemed to stretch far beyond the horizon, and the large, oddly-shaped white rocks that gave the White Desert its name gleaming like a curved wall of alabaster over and around the campsite. Somewhere in the distance, a woman was singing a lullaby to lull the little ones to sleep. She seemed to have been singing for some time, only he'd not been paying enough attention to hear it.

It was achingly beautiful, in the way that it shouldn't have been possible for him to have missed it so completely. There had also been, he suddenly remembered, so many beautiful things in Rasharwi he'd never stopped to appreciate. Everything seemed to have rushed by him in a blur for the past seven years he'd been struggling to survive, and somewhere along the way he seemed to have lost focus of where he was heading. That night, he could see it all again with startling clarity—where he had been, where he was, and the choices that had been laid out before him. For the first time in a very long time, he knew for certain the path he wanted to take, where he wanted to go, and he was trembling at the anticipation of what tomorrow might bring.

Something moved in the distance. He looked and saw Djari walking alone in the dark, her near silver hair tossed by the wind could be seen from afar. She appeared to be coming back from somewhere toward her tent, and had stopped for a moment when she saw him before resuming her steps. There was a blade in her hand, the same one she'd assaulted him with. It was dripping with the same blood that seemed to have stained the entire right side of her white tunic. Her eyes, so unnatural and otherworldly, were glowing a frightening shade of gold.

She paused when they were close enough to speak. He could see the smear of blood on her cheek and the crimson stains on her silver hair from where he was standing. She must have just killed her horse—considering the command her father had given earlier that evening. It would have been her first kill, if he remembered correctly from their conversation.

The first time was always the hardest. It changed a lot of things and ended a lot more than the life you took. The blood never washed off, not truly. Not ever. She should be crying but wasn't. Her bright yellow eyes were clear and more focused than he'd seen so far. She wasn't even close to tears.

"Will it always be this hard?" Djari asked with a tightness in her voice impossible to miss.

"Harder," he replied, "if you allow it to be." There was no point in trying to comfort her with lies, not when he knew there would be a next time, and the next, and the next. One could punish oneself forever for old sins and live miserably, or learn from it and move on. The first wasn't truly a choice, not if she had any intention to fulfill the prophecy. Too much integrity could sometimes hold back the entire peninsula. A terrifying thought, considering who she was. Even more terrifying, to think that whatever he said to her at this moment could start the ripple that might lead to the destruction of the Salasar. Or the White Desert.

"And if I don't," she asked, the outlines of her face seemed harsher despite the lack of light, "allow it to be?"

"Then it gets easier over time."

Djari looked down at her hands—stained completely by the blood of her horse—and then back at him. "Do I want it to be easy?"

A question he was both glad and sad to hear. "Enough to do what you have to," he replied. "Never to the point of being effortless." The time would come when she would have to end—or be responsible for ending—thousands more lives and not just those of her enemies if the prophecy was correct. Only the arrogant or the naive would see only the grandeur of war and not its carnage. She would have to come to terms with hard decisions and seeing herself as a monster from time to time. She would have to kill, in cold blood, and be able to sleep through the night to kill again. There was, however, a line she also could not cross or she would become the tyrant she wanted to defeat.

Still, he wondered how far she would be able to carry it. Such a burden could be seen too heavy for a grown man, even for someone as experienced and hardened as her father. Watching her that night, seeing her try so hard to be stronger than she was made to be, he felt within him a desire to help carry some of that weight. After all, he was her sworn sword and blood, wasn't he? It only felt right.

"I could have put down the horse," he said as mildly as he could. "If you had told me to."

She looked at him and grimaced. "If I had told you to?"

The sharpness in her tone gave him the urge to defend his proposition. "I have sworn to serve and protect you this morning. My life is yours by right to command." He had, after all, agreed to tie himself to her, to put the chains back on his wrists and ankles. It had been a choice he made without regrets and she should know he was content with his decision.

"And what does that make you?" she asked. "My slave?"

It was his turn to frown. "I have agreed to this willingly. There is a difference."

"There isn't," Djari snapped, cold anger in her eyes. "You are no more than my slave if your life is my right to command, whether or not it was offered willingly. I am no Rashai. We do not take slaves in the White Desert or find it flattering to be offered such a service. What have I done for you to find me so lacking in courage, in honor, to believe that I am capable of doing such things?"

"I didn't...," he stammered at the sudden, most unexpected response. Djari was, somehow, genuinely pissed at what he'd considered to be a proclamation of his loyalty.

"Did you really think that I took you in this morning to have your life at my command?" she continued, her eyes burning a pair of intense, golden flames. "I took you in for your skills, your ability, your sword. I need you to be what I am not, to be my eyes and ears when I can't see, to fight my enemies and stop me when I cross the line. I need a weapon to win this war and an ally I can trust, not a slave or a pack horse." She took a step closer and looked up at him, pinning him to the ground with those eyes despite her smaller frame. "You are an extension of me, my own flesh and blood, that is where you now belong in my life and what you have sworn to be. Do you understand?"

For the first time, Hasheem felt something shattered inside of him, something he'd considered to be a fortress, a shield surrounding a place no one had been allowed to enter or touch. It was the only way to survive without losing sight of who he was, and for years he'd nurtured it, protected it as the last piece of himself that still belonged to him despite everything they'd taken and destroyed.

And Djari had taken it that night, had broken through all his walls and snatched it into her hand so effortlessly, so permanently that there had been no way he could have resisted.

My own flesh and blood. Somewhere, someone had said that to him. He remembered it now, along with the gentle hand that stroked his hair, and the kiss on his forehead that followed. There was a time when he was a part of something, when he had a place to call home, when he wasn't alone in the world. For a long time he'd forced himself to forget it ever existed, convinced that it would never be whole again. And Djari had come into his life and had said what she said, had given him the only thing that was missing and had always wanted—a place to belong.

There was a tightness around his heart, so powerful it was difficult to breathe as he thought of a response. He had an urge to kneel, to offer her his heart, his life, everything he still had that was worth giving. But Djari would take none of it––he knew that now––not in the way he was prepared to give. She was bigger than that.

'I think that I have survived to do exactly this,' had been his answer to the kha'a that morning, when he was asked why he would agree to be her sworn sword. It was clear to him now, watching her that night, feeling her presence slowly filling every dark and empty corner of his life with every step she took, that this was where he was supposed to be, what he had survived to do all along. He had a vision then, of the arrow she'd let loose the other night, and realized belatedly that it had never missed his heart.

"Then let me be an extension of you," he said breathlessly, still shaken by what was happening. "Take me with you to battle so I can be your weapon and your shield. Allow me to be the monster you can't become when you have to be. Next time let me kill the horse, or we do it together, you and I. Don't do this alone." He held out a hand, realized it was trembling, didn't care.

She looked at the offered hand, drew an unsteady breath and then answered his gaze with an expression that might have matched his own had he been able to see. "Together?" Djari asked, uncertainty in her voice. She seemed to be, Hasheem thought, as overwhelmed by all the events of that day as he was.

"Together," he replied.

She stilled for a time and then reached out with her hand. Small fingers, impressively roughened by the bow despite her size and age, wrapped around his so unwaveringly as they stood face to face, joined in an understanding that was to be his and hers alone. Their fates were tied now, more permanently so than the oath he took that morning demanded it to be.

You are an extension of me, my own flesh and blood, that is where you now belong in my life.

Hasheem would never realize until later on, despite the fullness of his heart that night, that there would be a time when such a place he'd been given in her life was simply not enough.