There were more than a thousand skulls in the Prayer Room of a Thousand Skulls. If he had to guess, it would be closer to three thousand. No one truly knew how many remains Eli the Conqueror had brought to the crypt he'd commissioned during the last two decades of his life. The chamber had never been completely excavated and some skulls had been placed on top of another for lack of room. The crypt—the only name Lasura would call the place by—had been dug right underneath the Red Hall of Marakai. More than three thousand skulls had been buried right under his throne.

No, not buried. Arranged was the more appropriate word, thought Lasura as he looked at the wall behind the black sarcophagus. Hundreds of human skulls lined up, filling every inch of the wall from one end to the other and from floor to ceiling, all facing forward. All four walls of the chamber had been decorated the exact same way, with more skulls lining the arch of the entrance.

Decorated also wasn't the appropriate word. It wasn't meant to be a work of art. All these skulls had simply been gathered, collected like books on the shelves, kept, and displayed with efficiency in mind to accommodate as many as possible. These were men, soldiers who had died fighting with him on and off the battlefield to bring peace to the peninsula. Eli had always written in his journal that his throne had been built on the lives of thousands. No one would have thought he'd meant it literally until they could see this place.

He was said to have prayed here often; it was why he'd chosen to call it the Prayer Room. Eli the Conqueror was a religious man, a firm believer of Marakai the Sky Father as with most of his subjects. Those of the faith practiced sky burials, where bodies were placed outside, in the open, for birds and other prey to pick them clean. The remaining bones were then collected and kept in the family's home. For those who'd died fighting alongside Eli, the Prayer Room was where they kept the skulls to honor the dead.

They'd laid him to rest here when he died, in the sarcophagus placed at the center of the chamber for people to come and pay their respects. The rectangular stone sarcophagus had inscriptions of his life's stories, worn-out almost entirely now by how many hands had touched it when people came to pray. After the rebellion following his death, this part of the Black Desert had been deserted, its secret entrance lost for almost eight hundred years only to be discovered and occupied by the Rishis a mere century ago. They never found the mummified body of Eli, but the room had been where they found his journal, and the skulls had been enough to make the crypt a legend.

You would have loved to see this, wouldn't you, father? Thought Lasura. This was who you want to be, to succeed, wasn't it? The man who united the peninsula, who brought peace to these lands. You were prepared to sacrifice this many lives, to fight this many battles...

But you couldn't sacrifice one.

He stepped up to the raised platform where the sarcophagus had been laid. The clack of his boots echoed softly against the countless, dust-covered skulls. It came back toward him in whispers from all directions, like the sound of a thousand soldiers marching somewhere in the distance, caught by the wind and brought to his ears as it wandered ahead. The room was completely dark, save for the light made by the one torch he'd lit by the entrance when he came in. The flame danced to the gentle draft coming through the ventilation shafts, cast thousands of shadows left and right of the protruding skulls, giving the impression that all three thousand of them were moving, looking at him.

Or judging me.

He wondered if this had been what Eli wanted when he came here to pray. To be judged by the dead and maybe, hopefully, made peace with them for what he'd done—or hadn't done.

Could you have, Lasura wondered, made peace with either of them if there had ever been an opportunity?

A silly thought, that, and one too late in any case. In his anger, he'd decided to walk away from it all, and now he'd lost them both, on the same day. Many days before, actually. By the time the news had come from Rasharwi, it was all in the past, done, finished, over before anyone could have done anything to reverse it. Not me. Not from here anyway.

'Life doesn't always offer a way out,' Deo had once said. 'To survive, you must strike before Fate throws a punch. That's the difference between you and the Sparrow,' he'd added. It had been after the duel, he remembered now. "He never thinks twice where he places his next step. He knows what he wants at any given time, in any situation. And you, my lord prince, you fought clumsily because you don't even know who you are. That's why you lost the duel, and you are not going to win until you do.'

It came back to him then, that day in the throne room, the image of the Sparrow stepping forward, planting both feet on the ground as firm and unshakable as a hundred-year-old oak.

'My place is between Djari and whoever brings her harm. I will kill whoever she wants to see dead and fight wherever she wishes me to fight. If she wants the world set on fire, I will strike that flint myself. I know where I stand. It will not change for as long as I live. The question is, do you?'

There had been a pang of jealousy running through his core as he watched and wondered what it would feel like to have something that mattered so much one would go so far to protect, what could have driven a man to make such a decision so unwaveringly? He remembered thinking that he had none of those things. That there wasn't, and hadn't been, a single purpose to his life besides what others were willing to use it for. He had walked out of that room over that thought, and still, he wasn't one step closer to knowing who he was and what he wanted.

Now, with both of them gone, he was more lost than ever.

This crypt suits me so well it wasn't even funny, he thought and laughed anyway. It bounced off the skulls and what sounded like a thousand snickering ghosts came back at him.

"My mother used to say," a voice from the entrance finished off the echos, started off a new set of sounds, "that only a lonely person laughs when he's supposed to cry."

Lasura drew a breath, swallowed the taste of irritation down his throat out of manner, but made sure the sound of his sigh was loud enough to be heard across the room. "I would like to be alone, if you don't mind."

It didn't matter what he wanted, of course, it never did. Bharavis were all the same. She stepped into the room and walked right up to stand next to the platform, like she hadn't heard what he said or she never had any intention of considering its content.

"I would like a word," said Djari iza Zuri in the tone of someone used to issuing commands—and had them followed.

"Not now," he replied bluntly, making sure the tone was final.

It wasn't, not for her. "Now is a good time," she said.

He turned to her then, harsh words and curses hanging off his lips ready to be let loose. She just stood there, a head shorter than he was and two steps below the platform, staring up at him with the same yellow eyes as his mother's, the same glow to her silver hair that could fill any space she occupied with a sense of vicious coldness that made one want to escape. They must have been at least twenty years apart, with facial features that didn't remotely resemble each other, and yet she reminded him so much of his mother it was making his skin crawl. Especially that unfailing ability to look up at someone and still make it seem like she was looking down from a throne hovering in high heaven somewhere.

"Unless someone has made you the master of this place while I wasn't paying attention, that decision is mine, iza Zuri."

She frowned. "I don't like your tone."

"Good," he said. "I managed to succeed at something, then."

She took it with a flat expression that told him he hadn't succeeded in making a dent with that statement. "The right to be here is also mine," she replied calmly, like someone reading a book out loud, listing laws of some order. "I did check with the master of this place. You can stay or you can go. That is also your right."

Fucking bharavis.

"I understand you being used to getting whatever you want, my lady, but I am not your swornsword or your subject, you might want to keep that in mind," he told her, turning back to the sarcophagus and fixed his eyes on the small crack on the lid, though not really looking at it. "Talk then. Say what you need to say and then go, if you have no more business being here." What else was he going to do? Allow himself to be chased out of the room by a girl? He had too much of his mother in him for that.

She stepped up onto the platform and took her place next to him, as equals. He had reasons to believe, however, that she would have ascended higher if it didn't require climbing onto the damn sarcophagus.

He wondered if she had considered climbing.

"I heard about the salar and your mother," she said, though not in a tone someone might have used to offer condolences. For the very least she didn't beat around the bush. Another resemblance to the way his mother did things, that.

"The salar and my mother," he traced the words venomously, couldn't stop himself, not in the mood he was in. "He is also my father, in case you didn't know." It was incredible how both bharavis seemed to think they could just omit that fact at their convenience and it would somehow fail to be true.

"Your father, then," she said easily, though unapologetically, not that he could imagine this girl—or his mother—apologizing over anything. But there was the difference. You couldn't get his mother to call the salar his father if you put a sword to her throat. A small difference, not even one that could be justified, but substantial enough to make him a bit more willing to listen. "Do you think they're alive?"

He laughed halfheartedly at that question. "Considering the circumstances? Maybe," he said, hating the uncertainty in his own voice. "Considering who they are? I'd make sure you see their bodies with your own eyes if not try to be there to bury them yourself before believing they're dead." And even then you may have to stick around to make sure they stay dead, he stopped himself short from saying that.

The truth was, he wasn't sure. No one was. The news had mentioned his father being shot and his mother having escaped the burning, but they never found their bodies, nor Ghaul's. The hunt was still on. A hunt, of course. With no named heir, Azram had both the birthright according to the old law and the power of the Salahari to take the throne. If they were ever found, Azram would make sure they weren't found alive. Their father could retake the throne at any time if he lived; he had both the right by law and the loyalty of enough men—and citizens—to do it. Azram, or the salahari, would never risk that now that they'd achieved what they had. Not to mention Azram also couldn't call himself salar until they produced a dead body, or until a period of two years had passed without their father returning for the throne. He was willing to bet both Azram and the salahari were also not nearly convinced that their father was dead. And if mother is with him, well, she's not going to die before he does.

But the one fact remained true: he couldn't return to Rasharwi with Azram on the throne.

The Black Tower was the only home he'd known, that was the problem. Deo was being called back to the capital with the army his father had sent here. The situation had changed, turned his world upside down, and Lasura had yet to figure out what he was going to do about it.

He could feel her watching him from the corner of his eyes, studying his expression with an openness of someone trying to size up a camel at auction. He turned from the crack he'd been pretending to look at to meet her eyes, and saw genuine curiosity in her frown.

"What?"

"I can't tell if you love them or hate them," she said.

He snorted. Neither can I. "Tell me when you figure it out." That much was true. Guess he would never know now. Dead or alive, it was unlikely he would see either of them again.

"What will you do?" She asked.

"Why do you care?" He countered, before coming to the realization that he did know the answer to that question and the look on her face confirmed it. "I see. This is why you are here."

Her eyes widened for a second then went back to their normal size. She adjusted herself, drew her back up into a straight line, pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin higher, if that was possible. His mother, in the form of a young, tiny girl.

"The way I see it, this changes nothing. We still need to fight the Salasar—"

"We?"

"The White Desert," she corrected herself, a frown coming in the distance but not quite there. "Your knowledge is useful, valuable, perhaps enough to—"

"To do what?" He sneered openly at the idea. The very thought of it was laughable. "To allow me into a khagan? To become one of you? I am the son of Salar Muradi of Rasharwi, your mortal enemy, the man who has been raiding your land for the past two decades. Your people will have me killed on sight and at the mere mention of my name. Are you even aware of what you're suggesting? There are other ways to kill me, iza Zuri, you don't have to drag me to the White Desert to have me beheaded."

"If there is a way—"

"Your own swornsword is a pureblood Shakshi, my lady. He is one of your own, born and raised in the White Desert, raided, enslaved, tortured, and now being hunted by the Salasar and yet your people will not take him back if they knew what he was. So long as the Shakshis make no distinction between what a man does and what he is or has been subjected to, there will be no sanctuary, no offering of peace for him or for me in the White Desert."

Something in his chest was rumbling how, he heard his own voice grow louder. "Your path to victory will be no different from what my father intends to do or has done. It will be built on the blood of innocents, of orphans, of people you see fit to call your own or cast aside based on nothing more than your prejudice and some laws set hundreds of years ago. Even if there is a way, iza Zuri, even if you can hide me under a rock somewhere, tell me why I should fight on your side, for your land? Is it because my mother is a bharavi? Because the same blood runs in my veins? My father's runs in half of them! Do. Not. Forget that for a second!"

He realized then, that he had been yelling at her, that he had, somehow, rolled all his anger and anxiety and grief from what had happened into one and flung it at a person he barely knew. His fists clenched by his sides, knuckles turning white, and he was panting, trying to catch his breath from the rage that had just poured out of him.

And through it all she'd listened with her lips pressed tight together, her eyes blazing a bright amber, stilling not backing down. "We share the same enemy," she said, desperate, but unwavering in her commitment. "He took your father's throne, drove them both into exile if not to death. You know this. Everyone knows it. For the very least I would expect you to seek some retribution!"

"The way your father did, iza Zuri?" It came out of him before he could stop himself. He had been there too, at those villages on the outskirts of Sabha, had seen what was left of it with his own eyes. "You will have me set fire to my own city and see them burn?"

She wheeled, her small frame seizing the distance between them as if to force him back up a step. "I'm not my father!"

He took a pace forward, closing in, grinding his teeth as he stared her down. "I don't know that."

"Then stop me," she said, her chest a mere inch away from his, and heaving for the same reason. "Stay and stop me when I cross the line. I need someone from the other side, if I am going to try to win this war without becoming the monster I am trying to defeat. If it means something to you then be a part of it. I am offering you that chance, here, now. Pick a side. Don't run. Do something with your life, or are you too afraid to choose one?"

It slammed the back of his throat shut, made his heart beat twice as hard and as fast as he tried to grip his control by the scruff of its neck. Because there it was, thrashing and screaming like a nocturnal creature being dragged out of its hole into sunlight; the ugliness, the truth behind his every action—or the lack of one—for the past eighteen years, the one he'd kept locked up behind a door and threw away the key so he didn't have to face it. This girl, young and small enough to rival a child had barged in uninvited, kicked down that door, and dragged it out into the open.

'Pick a side...or are you too afraid to choose one?'

Silence closed in on them as they stood, tightening its grip until something felt ready to burst. There seemed to be something about this girl's presence that caught him somewhere between wanting to embrace her and strangle her to death. Standing there, in that crypt, he was having a hard time deciding what would have been the best course of action.

There was a sound from the entrance. It pulled them out of that fight, made them turn at the same time.

"The last time I checked," said the Silver Sparrow, the gold ring on his right ear flashing as if to remind them what he was, "that is my job, not his, Djari."

***

A/N: Is it just me that really, really want to see Hasheem explode?