'Why aren't you afraid of me?' Nazir remembered asking one night some time ago.

Baaku's brows narrowed. He appeared genuinely surprised at the question. 'Why should I be?'

Why? 'My power. My visions,' Nazir said, not sure how to word it. People didn't need explanations to be afraid of him. 'I know things you don't want to know. Death, for example. How it happens. People are afraid of that. Often.'

Baaku shrugged. 'We all die at some point. Why does it matter how?'

'Knowing makes it harder.'

'Not if you're prepared.'

Is it? Nazir wondered. Have I not been prepared all these times? For mother, for Djari, for us? He asked, 'How do you prepare for death? For loss?'

Baaku smiled, his features softened in the candlelight. 'By living everyday like you're about to lose it all,' he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if it was easy. 'Nothing ever lasts, Nazir. I never think for a second that I wouldn't lose you tomorrow, today, in the next hour. I don't need you to remind me of that with your vision. You have to be ready for life, or the only thing you'll die holding is regret.'

Nazir wondered why that memory came back to him. Perhaps because of the way Baaku looked now as he fitted the arrow to his bow, how it matched the one when he'd said those words. There was no regret on that face, none whatsoever then or before when he'd killed the first man, or the one after, or the one after. Baaku was Baaku. He didn't look back, only forward. He made hard decisions, quickly, and acted on them without hesitation.

That day was no different. Nazir knew at whom that arrow would be aimed, knew what would happen if it hit the mark. He didn't try to stop it from happening. He couldn't. There was no stopping Baaku once his decisions had been made, you'd know that if you knew him well enough.

And so he watched, unable to remove his eyes from the figure he'd come to recognize in any light, from any angle, trying to remember everything that would soon be lost. He watched and did nothing as Baaku drew back the bowstring, aiming at Aza'ir izr Zakai, at his own father and kha'a, to lay victory at Nazir's feet. To save his life and in doing so put an end to his own.

It came back to him then, the vision he had been given when they first met long ago, one that had been repeated in his nightmares so many times thereafter. An image of himself in a ceremonial garment, standing over the knelt down figure of Baaku under the night sky and the full moon overhead. Around them, a large Raviyani crowd was watching in silence, in anticipation. The chanting of a priest rose high over the beating drums that began slowly, steadily, before it picked up speed.

He could hear that drum in his head as Baaku released the bowstring. Two separate times, two events overlapping; one happening, the other being shaped and defined by the first. The arrow flew. The image of him holding a sword sprang to life. The drums that weren't being beaten grew louder, faster as if to accelerate the shot fired. Nazir held his breath watching both reality and what was soon to be clashed upon one another, saw the blade in his mind coming down at the same time the arrowhead sank into Aza'ir's flesh.

The shot took Aza'ir in his right thigh as he attempted to dodge a blow from his father's blade, and in doing so caused the movement to falter. His father's sword came down on Aza'ir's left shoulder, hard and fast enough to split any man in half. Nazir closed his eyes as he turned away from the scene, heard the sound that matched his own sword coming down on Baaku's neck in his vision, heard another one slightly louder than the thud of Baaku's head as it hit the ground when Aza'ir fell.

Some things had been set on course, placed into position long ago. Some events were always going to happen whether or not you knew it would. Baaku was right. One had to be prepared for life, or die with regrets.

Nazir realized then, that he regretted many things—one of which was never telling Baaku he would be the man who killed him.

***

It was all right, Baaku thought then, watching his father's half severed body collapsed to the ground. Patricide happened in the world of power, in ruling families, in the courts of kings. The killing of one's kha'a happened, on a regular basis. It made sense even. Nazir had to live. The Visarya had to win. The White Desert had to survive this war. For land, for freedom, for traditions.

A small price to pay for a bigger agenda, to be sure. The man was never a good father or a good husband anyway, perhaps not even a good kha'a. Had he not grown up beaten, insulted, used, cast aside at convenience? Had he ever done anything right in the eyes of that man, or been considered even once as the son Aza'ir always wanted? Had he not, too many times both consciously and unconsciously, imagined this in all those hours of anger, of being knocked down again and again through the years? Had he not wondered what he could change or accomplish if he became kha'a? He had a hundred reasons, all noble, logical, and honorable even to shoot at and in the process killed his father that day.

Not of them was enough in the end. Not nearly enough to keep the pain away in any case.

But it was all right. It had to be. A man did what he had to, what needed to be done. It didn't even matter under the circumstances—the pain, the disgust, this guilt he was feeling would be gone soon. As things stood, he wouldn't live past the next Raviyani, maybe not even tonight, or a few minutes from now. A small price to pay. No need to be dramatic about it. Just make sure you don't piss your pants when that sword comes down.

The battle went on around them. It always took time before the fighting stopped after the death of a kha'a. News needed time to travel in the midst of chaos. Some men were going to die needlessly in war because of it, sometimes all of them died needlessly. The irony of it was, the moment the fighting stopped and the killing ended his death would then be decided. He could be killed instantly (it wasn't against the law), or he could be killed ceremoniously on Raviyani if Za'in would allow him the honor. He turned to Nazir, saw the man already looking at him, and realized all of a sudden why Nazir had refused to answer his question that morning.

It was all there, laid bare on Nazir's face—the vision he had been holding back. He could see it in the tightness of that jawline, the dread in his eyes, the single drop of tear that rolled down Nazir's cheek. It wasn't just his death, of course. It was a lot more than that. He had completely forgotten one important tradition that applied to them.

The execution of khumars and kha'as were always conducted with honor, by the hands of someone of equal rank.

"Nazir..."

There was a sound—a strange noise coming from where the two kha'as had been. Baaku turned at the same time Nazir did and saw everything that happened, how Fate had decided to interfere, and changed everything that day.

***

No one had seen where the sword came from or knew from whom it belonged. Speculations were still being made today as to how and why such a thing might have happened. Some would offer a view, that the blade had been knocked out of someone's grip during combat, and that the man had died immediately, leaving the sword unclaimed. Others were of an opinion that the owner of the sword may have lived but had been too much of a coward to come forward. No one, however, would deny that it had been an accident or something more; an act, many would swear, of a divine being who had their own agenda in mind. To make the matters even more complicated, the sword itself had not been marked by any thread or carving that would allow anyone to differentiate from which khagan it had belonged, no possible way to tell which side had been responsible for the death it had caused that day.

The mysterious sword, spinning fast and high in the air as it came seemingly out of nowhere had, by sheer coincidence or a touch of some divine force, righted itself into the perfect position to pierce Za'in izr Husari in the back of his left shoulder as it landed, its tip penetrating through flesh and between bones to emerge on the other side, right through his heart and killed him on the spot. Twenty-three witnesses had seen the sword as it struck, including his son and that of his enemy. None of them had seen where it came from.

In the case of such an event, where single combat resulted in the death of both parties, two things could happen. The two khagans in question could consider the terms null and void and decide by another combat or a full battle (which was already happening), or they could consider it stalemate and take the matter to Citara.

In this particular case, the new kha'as of Visarya and Kamara, both present in the field, had agreed to end the fight and leave it to Citara to make the call.

After two weeks, the White Tower released its verdict. The issue of arrows being shot at both kha'as during single combat had been brought up, discussed, then disregarded. It was considered fair, as both kha'as had been shot in the same place. And while it had been Za'in izr Husari who killed the kha'a of Kamara, the unidentified sword that had ended his life immediately afterward had been considered, by a unified vote of all the devis in the White Tower, a message that could not be overlooked. It was to be seen, Citara had declared, as an interference of a divine being and therefore held enough weight to override the terms set by the two kha'as on that day.

There were to be no tributes offered between the Visarya and the Kamara, no absorption of any khagan into another, including the Khalji. The event that had involved the deaths of almost five hundred White Warriors from all three khagans resulted in no advantages being given to any side, no power changing hands except the change of two kha'as and one khumar.

All because of one unidentified sword that slipped out of someone's hand, many would say afterward over drinks and around bonfires.

The Visarya and the Kamara khagans would remain rivals for many years later, until another event took place and ended the legacy of one.

Za'in izr Husari's death on that day would be talked about for generations to come, mostly over how a legend had been killed by the hands of a god or a goddess, that it had taken a divine being to defeat him when mortals could not. Some versions of the story told to children before bedtime would add that this was how the gods might have chosen to punish him for his sins. Za'in izr Husari, after all, had committed treason when he'd killed his kha'a to take over the khagan—a common point to stress in the White Desert, among Shakshis. The same tale, told by a Rashai mother would accentuate, that Rashar had punished him for the burning of women and children in the villages outside of Sabha.

There were, of course, other tales of his life being told throughout the White Desert and beyond. The story of how a man born into a common blood family of camel herders had become a four-time Dyal champion, and later made himself the kha'a of the largest khagan in the west, and how the same man had sired and raised an oracle and a bharavi who would later change the fate of the entire peninsula were among them.

The other story, the one that might have been the closest to defining who Za'in izr Husari truly was—the story of a husband who had loved his wife at first sight, throughout her life, and through time long after her death, the one involving a table that had been set for her every day and every meal after she passed away, and how that love had become the driving force behind everything Za'in izr Husari had ever done was lost, gone with all the memories of her he'd taken with him as he died.

Life began, was lived, then ended. Some things were remembered, others forgotten. Some people left their marks on the world, others altered it, some moved and shaped things for generations to come in ways they could never know.

***