Djari watched the scene with a hazed over vision and a detachment of someone not present in the room but above it, looking down. A cold, coiling creature came alive and slithered in her chest as she did, wrapped its length around her heart and began to squeeze. She snatched and crushed the life out of it, made sure it stayed dead with the same determination she had to not move from the spot or stir at the image before her.

On the bed, the healer was bleeding Hasheem into a bucket, trying to drain the poison from his blood. The blood of her swornsword—hers, as they were considered one and the same—dribbled down his arm, thick and almost black like that of Lady when Djari had slit her throat. She had been like this too—her mother's mare—lying still and barely breathing during her last moment of life.

She squeezed her eyes shut, shoved the memory back into a distant corner of her mind, behind the wall over which other things had been tossed. Don't look back. Look forward. Look somewhere else. Anywhere.

There had to be a large, rotting pile of dead things behind that wall now, she knew, and it was growing higher by the minute. She could smell the acrid, nauseating stench of it everywhere she went. It clung to her like body odor, like a dirty, ugly blood stain from past mistakes that would always show no matter how much effort she'd put into covering it or scrubbing it out. They would have to be dealt with soon. Just not now. Not yet.

Not yet, had been the words she used since she arrived at the lair of the Rishi. She couldn't see Hasheem, couldn't talk to him, not yet anyway. It still wasn't clear to her what she was afraid of, but she had been afraid—was still afraid even after the meeting when they'd finally met again. There were things, she supposed, that you could only live with when you didn't give it meaning, or when you didn't see it on other people's face. She had been avoiding him for that reason, waiting for the time when she felt she might be ready to deal with it.

Such a time may never come if he dies tonight.

Another creature squeezed tight around her heart, closed up the back of her throat until she couldn't breathe. She crushed that one too and tossed the carcass over the wall. Don't think about that. Not now. Not yet. Not until it happens.

"Is there no antidote?" Behind her, Sarasef asked calmly, only the frequency at which the Grand Chief shifted his weight before saying it told her he was anything but calm.

Deo di Amarra sighed. The sound carried and filled the room with more toxicity, as if there wasn't enough of it for all of them to wince every time they breathed. "No, there is no antidote. You use it on people you want to see dead, to make sure they stay dead," he replied in a tone filled with too many emotions to name, although pissed might have taken the most prominent note. "That's the fucking point of Zyren."

"So he will die?" Asked Sarasef simply, and yet somehow she could hear him stumble halfway through the word.

Gathering the leftover bits and pieces of her strength, Djari made herself look at Deo di Amarra, asking the same question though in silence.

And winced, when he shook his head in frustration, in anger, in uncertainty loud enough to tear through any hope one might be harboring. "My first class assassins take poisons on a regular basis in case an accident happens. Under normal circumstances, he should be able to withstand its effects," he explained. "But he wasn't exactly in perfect health before this, and being shot twice means there's a shitload of it in his body now. We can only try to bleed it out without weakening him too much. He's going to have to fight the rest, and I don't know if he can. Having pulled an arrow out that way," he paused, as if to swear in the privacy of his own mind, "allowed the poison to spread faster and more effectively."

It was stupid, even without the poison, to have pulled out the arrow. She had been trained in the art of healing and knew something about that. Another thought occurred to her then, a memory of her lessons. "If we cut off the arm," Djari asked, remembering how her master healer had dealt with some snakebites and similar wounds in the past, "will it stop the poison from spreading further?"

Deo di Amarra blinked, twice. "He is your swornsword, my lady. He will need that arm to fulfill his duty."

"He can still train with the other." A few missing limbs was common enough in the khagans. It didn't make anyone useless. She didn't quite understand the reluctance. "If you must do it to save his life, you have my permission. Cut it off."

Sarasef, who had been listening quietly, turned to di Amarra. "Well?"

There was a frown on di Amarra's face, one he didn't try to hide. "With all due respect, my lady, this isn't the White Desert. Hacking off limbs is not the solution to every fucking problem." He was also close, she realized, to losing it, and Djari held her tongue from giving that insult a retort. Hasheem seemed to trust this man—perhaps even loved him as a mentor—and so would she, Djari decided. He was their only hope now anyway, being the one who had sold the poison to Saracen. There were, Dajri remembered with a bad feeling in her stomach, so many things she didn't understand about the situation. She would have to talk to Hasheem about that when he recovered. If he recovers.

"It's too late for that now anyway," di Amarra added. "An amputation has to be done much sooner to have an effect. All we can do, I'm afraid, is to keep him strong, treat his symptoms as they come, and pray that he has enough fight in him to survive this." He looked at her, his lips quirked up a little. "He may still lose that arm if the wound doesn't heal properly. You may still get to show off a swornsword with one arm after this if it pleases you, my lady."

Djari would have sneered at the mockery had the situation allowed it. Such a thing held no ground whatsoever. A warrior with missing body parts was always honored and elevated in the khagans. To the men, it was an evident of a seasoned warrior to be respected. To the women, it showed hardness—a sign that the man would father a strong offspring who could survive the land. Life in the desert doesn't make room for excuses. Relying on favorable conditions to survive was a degenerative disease for Rashais that didn't exist among her people. The truth was, where status was concerned, Hasheem might even be better off with a missing arm if he could still fight just as deadly. It was the least of her worries.

What was important was that he lived or if he were to die, it wouldn't be for nothing. She had no time, no room for grief now and definitely not before it happened. Hasheem's sacrifice would have to hold meaning, or his life wouldn't.

"Grand Chief," Djari turned to Sarasef, addressing him with her head held high the way she had been taught to do, "if I may be direct with you." She was aware, as she waited for permission to speak, that he stood at least two heads over her height, taller than her own father whom she feared and at times considered terrifying.

Sarasef nodded. "You may."

She drew a breath, steadied her stance before speaking the words. "My swornsword has taken an arrow—two in fact—in your place tonight. You are also a man born of the desert, and by our code of honor I believe you now owe him a life debt, do you agree?"

A hush sounded from Deo di Amarra, followed by a small rise of his lips that she took as an approval.

"I do," replied Sarasef in a tone as flat as his expression. "And?"

It had to be, Djari thought, resisting the urge to swallow and give her fear away, one of the most difficult things she would have to accomplish. She was in his territory, being held as a captive, and she had no idea how far she could stretch that honor she believed he possessed. He could take offense from what she had to say, and she wished Nazir had been the one to have to do it.

But Nazir wasn't here, and Hasheem was her swornsword, her responsibility.

She took a step forward, forcing herself to come up with the courage she needed. "As his soul bearer, I hold the power to call upon that debt on his behalf. I ask that you join your force with us, set me and my men free, and send Muradi's emissary home. Then, together, we will deal with Saracen," she told him, caught his eyes, held them, and despite the generous amount of sweat seeping through her palms, continued with words that could get her killed, "But understand, that if my swornsword dies tonight, I will hold your brother responsible. You will give me his head, or you will stay out of it when we hunt him down. It will be my vengeance to take. Do you agree to my terms?"

From his towering height, the Grand Chief of the Rishi stared down at her in silence. He looked and sounded like a beast when he breathed, like something that could eat her alive and was deliberating whether he should. There was still blood on his forearm, she noticed, on parts of his neck, even his face, from having beaten a man to death with a chair. She knew what he was, and how accurate his reputations had been. All things considered, it made sense, that he might deem such a request valid. It also made sense that he might kill her on the spot for such insolence.

"I see," Sarasef said at length and in a tone much too calm for her to breathe. "But how, Iza Zuri," he paused, tilting his head a little as he questioned, "do you intend to save him from your khagan and Citara if he is to be returned?"

Her mouth went dry at those words. That was, she realized, another thing she had tossed over the wall and neglected.

"Hasheem's identity is now in the open. Your people will ask questions and there will be no hiding it. You are correct. I am indebted to your swornsword, but you must know by now that there is much more to it. You understand my personal attachment to the boy, my affection for him?"

Those facts she had neglected were staring at her now in the face, and Djari suddenly felt the need to throw up. Sarasef was right. Hasheem's identity would no longer be a secret after this. They'd kill him once they knew he'd been living in Rasharwi. Even if her father were to turn a blind eye, Citara wouldn't. For the moment, she had no idea how she could save him if he were to return. Unless...

'You understand my personal attachment to the boy, my affection for him?'

"I do," Djari replied thoughtfully. There were still so many things she didn't know about Hasheem, but one thing that hadn't escaped her notice was how strong his relationship with the chief had been in the past. "I understand."

Sarasef took a step closer, made sure she heard every word, remembered every sentence. "Then write to your father, Iza Zuri. I will offer the White Desert my alliance if you can make it happen. But understand, that such an alliance rests on the Silver Sparrow—your swornsword—being alive an unharmed. If anyone, anyone at all, so much as takes a finger from him for whatever reason I don't see fit, I will take him back, and I will go to Muradi, and you will have me as your enemy. That is my condition. You will put it in writing, and I will have it sworn upon. Or he stays here, and you return without him."

***