'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.'

Those words, said on a quiet night a lifetime ago, when they had been in a different place, a different time and two different people, came back to her as her swornsword stepped into the Prayer Room.

Hasheem was wearing a crisp white tunic stitched with gold, a robe of black velvet lined with silver wolf pelt hung loosely over his shoulders. His hair, unbraided and neatly combed back had been gathered into a half-bun, revealing the gold ring on his right ear he had never removed and a clear outline of a face that seemed harsher than before from the weight he'd lost. Even then, even with those dark shadows around his eyes and the fading bruises on his face, there was a presence to him that was foreign to her. A presence of command, of coldness, of something sharp and bitter she hadn't witnessed back at camp. The man she knew had always been gentle, careful, and warm. The Silver Sparrow of Azalea, the young assassin standing in front of her now wearing silk and velvet and fur like someone who had worn them all his life, was not.

A lifetime ago. Two different people.

And it had felt that way in the throne room, when he'd appeared with Sarasef, wearing similar clothes, holding himself with a presence more regal than the prince himself as he talked to these people. Everything seemed to change when they walked into his life.

Walked back into his life, Djari corrected herself. Hasheem, after all, had a whole other life before they'd met, another story, another circle of people she never knew. Another woman, there, somewhere, who knew him in ways I don't.

Where was her swornsword? She looked at him now and all she saw was the Silver Sparrow, an assassin, a stranger.

He stepped onto the platform, holding her gaze with a severity to his grey eyes she hadn't seen before. Next to her, Prince Lasura stiffened a little, put himself in a defensive stance even if discreetly. People here seemed to move around him with caution, she had come to notice. Then again, this was, after all, the Silver Sparrow of Azalea, Deo di Amarra's gold ring assassin.

And he was angry. At her.

"We need to talk," he said softly, but in the way a pillow on your face was soft before it sought to suffocate. "Here, if the prince would be willing to leave or we can take this outside. Your choice, Djari."

The command in that tone was unmistakable. This man, her swornsword and blood, the one who had so far obeyed her every wish and been nothing but gentle with her was not taking no for an answer. She didn't like it, but it would have to happen. They had to talk and get this over with.

She drew a breath, turned to look at the prince, to ask him to leave, but there must have been something in her eyes that gave him a different message—one that made him step up to Hasheem and stand his ground instead of excusing himself.

"Your preferences aside, Sparrow," said the prince, with a heaviness to his tone that matched the way he'd planted those feet on the ground. "Djari iza Zuri came to me. Our business is not done. The way I see it, you can either join the conversation or you can wait for her to finish. That is the proper respect for the lady I would expect you to know, coming from court and all."

There was a hush in the room, as if the ghosts of Eli had sucked in their breaths listening, followed by a piercing silence so loud it could crack the sarcophagus had it been allowed to last. Hasheem turned to the prince with an agonizing slowness, cold, grey eyes lit up at least three shades lighter, his calculating, unprecedented calm gave off the same atmosphere as a physician carefully considering the idea of dissecting a man for the sole purpose of studying his organs. Alive.

"Have a care," said Hasheem. "This is not your place, Prince Lasura."

"Nor," said the prince, "is it yours, Sparrow."

"My presence here is welcomed."

"At what price, I wonder?"

"One you can no longer afford," said Hasheem, a man she didn't know, "given the whereabouts of your father."

The prince picked up his right foot and placed it in front of him, gaining ground. Hasheem stood firmly in his, staring back into those yellow eyes with his sharp silver. Death seemed to hover just above them, flapping its wings impatiently as Eli's dead soldiers stared at the guests in anticipation. No one was carrying a weapon in that chamber, but she would remember that Hasheem had killed before without one.

'There is a monster in that boy, iza Zuri,' Deo di Amarra had said. She could see a glimpse of that in the man standing next to her, could sense something clawing at a door for an exit. He had every right to be angry for what she had said and done, but that was the point di Amarra had come to her to mention—that she was someone who could bring it out of him.

"We can talk, here, now," she told him, stepping in. "The prince can stay if he wishes to." It wasn't personal. It shouldn't be. He was her swornsword and blood, nothing more, and about to cease to be if they could agree on that.

Hasheem turned to her, hurt, anger, and a dozen more emotions she couldn't name all there in his eyes. She had, after all, not taken his side in this. There are, she thought as she looked at him then, two men now who want to strangle me to death in this room.

"I woke up," Hasheem said, the crispness of that tone resonated in the chamber, "to the message that you are releasing me from my oath, I am here, Djari," he paused, drew a breath as if to rope something within and failed in the attempt, "for an explanation why."

Why? There were reasons, of course, but which ones would she tell him? That this was dangerous—this thing they had, this situation they were in? That she didn't want to be the one who broke him? That there was a crack between them she could feel, that they were two different people now ever since she had been attacked and he had slipped into his previous role?

Or that despite it all, she still found it difficult to breathe in his presence, that there was still a knife left in her chest when she'd been told of another woman, that she was standing here, wishing that she wasn't who she was. A most dangerous, traitorous, and unworthy wish, a desire so unacceptable she couldn't afford to nurse. It had to end, now, somehow.

"I wanted to give you a choice," she said only that much. A lie, but a necessary one.

"A choice? Djari?" His voice grew slightly lower, softer. He seemed to be the kind of man who spoke more quietly when he was close to the limit. The kind that was most dangerous when he didn't say a word. "This is you making mine for me," he said and added, "While I sleep."

She didn't miss the sting of those last words. No one could have. What he had done for her wasn't small. "You've done enough."

A smile so thin it could peel off her skin. "And so I am no longer of use to you? Especially now that you have someone else whose knowledge you can utilize?"

"I've never—"

"Of course, not," Hasheem cut her off mid-sentence, his chest heaving now, despite how calm he appeared. "You didn't take me in for that. You were the only one who didn't take me in for what I was. What changed, Djari? What happened while I was asleep? What have I done? What is my sin?" He paused, drew a breath, said through gritted teeth, "Tell me. Which part of my life, of what I am, disgusts you enough to make you want to run? You owe me that much explanation before you replace me. Is it how many people I've slept with, why, or who?"

***

The sound of her fist landing on his cheek sent a shock full of echo across the room. Lasura jolted at the unexpected sight that somehow felt familiar to him. Too familiar, in fact, that he suddenly felt a twitch on his cheek where his mother had punched him before he left. He had to wonder if women in the White Desert had been taught to throw a punch as a part of growing up or if slapping was something too low and common for bharavis.

Whichever it was, Djari iza Zuri had thrown that punch hard enough to knock her swornsword back a few steps, forcing him to grab onto the sarcophagus for balance. The shock on his face was a sight Lasura would never forget, mostly for how much satisfaction it was giving him. This must have been their first fight, from the looks of it.

"If I had known," she said, shaking her fist from the pain and trembling with enough rage to rival his mother's, "that you would think so lowly of me, I would have shot you twice and made sure you died on my brother's horse!"

Now, that was a story he wanted to hear.

"I am a bharavi. Born to marry for the benefits of my khagan. I have been raised every day to willingly open my legs for any man my father would choose for me, and I would have to let him do it, every day, for the rest of my life," she told him, her voice raised and carried around the room by its echoes. "There are things the world asks from us. Things we all must do to survive, to fulfill our destiny. What kind of person do you take me for, to believe that I would judge you for this? How could you?"

The Sparrow, to his surprise, was still not having it. "What then, Djari? What bothers you now? The way I see it, you can't even stand the sight of me."

Lasura could probably admire such a tenacity to seek the truth, if only he hadn't been raised by another bharavi and knew better. Oh, what his mother wouldn't give to get a chance to explain that to her husband.

The difference between them, however, was clear.

There was guilt on her face, dressed with some pain around the edges as she forced her breathing to slow. She went into silence for a time, her yellow eyes softened by the minute as she looked at him, and in response, his rage, too, was subsiding.

You would have to be blind to not see the bond between them. There were people who fought to win, and then there were those who fought to break down walls, to grow closer, to know better, to not let go. She was incapable of hurting him at an emotional level and neither was he. The Sparrow was standing there with understanding in his eyes, but without a hint of intention to retreat from this. In a way, Djari iza Zuri should have known, just as everyone else did, that there had been no possible way she could get rid of her swornsword. He'd even said it out loud, or did she think it had been attached to his oath?

'I know where I stand. It will not change for as long as I live.'

And he had come, here, to fix whatever there was to fix. If he knew anything about the Silver Sparrow, it was the fact that this was not a man who settled for any situation he didn't want to be in or agreed easily to back down from something he wanted. It had, however, never occurred to Lasura until then to fully appreciate the kind of man it would have to take to rise from Sabha and the pleasure district to become the wealthiest, most influential Shakshi slave the Salasar had ever known. She has, he realized with some amusement watching them that day, no idea who she's dealing with and no chance at winning this argument.

"The truth, Djari," said the Sparrow, "or you will not have my consent. You need it to get rid of me. I know the rules."

She pressed her lips together, made a decision, and turned to face him. "I know about Mara."

There could be, Lasura thought then, so much pain in that single breath taken by the Sparrow at the mention of a name. One could almost see the knife she had plunged into his heart, the blood dripping from it. For the first time that night, he looked away. For the very first time, there was vulnerability, hesitation, a stumble in the way he held himself. Lasura knew that story, everyone in Rasharwi talked endlessly of what could be the most moving story of all time, how the Silver Sparrow had thrown everything away for love and the pure tragedy of it. Women could move mountains sometimes without doing much at all, he thought. Mara di Rosso, Za'in izr Husari's wife, his mother, and now, if the prophecy was to be believed, Djari iza Zuri.

"What does she have to do with this?" It came out in almost a whisper, with dread so strong one could almost smell it in the air.

"When you swore that oath," she said clenching her hands into fists, stared down her swornsword from below, "was it for me or for another woman whose image you confused me with?"

A spear to the throat, that, Lasura thought.

"She is gone, Djari," he said, not as apologetically as he would have expected, if at all.

"Because you failed to protect her."

"Because I loved her." The reply came without a moment of pause or hesitation, as if he had decided the cause of her death a long time ago and been repeating it daily in his head.

"And you still do," she said. A confirmation, not a question she needed answered.

"I still do," he said, proudly, religiously. Something he intended to keep.

It had to hurt, of course, and he could see it on her face. Knowing something didn't mean it wouldn't sting, carve you open, leave you a scar when you had to hear it spoken. Anyone who ever loved the Sparrow was going to have to live with Mara di Rosso one way or another. And Djari iza Zuri was, whether her swornsword was aware of it, in love with him when she should not.

Two bharavis and men they couldn't love, for different reasons.

"I am not her replacement or your second chance to right a wrong," she said, a trace of vulnerability in an otherwise rock-solid statement. "I cannot be that for you."

"You are not. You never have been," he told her, firmly, decisively. "There is no confusion here, Djari. She cannot be replaced. I know what I'm doing. I know where I stand. I know what you're afraid of. I won't cross the line. I promise you with my life. You can't get rid of me. Not for this. I won't let you."

There was, Lasura thought, more conviction in that statement than anything he'd ever done in his lifetime. This was personal, more intimate than he had the right to witness. There was, of course, a line to be crossed that was off-imits to them. Their lives would run forever parallel to each other but never meet, and he would do this in any case. He would lay his life, his loyalty, perhaps also the part of his heart she had obviously occupied at her feet, knowing exactly what was to come.

'I won't cross the line. I promise you with my life.'

A promise not so unlike his mothers' to see his father dead, despite what Lasura knew—and had always known—was going on between them. The truth the entire Tower knew except the two of them that decided to deny it. A history that repeated itself with bharavis and what they were raised to become. This wasn't even his pain, but it made him angry nonetheless.

"You can't get rid of him," another voice came from the entrance, a voice he knew by heart.

Deo was standing by the door, carrying with him that atmosphere before he struck you with bad news.

"Your father is dead, iza Zuri," said Deo di Amarra. "He was killed on his way here. The alliance stands but the attack on Saracen has been delayed. Your brother is now kha'a and demands your return immediately with Hasheem. You need the Sparrow, iza Zuri, your brother needs him to win this war without your father's influence."

She froze. Froze like the world had come to a complete stop and she was the only one left in it, lost somewhere foreign, left behind by a promise of happiness. He knew the feeling too well. Two news, two tragedies, two losses, one that had arrived in the morning, the other at night. 'Your father is dead.' Four simple words that could change your entire life, no matter how close you were to him, or how distant you had been raised.

She clenched her hands into fists, clenched them until her knuckles turned white, her small frame trembled from trying to hold back the flood of emotions going through her. And yet she was holding it, her face hardened into a rock, her feet rooted firmly to the ground behind an invisible wall she seemed to have put up around the ruin and the devastation she harbored. Lasura wondered then, if his mother had been like this from the beginning—a girl born and raised to carry so much pain, so much weight on her shoulders without ever asking for help. Someone who had been taught to fence herself off from ever receiving it. He had an urge to step up to comfort her, but one could die trying to climb or bring down such a wall.

Or it was just his lack of conviction speaking.

The Sparrow had her in his arms before Lasura could finish that thought, holding her so tight in his embrace as if he would lose her if he didn't. There had been no hesitation, no thinking required, no such thing as another alternative to what he had decided to do. This man would walk on fire to give her what she needed, and what she needed hadn't required a single word spoken.

She went stiff as a log at first, fought it with all she had to not let her walls crumble. He pressed his lips to her temple, said something in a mere whisper, and with those words shattered all that was standing between them.

Lasura thought then, that he'd never seen a woman cry like that before. It felt like a bursting of a dam, held at its limit for years and years, breaking apart all at once. It felt like a storm, late in its arrival, but one that tore through the desert, clearing everything in its path as it came.

Have you ever cried like that, mother, thought Lasura, at least once in your life? Do you still have a chance to cry, out there, somewhere?