The address had been a command, spoken in a tone as firm and resolute as the crack of a whip. Hasheem whipped his head around just in time to see Khali loose his arrow. It zipped through the air and pierced cleanly through the socket of Khodi's right eye, killing him in an instant, leaving no time for a single sound to escape from his lips at the moment of death. The whole thing happened faster than one could blink from the time the command had been issued, as if it had been staged or agreed upon long before that afternoon.

Atop his horse, Khali sat with his back stiff and straight, his expression betraying no remorse, no guilt for what he'd just done as he lowered his bow. He turned to Nazir who'd been watching him closely and bowed in a gesture of respect, perhaps even in gratitude if Hasheem's ability to read people had been accurate. Nazir simply nodded and turned back to Baaku Khumar, as though he'd just ordered the boy to kill a gazelle and was adequately pleased by the outcome.

"There was no need to waste your arrow or your time," Nazir said, inclining his head as if showing courtesy. "And if you do not require a body, I would like to give him a proper burial as befitting his rank and status. Will this be acceptable?"

A small pause from Baaku ensued before he dipped his head slightly. "It will be." He wasn't smiling now and had been watching Nazir intently for some time. Baaku had come to test and measure the new leader of the hunt. The test and measurement had been done and the result obviously unfavorable to the Kamara. It should have been enough to make them think twice before trying again.

"For your breach of protocol," Nazir said, wasting no time in between, "I will require ten gazelles tonight and two hundred silas for each unfired arrow as compensation for the offense done here today."

Murmurs rippled through the men on the other side of the rock and Baaku shook his head almost in disbelief.

"You might as well ask for my sister." Baaku spat onto the ground. "Five gazelles is all I can give you."

"Then we take the case to Citara," Nazir replied calmly, and without another word turned his horse away to leave.

Locking his gaze on Nazir's back, Baaku considered for a time, and then made his decision. "If you survive to carry the news, of course," he said with a lightness to his tone that could have been mistaken as a jest. It didn't, however, match the conviction in those green eyes or how rigidly he sat his horse.

Hasheem drew a breath and closed his hand around the sword at his waist. At the same time, every bow on both sides was raised once more without the need for command.

Silence pressed down upon them with the weight of a mountain. Even the horses seemed to have stopped breathing. It would take just one decision from one man to turn that hunting ground into a battlefield, and two hundred lives now found themselves suspended on a string, held together by nothing but Nazir's capacity for control.

The control that had been close to breaking since the Kamara had entered the valley.

Still with his back to the khumar, Nazir turned slowly to look over his shoulder. The wind picked up speed and lifted his zikh in the air, its corners snapping like a snake lunging at its prey.

"Oh I'll survive," he responded easily, with a smile so thin it could peel the skin off your bones. Then, staring straight at Baaku, eyes flashing golden as if to remind them all who and what he was, he said, "Would you like to know if you will?"

Baaku swallowed, and upon realizing it, adjusted himself quickly to hide the vulnerability that managed to slip through his mask of confidence. Hasheem released the breath he'd been holding at the gesture. It was the end of the conversation. You didn't argue about your death with an oracle, not one as powerful as Nazir, especially not in front of your men who were waiting to replace you as khumar. Baaku knew this. He parted his mouth to speak and then closed it again, taking a little more time before coming to a decision.

"Five gazelles and two hundred silas for each man with unfired arrows. Take it or leave it."

Nazir nodded. "It will do. I will be expecting them before sunset."

The deal was settled, and the Kamara dispersed grumpily soon after, returning to the hunting ground. Hasheem grimaced as he watched Khali climb off his mount and headed to where his brother's body had been left by the rock. The boy's usual relaxed and smooth features hardened as he stood above it, his shoulders stiff as a statue.

Not a boy, Hasheem corrected himself, cold anger rising, wrapping its tendrils around him. There was no trace of innocence, no hint of any youthful eagerness to face the world left on that face. The moment Khali had shot that arrow to end his brother's life, it had ended a boy's life along with it and given birth to a man.

A man who would kill, from now on, in cold blood, in spite, seeking retribution or some form of justification from every corpse he created for what he'd done today. And he would never find it. No matter how long or how many men he would kill. Hasheem knew this. He'd been that boy, and now that man.

He turned to stare at the Visarya warriors that began to clear out from the ground, clenching his fists to hold back the rage that had been consuming him since the command had been made. As if sensing his hostility, Nazir paused to look over his shoulder, catching his gaze with those ghostly yellow eyes. He bore into them, seeking a hint, a trace of guilt or regret in their frightening glow, and didn't find it. Nazir's expression was flat, unreadable, and offered no emotions one might expect from a man who'd just ordered a boy to kill his own brother. For the first time since he'd been taken into the kha'gan, Hasheem realized how little he knew of Nazir or what he was capable of.

A vision came back to him then—a memory he'd stashed in the dark corner of his mind long ago. Suddenly, he was back in Sabha, looking at the captain who was stepping around the bodies that littered the ground towards them.

"Him, or it's both of you." The captain's voice had been quiet, but the words had echoed back and forth off the stone walls as if to make sure neither of them would miss it. He remembered the horror on Aziz's face, how quickly blood had drained from it at the thought of being put to torture if he didn't comply. He remembered the tears in Aziz's eyes when his friend had lunged forward, dagger in hand, to kill him. He remembered the weight of the dagger in his own hand too, the way it felt as he plunged it into Aziz's heart, and how the warm, wet, slippery blood had felt as it trickled down from his fingers to his elbow.

Aziz, his only friend in the dungeon, the only one who'd watched his back, cleaned his wound, kept him food when he'd been returned too late to the cell, dead by his very own hands, in the Trial of Sabha.

And he'd done it, as instructed. He'd killed Aziz. In the hell of Sabha, you did what you were told especially if you hadn't been through life long enough to grow a spine. At ten years old, nothing scared you more than the prospect of being tortured and burned alive, even if you'd already been passed around to entertain more generals than you could count and thought you knew torture.

At ten years old, you also didn't forget the faces of those who'd done things to you.

And it had been the same cold, marble-like face, the same look in the captain's eyes as in those golden orbs that were looking at him now. Uncompromising, unyielding, and utterly unaffected by what he'd ordered done that day.

It might have been more merciful to kill Khodi right on the spot, Hasheem knew enough to have figured that out and might have done the same had he been in Nazir's shoes. But it didn't have to be Khali. It didn't, no matter how disrespectful his brother had been, or what wrong he'd done. And yet Nazir had issued the command as though it had been the most natural thing in the world, with no more hint of remorse than the captain who'd forced him to kill Aziz that day. And for what? For publicly defying him? To state his authority? To make a point?

Nazir turned Springer around and headed toward him. Hasheem kept his gaze fixed on those eyes as the distance between them narrowed, ignoring the other warriors who had also turned to watch their khumar. Disgust coiled in his stomach like some creature that fed off rotting carcasses, eating him slowly from the inside out as he watched Nazir approach.

"Hasheem," Nazir said, reaching out a friendly hand to slap his shoulder as he'd done several times before. "Come."

The creature in his stomach lurched at the touch. His vision blurred for a split second and in that blind rage, he lashed out with it, slapping the hand with enough force to throw Nazir off balance. "Don't. Touch. Me."

Those words, delivered through tightly gritted teeth, finished at the same time another searing, scraping sound of a longsword being cleared from its scabbard erupted. Hasheem wheeled, hand already on the hilt of his sword, to see Zozi on his horse a short distance to his right, a blade raised and ready.

"An assault to the khumar will cost you a limb of your choosing," said Zozi in a tone as sharp as the weapon in his hand. "Make your choice, ogui."