“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, forcing him to pull his gaze away from her wounds.
The words registered, but Nasim couldn’t comprehend her meaning.
“The girl in Alayazhar.”
Rabiah. She meant Rabiah.
“Were you close to her?” she asked.
It seemed so distant now, and it felt strange for Kaleh, a girl who barely knew him, to console him for the death of his friend, one that he loved so dearly. “Does it matter if we were close?”
She stared at him, her face unreadable. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
She said these words with such lack of emotion that it made Nasim’s blood boil. It felt as if she were dismissing Rabiah, dismissing what she had done in her life.
He stood and jabbed his finger down at her. “Why are you here?”
“I came for you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve come to believe that Muqallad is wrong.”
“Just like that?”
There was sadness in Kaleh’s eyes. “Sit.”
Nasim wanted to scream at her, and he didn’t even know why. She was someone who had helped him when she stood to gain little. He looked at the burns on her face and wondered if it had been punishment of some sort. As he stood there, her ancient eyes boring into his, the anger drained from him like snow beneath the summer sun.
When at last he managed to sit and face her, she said, “It’s not so simple as you think.”
“Things always seem that way, but what could be so complicated about leaving a man like Muqallad?”
“It is complicated, as you say, because he is my father.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
N asim felt the blood drain from his face. His fingers tingled and a ringing like struck crystal sounded in his ears.
“Muqallad is your father?”
She nodded, holding his gaze. She looked like a doe, ready to bolt.
If Muqallad was her father, then Sariya was her mother. By the fates above, a child borne of the Al-Aqim. What power she must hold. He had seen it with his own eyes, and still the possibility seemed ludicrous. Impossible.
“How old are you?”
She looked down at her hands, which she wrung for several moments before speaking. “I don’t know.”
“Sariya and Muqallad were awoken only five years ago.”
She stopped wringing her hands long enough to stare at them as if they belonged to someone else. “My mother tells me that I’ve grown faster than a child should. She thinks it’s because of Ghayavand.” She looked up to Nasim. “Either that or the spell Khamal cast over her before I was born.”
Nasim looked at her wounds again. They somehow seemed redder than moments ago. Angrier. “How did you get those burns?”
Kaleh turned her cheek to hide the burns from Nasim. “I came here to find you, but my father guessed my purpose. He followed through the doorway I created and fought the Aramahn to find me. I think he hoped that you would be here as well, for he stormed through the village, searching for you. In the end, he killed three before he fled under the threat of the others who came to protect the village.”
Nasim thought back to the men and women stationed around the village. “Will he return?”
“ Neh. He’s hampered by the bonds of Ghayavand. He can create doorways of his own, but not this far from Ghayavand, and with so many qiram warding the village, he won’t be able to break through again.”
“He has two pieces of the Atalayina now, doesn’t he? He’s fused them.”
“He has, which was why he was able to follow me, but even so, the bonds placed on all the Al-Aqim are strong. He will not be able to come again.”
“I’ve dreamed of those times, when the bonds were placed on the three of them.”
Kaleh smiled. She shifted from her kneeling position-wincing so badly Nasim cringed in sympathy-until she was sitting cross-legged like Nasim. For the first time, she seemed a child of her age. No longer were her eyes deep and ancient. Instead, they made her seem humble, as if she knew what she was about to ask was unreasonable.
“There’s a reason I came here, of all places,” she said softly. “I had hoped to find you. I had hoped to learn more of you, more of Khamal.”
“Why?”
“So that we can stop my father.”
Nasim stared. “Forgive me, Kaleh, but you have been with your father, preparing the way for the akhoz, for months and years. I know this.”
“I have done those things.” Her eyes went far away, as if she were reliving the ritual that took place on Rafsuhan, the one that had consumed the children of the Maharraht. “But I was fooled. Tricked.”
“Then what changed your mind?”
“I’m no fool,” she said sharply. “I’ve read texts-books and scrolls hidden away by my father. They spoke of his desires when he came to Ghayavand. They spoke of the desire of all who came to Alayazhar-for higher learning, for raising humanity above pettiness and anger and war. They spoke of a desire to find within ourselves the capacity to welcome all that we are, and to share. Our knowledge and our love and our pain.
“For years I was afraid to speak of these things, but months ago, I told him what I’d done. He wasn’t angry, but he told me that what we were doing was bringing the world to that higher place. I tried to believe him, but when I saw what he was doing to you that day at the celestia, it all changed. It cannot be what the fates wanted.” She shook her head. “It cannot.”
Nasim wanted to believe her, but could not. Still, if she were able to help him find his memories, it may shed light on the key to unlocking his own potential, or at the very least removing the walls Sariya and Muqallad had placed on him.
“How can Khamal’s memories help Muqallad?” he asked.
“Khamal left the island and was reborn. In a way my father hopes to do the same, for even with the Atalayina, he is bound to Ghayavand.”
“Sariya isn’t.”
“It mightn’t seem like it, but she is. She has her tower in Alayazhar. She took another in Aleke s ir, and yet another in Baressa. They are linked. They ground her to Ghayavand, but do not mistake this for her being free of it. She is bound as tightly as Muqallad is. The only difference is the way in which they pay for the small amount of freedom they’ve found. Only Khamal truly escaped.”
He didn’t escape, Nasim thought. He died, and I was born. “Why do you want to know Khamal’s secrets?”
“Because my father is close to doing the same thing. He hinted at it, but he refused to tell me details. He may have found what he needed from you at the celestia. But if we can find the secret too, we may be able to prevent him from escaping. We may even be able to bind him to Ghayavand forever.”
“He is your father.”
“Can a father do no wrong? Can he not be misguided?”
“Of course.”
“Then that is enough. I have been blinded, I will admit, but I will allow it no longer. Help me, Nasim. Help me to find Khamal’s secret, and together, we can stop him.”
“I’ve tried,” Nasim said, thinking of the horror contained within that dark place inside him that he’d never been able to go. “I’ve dreamed of him many times, but never the ritual he completed to be reborn and to grant me his power.”
