Intermix Nation

  “Nazirah,” he says patiently. “The intermix have lived on this small stretch of coast for centuries.” He opens his arms wide. “This is our home. We are tied to this land. And without it anchoring us, we would be drowning nomads in a sea of loss. Life here in Rafu may be hard, and it may often be grim, but it is where our hearts lie. And that is why we choose to rebuild here, day after day, year after year. Surely you, of all people, can understand that.”

  “You’re right,” Nazirah says, glancing around. “I do understand.”

  “You never did answer my question,” he says, smiling knowingly.

  Nazirah looks into his eyes, finding warmth there that she did not notice before. “I haven’t forgiven him,” she replies honestly. “Not even close.”

  “A Medi and an intermix,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I never thought I would live to see the day.”

  “But I just told you –”

  Cayus gently grips her shoulder. “I heard what you said,” he tells her sagely. Cayus points to the red paint on his arm. “I wear this to remind me that, despite our differences and flaws, we are all human, part of God’s boundless circle. We are all children of the sun and moon, made of stars and earth.” He shakes his head. “It is so easy to forget sometimes…”

  He gives her shoulder a final squeeze before walking away.

  #

  Nazirah hurries along the coast, aware she doesn’t have much time. Adamek could rat her out to Aldrik – but somehow, Nazirah knows he won’t. Aldrik and Nikolaus would have never let her come here on her own, especially not after the Medi attack on the slums. But she has to see it, one last time. Nazirah coughs, casually inspecting the minor burns and scratches on her arms. They sting, but are nothing serious. She shivers, knowing how much worse things could have been.

  Rafu is a small village, easily walked end to end. The unfamiliar streets bordering the slums eventually transform into the familiar paths of Nazirah’s past. Nazirah turns onto a lane she has not been down in months. A fresh wave of jitters buzzes through her as she passes several one-story beach bungalows. They gleam white and blue in the late afternoon light, traces of the foaming sea on land. Nazirah eventually stops in front of a small, unassuming cottage right on the water.

  It still stands, proud and strong. It is the cottage Kasimir built for Riva, so many years ago. And it welcomes Nazirah back. Nazirah’s memories here are tainted, but they are all she has. Cayus is right. Life in Rafu is hard. But it is her home; it is where her heart lies.

  Nazirah glances around the quiet lane, then quickly walks through the rusty gate and out of sight. The weeds are overgrown in the garden. But the scent of jasmine and verbena linger in the air, watchful guardians. Nazirah climbs the front steps. She bends down at the top stair, retrieving the spare key that resides under a hollow stone. Nazirah deftly unlocks the door, fingers effortlessly recalling the way.

  “I’m home.”

  Nazirah walks through the entrance, prodigal daughter returned. Her voice echoes throughout the abandoned cottage. She doesn’t know why she does this, knowing that no one will answer. But she does it anyway.

  In the living room, she runs her hands over the surface of everything she sees. Nazirah avoids the area where she found her parents, the walls now spotless, the wood bleached clean by rebel volunteers. She tries to think of her happier memories here as a child.

  Nikolaus and Kasimir are in the corner, playing chess.

  Riva is baking, singing, or rocking gently on the porch swing out back.

  Nazirah touches and feels and remembers. And it hurts, but it’s a glorious pain.

  From the fireplace mantle, Nazirah palms a small mason jar full of smooth black beach pebbles. She stuffs it into her pocket before continuing upstairs. Her fingers make trails and swirls in the thick layer of dust on the banister. The staircase groans under her weight. It’s amazing how Kasimir built this house with his hands. Kasimir’s were hands of creation. So unlike Adamek’s, used only for destruction.

  Nazirah walks through each room slowly, lingering, breathing in the salty air that invades every crevice. She gingerly picks up her parents’ wedding photo, taken by a traveling peddler. Riva is radiant in a flowing, white, gauzy dress. She’s barefoot, with a crown of sunflowers in her hair. Kasimir gazes into her eyes, touching the bump on her stomach. Nazirah smiles at the photo, removing it from the frame and gently putting it in her pocket.

  She hasn’t come for this. She has come to say goodbye, not horde possessions like a vagabond. But it seems wrong for her parents to stay alone in this empty house, smiling at no one. Nazirah wants them with her, wants them smiling at her.

  Time is running short. She walks to the end of the hallway. Opening the last door, Nazirah steps into her bedroom. She lies on her bed, bathed in the soft blues and greens of her walls.

  She imagines she can hear her parents laughing downstairs. Riva sews or drafts a lesson plan. Kasimir hums an Oseni tune and sharpens his tools. Maybe he’s whittling something. Nazirah wishes she had the Iluxor, which she knows Adamek brought on campaign. She could replay these memories in her mind then, instead of so inadequately imagining. Instead of pretending.

  It’s nostalgic, coming home. It’s sweet, but painful at the same time. Her room feels like Irri, the girl she used to be. It doesn’t entirely fit the girl she is now.

  Nazirah breathes in, then sits up abruptly. It took her awhile to realize. But it doesn’t smell like her, past or present. She gets up, looks around cautiously. Everything seems to be in place, but Nazirah knows something isn’t right.

  Someone has recently been in her room. A neighbor? One of the Caals? What if the Medis know she’s here? Nazirah hurries down the stairs, exits through the back door. She passes Riva’s porch swing, watches as the ocean crashes onto the surf. She should not have come. But Nazirah will be leaving soon. There’s only one more place she needs to go.

  Nazirah walks slowly across the dunes behind her home and kneels before two flat headstones. The wind whips her hair and the ocean air stings her burned skin. Nazirah cries salty tears, so it makes no difference.

  “I miss you so much,” she says. “I’m sorry I didn’t make you proud. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” She touches the smooth stone, tears streaking the remaining ash that cakes her face. “I don’t know how to live, when you aren’t here to help me.”

  She sinks down lower into the ground, sobbing. “Why did you have to leave me?” she screams bitterly, hoarsely, digging her hands into the sand before her and flinging it away. “Why didn’t you run, or fight?” She lies beside the graves, pounding on the stone. “Why were you so stupid and foolish with your lives? Why?”

  Nazirah closes her eyes, remembers to breathe. She kisses each headstone before slowly returning to her knees. “I will avenge you,” she whispers. “I promise I will. I swear it to you.” She balls her fists. “I won’t fail you again.”

  Nazirah begins to rise, wiping her red eyes. She’s distracted by a dark object protruding from the hole in the sand before her. Eyebrows knitting in confusion, she pulls it out slowly. It’s black and supple and all too familiar. A pair of fingerless gloves. Nazirah shakes, watching as something falls out from inside one of the gloves, small and delicate, glittering in the dying Eridian sun. Nazirah stares and stares and stares and still doesn’t understand.

  It is Adamek’s amnesty pendant.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The train ride from Krush to Rubiyat drags on, hours wasting away. The night paints the landscape in murky black, stars hidden behind rolling, navy clouds. The allies share one cramped train compartment, bribed for at the last moment. Aldrik, new eye patch secured, snores loudly next to Adamek. Drool hangs from his chin in thin strings, pooling and puddling along his dirty collar.

  Nazirah sits across from them, uneager to return. The overwhelming, suffocating crimson dust, the poverty and prison, the first time she met Adamek … none are memories she particularly cares to relive. The
silver lining is that Nazirah may get to see Cato – but she has no idea where he’s stationed or how to contact him.

  Nazirah guiltily thinks of Caria’s locket, now safely tucked inside her bag. Cato should have been the one to visit Rafu, not her. There is nothing for Nazirah there but bones and stale memories and bitter emptiness. Cato still has a living, breathing family. Like Cander said, Cato’s entire life revolves around Nazirah. And she takes him for granted.

  What if she is holding him back?

  “Staring won’t make me burst into flames,” Adamek says, startling Nazirah out of her thoughts. “Unfortunately for you.”

  “I was thinking about everything that happened today.”

  “You mean in the slums?” he asks pointedly.

  “Of course.” Nazirah is thinking about the slums, how could she not? She still has the burns on her arms and the grit in her hair as reminders. But she is also thinking about afterwards. There was a promise made, a pendant surveyed.

  “You’re a shit liar, Nation.”

  He’s a liar too, only he’s better at it. Adamek said he forgot to put the pendant on this morning, but he hadn’t. At some point yesterday, he came into her home, into her room. He visited the graves of her parents, leaving the chain and gloves behind.

  Why?

  The pendant now hangs around Nazirah’s neck, out of sight, a lingering reminder. For reasons beyond her comprehension, Nazirah did not leave it in the sand with his gloves.

  Why?

  She has no answers for anything, anymore.

  “I’m not lying,” she mumbles. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  Adamek interlocks his hands casually behind his neck. Nazirah sees a brief flash of a small tattoo on his wrist, one she’s never noticed before. It is four digits, followed by a strange character. Nazirah doesn’t dare ask him what it means. She wonders why that number is so important to him, why it is the password he uses for everything.

  “I bet if I were Caal sitting here,” he says, “You wouldn’t be so quiet.”

  Nazirah shoots him an odd look. “But you’re not.”

  “Do you see me complaining?”

  “I don’t tell Cato everything,” she says.

  “Clearly,” Adamek replies. “Otherwise, he’d have tried to kill me several times by now.”

  The train slows as it nears the Rubiyat station, whistling shrilly somewhere ahead. Adamek lazily drums his fingers on the silver suitcase. Bribing the Eridian fishermen was apparently easy. Aldrik has said they will certainly need the Iluxor in order to convince the Red Lords, show them exactly how much the Medis keep from the territories.

  “Morgen?”

  “Nation.”

  “What are you planning to do after the war?”

  “Are you seriously asking me what I want to be when I grow up?”

  “I guess so,” she says, shrugging.

  “Ladies first.”

  “You’re avoiding my question,” she says.

  “I’m evading your question,” Adamek corrects. “There’s a difference.”

  Nazirah crosses her arms. “Fine,” she huffs. “I don’t know what I want to do. You?”

  “That’s not a real answer.”

  “Yes it is!” she argues. “I don’t have a plan! Intermix have never had many options. Die from disease or die from starvation … or die from you. That’s about it.”

  His eyes narrow. “But you will once the war’s over,” he points out.

  “So they say.”

  “You don’t think your brother wants intermix equality?”

  “Of course he does!” she says. “But at what sacrifice?”

  “Like I said today, there’s always a price.”

  Nazirah shakes her head. “So many of those intermix we met today, regardless of if they join us or not, will die in this war … a war that we’re basically forcing upon them! It’s sad that they will have no future.”

  “Why are you so afraid of being right?”

  “Come again?” she asks.

  “Everything you said to Cayus was true,” Adamek tells her. “And now you’re shying away from it. The ones that do survive … think of the future they will have.”

  Nazirah does. She thinks of Cayu, of a world where he could grow up beyond the slum. A utopia where he would always have enough to eat, where he and Caria could be best friends, living together in toothless harmony, infamy. And no one would care except their mothers.

  It seems like a dream.

  The train rolls to a stop at the Rubiyat station and Adamek moves to shake Aldrik awake. Nazirah is entirely aware that Adamek has successfully evaded her question. “I’m tired of fighting,” she sighs.

  “You can’t be tired already,” he replies quietly. “The fight hasn’t begun yet.”

  #

  Rubiyat comes to life at night, after the scorching sun has set. In the small hours of the morning, thick women in long, layered skirts walk through caked streets. They balance empty jugs on their heads and set off for the city wells, waiting in line for hours to receive their daily ration of water. Young boys and girls dance languidly on flat rooftops to the sound of drums and tambourines. The scents of sweat and perfume and sex pervade the air. Yet everything here plays second fiddle to the dust.

  Aldrik steps off the train platform, unimpressed and sweating profusely. Thick, pearly white marbles roll down his face. “From what the Commander told me a few hours ago,” he says, “we should have a car waiting for us somewhere … even though we were forced to move our plans up last minute.”

  Nazirah’s wide eyes wander over the fray, absorbing every sight. She spots a familiar face in the crowd, sporting a closely cropped haircut and several earrings dangling from each ear. “I’ve got it,” she tells the others, smiling. “Follow me.” Nazirah grabs her bag and finds Adamek has already lifted her remaining luggage. From the stiff look on his face, Nazirah can tell he recognizes the man as well.

  Nazirah weaves through the crowd towards the running stretch limousine with tinted windows. “Good to see you again, Olag,” Nazirah says in greeting. Olag only grunts at the three of them, motioning them to get in while he loads the trunk.

  Nazirah scurries inside first. She’s instantly greeted by the cherubic, joyful face of Solomon Salaahi. “Oh, Miss Nation!” exclaims Solomon, attempting to bow low even while sitting down. “It is wonderfully refreshing to see you again, although you have arrived a bit earlier than anticipated! Early bird gets the worm!” Solomon’s hands tenderly grasp one of Nazirah’s as Adamek and Aldrik enter.

  Aldrik spots some ice chips chilling in a nearby bucket and greedily scoops them up to rub over his sweaty face. Nazirah cringes. Aldrik drops the now-melted chips into an empty glass beside him. He pulls out a flask from his pocket, fills the glass up, and then downs the sweaty-spirit concoction in one gulp.

  “Er,” Solomon says, “please make yourselves … comfortable.”

  Aldrik belches, eyes darting between Nazirah and Solomon suspiciously. “You two know each other?” he asks, waving his empty flask.

  Solomon smiles, says, “Only the way that flesh knows bone, the way the moon knows its craters.”

  “Right …” replies Aldrik uncertainly.

  Nazirah glances out the window. Even though it’s dark outside, the red dust illuminates the chimerical landscape. Olag weaves the limo through the winding, precarious streets of Rubiyat at breakneck speed. He overtakes a caravan and several donkeys, waving his fist angrily.

  Solomon shakes Adamek’s hand enthusiastically. “And the handsome Mr. Morgen,” he says. “You are looking much better since last we met! Glad to see that lip healed nicely.”

  “Now hold on just a moment!” Aldrik demands angrily. “Who are you?”

  Solomon bows low again. “Solomon Salaahi,” he says. “At your service, Mr. Slome.”

  Olag swerves sharply, narrowly dodging another caravan. Solomon flies headfirst into Nazirah’s lap. Nazirah blushes profusely and helps
Solomon to his seat. She hands Solomon his minute fez, which he shoves onto his head, slightly askew. He proceeds to utter several guttural curses directed at Olag in Deathlandic. Nazirah has no idea what Solomon says, but Adamek snorts appreciatively.

  “You’re Solomon Salaahi?” Aldrik asks, clearly shocked. “The Solomon Salaahi?”

  “Expecting someone taller?” he responds, winking at Nazirah.

  “Okay, Solomon,” Aldrik grumbles. “I’ll bite. Where exactly are you taking us?”

  Nazirah is wondering the same thing. She really hopes they don’t have to sleep in the prison. The telephone in the limousine rings and Solomon reaches for the receiver. “Enough with the questions!” he bellows, voice surprisingly deep for so small a person. “You are my guests and you are welcome in my territory with open arms! Please relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery!” He begins conversing loudly in Deathlandic with the person on the other line.

  Aldrik leans in close to Nazirah. “And how exactly,” he hisses, “is an Eridian-born intermix so tight with the famous Solomon Salaahi?”

  “He’s famous?” she asks evasively. Nazirah’s trip to bargain for Adamek’s amnesty is not something she is open to discussing, especially not with the likes of Drill Sergeant Patch.

  Aldrik gets extremely agitated. “We have a mission to accomplish on this campaign, Nation!” he snaps. “If you both keep hiding things from me, we’re going to fail … spectacularly.”

  “Hiding things from you?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” he growls. “I know you’ve got the village idiot act down pat, but it doesn’t work on me. Did you think I wouldn’t notice the two of you sneaking off last night? And what was that shit you pulled today, in the slums? I don’t care if you both have lovers from Rafu to Kivar. While you’re campaigning – until we storm the last skytower in Mediah, for that matter – you will present a united front to the country! People already think you’re in love, so you better start acting like it!”

  “Easy to say,” she mutters.

  The limo turns onto a long, hidden driveway bordered by cacti and lemon groves. They are definitely not at the prison, much to Nazirah’s relief. Olag eventually pulls in front of a large mansion and kills the engine. Nazirah hops out of the limo, unable to keep the awe off her face. Terracotta urns taller than she is guard the front entrance. A huge azure door, embellished in gold, welcomes visitors inside. Vines hang from a ceiling trellis of dark wooden beams. Minarets and marbled columns tower above her. It’s open, flowing, and completely unlike anything Nazirah has seen before.