The monkey winks. “What blonde hair?”
Confused, Nazirah fingers her locks. She pulls a tendril forward and finds it has returned to its normal copper color. Nazirah looks at her hands, freshly tan. “Did you do this?” she asks, amazed.
The monkey rubs Nazirah’s arm with his sleeve, gently erasing the black paint, the final remnants of Zima on her skin. “It does not suit you, Nazirah, to hide who you are. You are rare, even though you constantly resist that which makes you so special. Embrace it.”
The monkey closes his eyes and starts humming, blindly tattooing her left wrist. His movements are flawless and smooth. Nazirah watches him ink four numbers, followed by a strange symbol. Just like Adamek’s tattoo, she realizes. The monkey bows his head, returning the items to his pocket. Nazirah reads the numbers aloud.
“Zero-five-one-four.”
May 14th, her mother’s birthday. Nazirah understands now why the numbers on Adamek’s own wrist are so important to him.
“A protection mark,” the monkey says, “Courage and strength given by your kin. The best kind of protection there is.”
“But how did you know the date?”
“You knew the date,” he answers. “That is what matters.”
“Yesterday,” Nazirah says, “you saw that his Medi tattoo had changed. You said it suited him.” The monkey nods. “Why did it change?”
“Nazirah Nation,” the monkey replies, handing Nazirah her coat, “do not ask a question if you already know the answer.”
“He doesn’t consider himself Medi anymore,” she says immediately, realizing she has known it all along.
“The mind rejects and the body responds,” the monkey confirms, reaching into his robes again, pulling out a small dagger. The monkey throws it high into the air and catches it, lightning fast. He presents it to her. “A gift.”
“It’s incredible,” Nazirah breathes, tracing the intricate carvings. She unsheathes the dagger and stares at the gleaming metal before carefully pocketing it.
“Something to remember us by,” he says, “Though I hope you never have a need to use it.”
Nazirah gives the monkey a short, awkward bow. He chuckles, embracing her.
“Will I ever see you again?” she asks him.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On the way the tide goes.”
Nazirah bites her lip. “Would you ever consider training me?”
“It would be both the greatest honor and shame of my life to teach someone so pure the ways of the brotherhood,” the monkey answers sorrowfully. “I am afraid I have no answer for you.” Nazirah nods. “But I will give you this final token of advice, my daughter. The first, most important, rule is to always know your enemy.”
Nazirah smiles because Adamek has already taught her that lesson. “I think I’ve got that one figured out.”
“Just remember,” the monkey says, waving goodbye. “In life, our only enemies are ourselves.”
#
When Nazirah exits the monastery, the sun is already setting. Darkness stains the sky, spilt ink soaking paper. Nazirah throws her hood up, crosses the bridge. Safely on the other side, she sprints back to the manor. She sneaks through the servants’ entrance, quickly retreating to her room. Nazirah shuts the door and leans against it, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. It has barely escaped her lips when she peers into the darkness, immediately freezing. “Morgen,” she greets, trying to sound casual as she pulls off her coat.
“Nation.”
Adamek lies on Nazirah’s bed, not looking her way. He tosses a smooth black stone into the air, catching it with one hand. Nazirah glances nervously at the open mason jar beside him, at the pictures spread out. He’s clearly been here for a while.
Nazirah clears her throat. “How was the meeting?”
“Good,” he says. “We finished early.”
“Great.”
“I told Slome I would check on you, but you weren’t here.” Adamek looks at her then, expression unreadable. He rises from the bed, standing before Nazirah in two short paces.
“I went for a walk.”
“Where?”
“Just out,” she says. “I couldn’t stay trapped in here anymore. No one saw me.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“And how do you explain looking like yourself again?”
Nazirah touches her face, having forgotten. “It wore off, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Yeah, I guess!”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“You should leave.”
Adamek ignores Nazirah, grabbing her wrist. There’s an unstable, manic look in his eye. Nazirah doesn’t even try to pull away. She knows exactly what he’s looking for. Adamek stares at the protection mark for only a second. Then he meets her waiting gaze. His voice is so devastatingly calm that Nazirah almost wishes he would yell instead.
“Why?”
She struggles to break free of his grip. “Why what?”
“Why did you go see him?”
“I was curious,” she says, wincing.
Adamek spins Nazirah so her back is flush against his chest. His free hand snakes around her waist, holding her firmly. “Curious?”
“You’re hurting me!”
Adamek releases her entirely, playing with her hair. Running his hand up her neck, Adamek cups Nazirah’s throat, compressing her airway just a little. “Do you trust me, Nation?” he whispers in her ear.
“Yes.”
Nazirah is surprised by how quickly she answers. But she doesn’t doubt herself, not for a moment. Adamek lets go of her windpipe. He hisses, “Then you are an idiot, Nazirah.”
Her name on his lips is glorious sacrilege, a godsend.
“I’m not,” she says.
“What am I?”
“I don’t –”
“What am I?” he repeats, more harshly this time.
“A man?”
Adamek laughs into her ear, grazing his fingers down her spine. “True,” he says. “But try again.”
“Medi?” she gets out. She knows that’s not right … not anymore.
“Nope.”
Nazirah racks her brain. She remembers the first day she saw Adamek at headquarters, in Nikolaus’s office. Nazirah called him a slew of foul names then. One in particular had stuck.
And don’t you forget it.
Nazirah hasn’t.
“Murderer.”
She whispers it like a confession. Adamek spins her around, looking her dead in the eye. “And that’s all I’ll ever be,” he says coldly. “Remember that.” He turns away from her, walking towards the door.
“Adamek!” she cries. He stops. Nazirah doesn’t know where the courage comes from, but something has changed. Her armor has cracked. “There can be a better way to live,” she says, voice clear as a bell. “We can be better.”
Adamek pivots slowly. Disbelief shrouds his face, quickly replaced by shock, then fury. Whatever he was expecting, it was not that. He balls his fists, taking a menacing step forward. “What did you say?” His voice is hoarse and riddled with pain. He steps again, closing the gap between them. He shoves Nazirah hard, forcing her backwards.
“You heard me!”
Adamek pushes Nazirah again, slamming her against the wall. He pounds his fists beside her head. Nazirah flinches, but refuses to back down. “How?” he hisses.
“The Iluxor,” she says evenly. “Before campaign.”
He clenches his jaw, neck veins throbbing, hands splayed against stone. “And did Nazirah Nation satisfy her undying curiosity?” he snarls. “Is that what you were hoping to find, some insight into my fucked up, abusive life?” He grabs her chin roughly, dragging her up the wall. She kicks her legs uselessly, running on air. “Did you enjoy watching the only good thing in my worthless existence die, at the hand of my own father? Did it get you off, knowing my retribution had finally come?”
“I j
ust wanted to know!”
Their faces are even. Adamek holds a hand close to her scalp, yanking hard. Nazirah whimpers in pain. “I want to kill you right now,” he whispers, eyes smoldering. “Just pull a bit harder, break your neck … make all my problems go away with a snap. It would be so easy for me.”
“You’re all talk.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he growls.
“Do it then!” she yells, grabbing his shirt and wrenching him closer. “Do it!” Adamek looks so angry, so incredibly deranged. For a moment, Nazirah thinks he just might.
He kisses her instead.
Nazirah screams into his mouth, struggling to push him away. He untangles his hand from her hair, wrapping it firmly around her waist. Nazirah grabs his shoulders, pounds his chest, but he doesn’t stop. He presses his body into hers, trapping her against the wall. The logical part of her brain shouts to keep resisting, kick him, something. She doesn’t move. Nazirah lets him kiss her, desperate and hungry and wounded. She lets him kiss her like she is his oxygen, like he needs it. Adamek breaks contact, looking into her eyes.
And Nazirah thinks she just might need it too.
When Adamek bends his head a second time, Nazirah meets him halfway. She kisses him back. She feels the surprised intake of his breath, the electric tingle and crackle and pop. He props her up higher. She wraps her legs around him, trying to get as close as possible.
Their kisses are sloppy, frantic, and delirious. Months of pent-up emotion, finally come to fruition. Both know this deluded fantasy cannot last. It’s a minute to midnight and reality is knocking. Nazirah slides her fingers past his shoulders, trails them along his jaw, tugging his hair. Adamek moans into the back of her throat. He leaves her lips, kissing a wet trail down her neck and chest. Nazirah arches into him. It feels so right, but –
The clock strikes.
“Get off.”
Nazirah shoves his shoulders hard with renewed vigor. She untangles her legs, body tense. Nazirah puts her hands over her face, sucking her bee-stung, shamed lips. Adamek steps away, putting her down. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
Nazirah is suddenly insanely angry. “What’s wrong?” she yells. “This is what’s wrong! We’re wrong!”
“Nation.…”
Adamek reaches for her hand, but she slaps his away. “Don’t touch me!” she screams, mind racing. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” Her eyes are dark and wild, lips bruised and spitting inaccuracies.
“My plan?” he asks coldly. “And what plan is that?”
“The same one since I met you!” she shouts, feeling reckless, malicious. “Sacrifice a scratch on your hand for a notch on your bedpost? What was it you said again in Rafu? ‘Knock me down from my self-constructed pedestal?’ Tell everyone you conquered the frigid prude Nazirah Nation, scared little virgin who gave up everything to Adamek Morgen because she couldn’t control herself? That’s it … the power you wanted from the start!”
“Is that what you really believe?”
“I don’t know what to believe!” she cries. “You save my life one day, threaten to kill me the next! It’s exhausting being around you! Just be honest with me for once!”
“Be honest?” he asks. “How about be honest with yourself?”
“What do you –”
“Tell me, Irri,” Adamek mocks, “tell me the real reason you were roaming around my thoughts to begin with. Why you asked Solomon about me. Why you went back to the monastery.”
“I told you already,” she snaps; “I was curious! I needed to know I could trust you!”
“Liar! You’ve been searching high and low for something – anything! – to latch onto! Something to redeem me, make me less of a monster in your eyes. Something to make this pesky attraction you have for me acceptable. But you can’t find it, Nation.” He leans into her, whispers, “Because I am a monster.”
“You’re wrong!”
“Am I?” he asks. “Face it. You want it just as much as I do, but you’re scared. You want to be with the man you wish I were. And you’re afraid to be with the man I actually am.”
“Get out.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, throwing his arms up. He backs away from her, at the door now. “I’ll leave you, princess. Just answer me one final question.” Nazirah crosses her arms protectively. “Why wouldn’t you let me kill Ramses?”
She stiffens. “Like I said, there was already too much violence.”
“That’s what you said. But what’s the truth?”
“You want the truth?” she spits, crossing the room and standing before him.
“I want you to tell me what I already know!”
“Fine!” she says. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you killing anyone else!”
“Thank you,” he says, unreadable.
“Anytime,” she responds. “Now get the fuck out.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
They leave for Valestream at dawn, with Nazirah running on fumes. The abrupt return of her natural appearance goes unquestioned. Aldrik, abnormally chipper, assumes the MEDIcine has worn off. Luka shoots several suspicious looks Nazirah’s way but doesn’t say anything. Adamek doesn’t even acknowledge her.
The three campaigners enter a waiting truck in the underground garage. Nazirah spends the following hours curled up in the backseat, ignoring everyone.
Nazirah rose early, unable to sleep. She bathed in a wooden soaking tub filled with mountain water, heated by sizzling fire stones. Nazirah scrubbed her lips until they bled, trying to erase all traces of him, of what they did. She cried into her knees, alone in the dark, until the water turned icy.
Submerging entirely, Nazirah sank into divine inexistence, nothing but a bag of bones, atoms, and collapsed matter. She sank far down and she tried to stay, there, in that black hole of nothingness. But it spit her out. Lungs about to burst, Nazirah returned to the surface, a sputtering, gasping mass of being.
This needs to stop.
“There is only one path to redemption,” Nazirah whispered, remembering her promise. “You know what it is.”
Truthfully, Nazirah isn’t sure what she knows.
The truck zooms along. Nazirah sits up slowly, blinking into the bright sunlight. She looks out the window, finds that the barren north has become intensely green. Green like emeralds, green like envy. Green like the eyes of someone she has spent hours avoiding.
The mountain ranges have been replaced by lush, rolling hills. The ice has melted, forming freshwater streams and creeks. Trees, taller than Nazirah ever imagined, blanket the vivid sky. Osen was the cradle and rattle of Kasimir’s childhood, the rock of his youth, the muse of his adolescence. It was his first love, his lifelong love.
But not his one love.
Coming here is surreal. Nazirah was once so excited to visit Osen. But that was in the beginning of the campaign, when the threat of war seemed distant, when Eridies was not under attack, when life made more sense.
The truck rolls to a stop. Nazirah steps outside and stretches. A soft breeze caresses her cheek. The scents of pine and grass saturate the air. Valestream is breathtaking, an architectural wonder. Impossibly large oak trees abound, a legion of bark and leaf. An entire village, built high into the trees and surprisingly modern, connected by rope bridges and winding stairs pegged into thick trunks. Several loggers and carpenters hum in the distance, familiar childhood melodies, lullabies Kasimir would sing to send Nazirah to sleep.
The villagers swing axes effortlessly, bringing down timber without ceremony. Nazirah closes her eyes, inhaling, turning her face upwards. She can almost feel Kasimir’s presence floating somewhere in the treetops.
Aldrik stands beside her, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders. “They expect us to sleep in a damn tree?” he grumbles. “We’re not a bunch of monkeys.”
“I think it’s amazing,” Nazirah says candidly.
Adamek snorts. “Good luck crossing those bridges on your own.”
Nazirah glares at hi
m. “Somehow, I’m sure I’ll manage.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“Irri!”
Nazirah whirls around. Lumi and Taj wave at her, smiling and sitting on a bench carved into the base of a tree. Nazirah abandons Aldrik and Adamek, running over to them. Overjoyed, she gives them both huge hugs. Lumi’s hair has grown a bit longer and Taj has slightly more muscle. But they both appear largely unchanged. Their constancy amidst the chaotic gyre of Nazirah’s life lifts her spirits.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Nazirah Nation?” Lumi asks. She pulls away, taken aback by Nazirah’s friendliness, making room on the bench.
Nazirah smiles widely, never happier to hear her dulcet tones. “What are you doing here?” she asks breathlessly. “It’s so good to see you!”
“I was called back from assignment a week early,” Lumi responds. “I traveled through Valestream last night, where Taj was. We heard you were passing through today and decided to wait for you.”
“You did?”
“We needed a ride.”
Lumi hits Taj’s arm. “We may have also desired safe passage into Krush, considering the current circumstances.”
“You mean your uncle’s troops?” Nazirah asks.
Lumi sighs. “Yes,” she says. “My uncle is completely incapable of doing anything right. But with the troops already breaching Krush, set to reach the compound within a day, it’s best to take precautions. He’s psychotic and unpredictable.”
“Why would Gabirel send him in the first place?” Nazirah asks. “And to burn everything on foot? Why not send the Medi troops in choppers?”
“Because,” Lumi scoffs, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “this isn’t the fight yet, Nazirah. It’s a fight … but not the fight. It’s meant to intimidate us, instill fear. Or maybe overconfidence, knowing Ivan’s ineptitude.”
“How have your travels been?” asks Taj, trying to lighten the mood.
“It’s been unreal,” she replies. “It was so good to go home, even for a little while. And the Red West was fascinating … once you got used to the dust. The music, the food, the dancing … everything was intoxicating.”