The Silver Sparrow

Only Tradition

"Kill the horse, Djari," her father said, looking down at her with the eyes of a man more than ready to draw the blade at his waist. "Do it, or I'll have her put down by someone else."

The Kha'a of Visarya was a hard man with a reputation that preceded him, but there was a burning, permanent anger in him now that hadn't been there before. It had been different when her mother was alive. The Kha'ari had, everyone knew, been the only soul in the desert that could bend Za'in izr Husari.

Djari didn't have that kind of influence over her father, nor her mother's gift that had allowed her to move people with words. Her talent leaned more toward causing a fight or a fit of rage in powerful men, like her father.

"I will," she said. "When the time comes." Her horse might never run again, but there was still hope, wasn't there?

"Tonight, Djari." The command, this time, was spoken in the tone of a Kha'a to his subject, not of a father to his child. It was also given in a tent full of chiefs and White Warriors, and she was old enough to know the penalty of disrespecting a Kha'a in front of his men.

Still, she opened her mouth to speak, and immediately closed it at the small gesture of her brother's hand.

Nazir was their trueblood oracle, born with the correct characteristics of one with his amber eyes and silver hair. It meant that he was never wrong. She knew then, biting back her arguments and her tears at the Kha'a's dining table, that the fate of her horse had already been decided, and not quite by her father.

She left the table without finishing her dinner. Father would punish her for that later, she knew, and intended to accept the consequences of her actions. Wasting a meal would get her starved for a few days. For her display of defiance, he would take away more of her freedom. It wouldn't be the first time she had to endure it. At some point, one could get used to such things and find living with consequences better than living in fear.

Tonight, she needed time deal with the loss and the consequences was acceptable. Lady had been her mother's horse. For three years she had taken care of the mare, had washed her, fed her, and even helped her deliver a foal over the summer. How, Djari had asked herself a hundred times in the past three days, could she end such a life and live with herself afterward? So far, she didn't have the answer.

It would be the first time she had to take a life, and she had long wished it would be an enemy's or at least in self-defense. One could live with some justifications for causing death when it had to do with vengeance or self-preservation, and expect a measurement of forgiveness from oneself or others. But there was no justification for killing in the name of mercy, not to her. Living, no matter how painful, was the embodiment of hope, and hope was what they needed to end the war, to carry on traditions, to offer peace to the next generations. She would choose to live even with every joy and freedom taken from her. She was already living that life, had been from the moment she was born a Bharavi. Joy and freedom were for someone who didn't have to carry the lives of thousands, for someone who wasn't daughter to a Kha'a.

If she could live with that, why couldn't her mare?

The dagger in her hand gleamed like a newly polished silver. It felt heavier now than when she was holding it a few days before. 'A blade must be wielded with purpose, or it will become a burden,' her sword master had said. She could understand it a little better now, for how heavy it had become.

She opened her hand and closed it again around the hilt and realized her palm was now slick with sweat from having done so for the past hour.

"You don't have to do it yourself," a voice sounded from behind, gentle and comforting, the way her mother's had been. "No one will know."