The Silver Sparrow

A World Without You

"You, of all people, should know I'd survive," Hasheem said sardonically. It came out more bitter than he'd wanted it to. "I can't seem to die no matter what I do." How he'd managed to survive this long when everyone else in his life was dead was a mystery. From the raid, the time spent at Sabha, the jobs he'd done for Dee, the escape from Rasharwi, him being spared when caught by the Visarya, and now, even the deadliest poison existed couldn't kill him. It felt sometimes, that there was some divine being sitting up there having one hell of a time watching him suffer and keeping him alive for the sake of it.

As if Dee could read his thoughts, the corner of his lips lifted into an amused grin. "Sorry, kid. Just got to suffer like the rest of us for a while longer. Your role here isn't yet done."

"My role?" He could almost laugh at that. Almost. "What role do you suppose I have now? I can't do shit with these wounds." The plan had been for him to kill Saracen. It was the only card they had to convince Sarasef to side with the White Desert. With these wounds and the state he was in, that possibility was gone. Sarasef couldn't wait for him to heal. He couldn't afford to especially with this last assassination attempt.

He turned to Sarasef then, thought about it for a time and decided to just deal with the issue. "What will you do now?"

"What will I do?" Sarasef traced the question like trying to recall the taste of his favorite wine. "Your bharavi didn't really give me much of a choice. She muscled me into forming an alliance with the Visarya using your sacrifice to call on my honor. The other boy has been released and sent back to negotiate that alliance four days ago. Za'in has accepted the offer. It's done."

Hasheem blinked. "She did that?"

Sarasef nodded. "While you were still sleeping. The reply arrived this morning."

Relief went through him like being doused with cold water in the midday sun. Hasheem sank into the pillow that had been propped against his lower back and allowed himself to breathe freely for the first time since he'd awakened. In a way, he should have seen it coming. Djari was Djari. She had her wits about her even in the most hopeless situation and the guts to back it up. He wished he'd seen it though, that image of her trying to muscle Sarasef into agreeing with this and then succeeded.

"There is," said Sarasef, "just one problem to be discussed. They know who you are now."

It hit him like a stench from a corpse left to rot in the attic when someone opened the door ten days later, and suddenly everything seemed to crumble. They knew who he was now, of course—there had been no way to hide it after everything that had happened. That ugliness was out in the open, and there was no way to put it back.

He was the Silver Sparrow. That name would follow him anywhere, dictate everything in his life no matter how long and how far he'd left it behind.

You thought you could run, didn't you? You were stupid enough to believe you could leave it all behind, start all over and the past wouldn't catch up and drag you down the same pit you crawled out of.

They would want him dead now if he were to set foot back into the khagan. Even Djari couldn't fix that. If she still wanted him back.

'You traitorous whore,' the prince's mother had called him once. He remembered her face then, the look in her eyes, the disgust in them that wanted to incinerate him on the spot. He'd wondered many times if Djari would have felt the same way had she known who he was. Now she knew, and she was avoiding him.

"I see," Hasheem said, pushing that thought aside. She could still come. Tonight. Tomorrow. And everything would be as they were. "So what happens now?"