'I want to die young on the sand of the 'Amsala.'

Nazir jolted awake from the image of Baaku that slipped into his dream. He jumped off the bed, ran to the mirror, and released the breath he had been holding. His eyes hadn't changed. You weren't having a vision, calm the fuck down. It was a memory. A dream. Nothing more.

A memory to forget and yet he never could, for that matter. He remembered the day it had been spoken, the grin on Baaku's face when he said it, even the way his hand caressed the scooped up sand as it slipped through his fingers. It was their first Dyal together. Baaku had stood in the pit of the Birkhramsala, face drenched in the scorching sun, turning a full circle to drink in the monstrosity of the outdoor structure built to hold over thirty-thousand spectators that wrapped around the famed fighting ground of the gods, and hammered those words into his heart. Into both their hearts.

A memory, no more. That Baaku had chosen the 'Amsala to fight had nothing to do with it. The venue was a common choice for duels between kha'as and khumars. It was always an honor to fight on the sacred ground of Birkra, the god of war, with the city of Citara as witness. This was no sign, no vision.

He shook those thoughts away as he dressed and cleaned himself, threw on a freshly pressed zikh and stepped out of the room. Out in the corridor, Kaal who seemed to have been waiting there for some time straightened upon seeing him. A neatly folded robe of blue and gold that had been draped over his arm swayed as the captain stepped forward.

"Nazir Kha'a." Kaal dipped his head in a ceremonial show of respect. They were, after all, in public. "A gift from the Ma'adevi." He shook the robe free of its creases and folds. A large falcon stitched in gold stared at him from the back of the robe, its wings stretched out on both sides as if to embrace the shoulders of the one who wore it. Wrapped loosely around the falcon that represented the Visarya khagan was the white snake image of the Ma'adevi.

Two symbols, intertwined as one. An offering of truce or a display of chains around my neck? There would be a crowd at the 'Amsala this morning. She knew this, and symbols mattered.

Kaal stepped forward, holding the robe open. "If I may."

Nazir looked at the robe and then the man who'd brought it, realized from the expression of someone caught between a sword and a spear that the captain hadn't been given much of a choice. He turned around and slipped his arms into the sleeves, clenched his jaw as it pulled down his shoulders. Another weight to carry. Another problem to deal with.

Kaal smoothed out the crease with his hands and took his time as he reached under Nazir's hair that had been trapped behind the robe. A thumb brushed across the back of his neck by no accident before he pulled it free. A reminder, to be sure, of something owed that must be paid.

"It looks good on you," said Kaal, standing half a step too close than necessary, close enough for Nazir to feel those words against his earlobe.

Nazir turned toward him and pulled back. Whatever Kaal saw in his eyes painted a shadow across that face. The captain, at least, managed to manufacture a rather convincing look of sympathy. "I'm sorry this happened."

"He's not dead yet, Kaal, no matter how much you wish it," Nazir snapped and realized what he'd done. "I'm sorry." He sighed. "I'm not in a diplomatic mood this morning." I want to lash out at something, someone.

Kaal nodded. "It's all right. You can take it out on me. That way, I am of some use to you." There was an edge in that tone, even if the words seemed genuine. "And for what it's worth, no, I don't want him to die. I can't fill a dead man's shadow, Nazir Kha'a, and I don't want to. However different our reasons are in this, I am still on your side. Can you trust me that much at least?"

Trust, he thought. How do I trust anyone here? Or anyone at all as Kha'a? He never answered that question. His mind was too occupied by something else, somewhere else. He turned and walked down the corridor under the weight of that new robe, with Kaal striding two steps behind, toward the arena of the gods where a life would be taken that morning.

***

The belly of the Birkramsala echoed with whispers of ghosts as Nazir made his way down its narrow corridors. The maze of preparation rooms, animal holding pens, and weapon storage underneath the fighting pit were said to have seen thousands of deaths since the day Eli had discovered and written the first record of its structure. An excavation led by a Ma'adevi three hundred years ago had led to the discovery of more than eighteen hundred remains of warriors who were buried underneath these rooms along with their weapons. Speculations among historians, drawn from the abundance of statues and symbols of Birkra around the gallery and the wall carvings depicting a great battle, suggested the pit may have been built above a battleground where a massacre took place in the name of the god. There were more than eighteen hundred bodies buried here, Nazir had been told. They simply stopped digging at that point for lack of resources. Five decades later, a great earthquake during the coronation of a Ma'adevi collapsed a part of the gallery and killed more than five hundred citizens who attended the event. The Ma'adevi never made it to the White Tower from the riot that followed the disaster, and one could still see the joints between old and new stones from its restoration to this day.

Ironic, truly, that they should use the pit for Dyal competitions where people came together to celebrate once a year, at which time the entire city of Citara would turn into the venue for parties, drinking games, and colorful festivals that lasted longer than a week. Then again, deaths only happened by accident on Dyal events. When the 'Amsala was used for individual duels, however, the fight was always to the death. Only Kha'as and Khumars could request the Birkramsala as their fighting ground.

It was the first time Nazir had entered the belly without the commotion of warriors preparing for the Dyal, the first time he could feel the presence of ghosts underneath the sand of the 'Amsala in the bone-chilling silence it produced, and the sense that something was there in its empty rooms and vacant corners. The walls seemed to whisper. The ceiling felt occupied. The shadows moved in the absence of shifting lights. Someone was crying somewhere too close to miss, too far hear. Soft, unidentifiable footsteps falling behind the right timing of echoes, followed them around for a time. Disappeared.

"Do you ever see them?" Nazir asked without turning around. "These ghosts."

Kaal picked up the pace and closed in another step from behind, though still keeping the appropriate distance for someone of lower rank. "Some people do," he replied. "There's a girl. They say she brings a flower to the chosen champion each Dyal. Some contestants come early, leave her sweets, toys, dead goats, you name it."

Superstition, Nazir thought. Then again, he was the one giving people visions from the gods. Perhaps he should have brought a toy or something.

A desperate thought of a desperate man. How low can you go? How lacking in faith can you be?

They turned a corner and saw two White Tower guards standing in front of a door. They snapped their heels at the sight of Kaal and straightened.

"Make way," commanded Kaal. The two guards obeyed without questions, stepping aside. Kaal turned to Nazir, managed a dutiful expression, and said, "I will wait here and let you know when it's time."

Nazir nodded, pushed the door open to step into the room, and took his time to close it. I am not ready for this, he realized. But there was no time. There never had been enough time. Not for us.

The cold, dark room was lit with eight sconces, each large enough to burn someone alive if not also a small village. Silence clung to its walls and ceiling, seemed to screech as the crackling fire whipped them into shape. The flames danced to the occasional draft that rushed in through the ventilation shafts, filled the room with erratic shadows of what looked like a crowd at campfire cheering for someone to die while intoxicated. It almost felt appropriate, Nazir thought. Half the city would come to see the fight this morning, to witness the death of someone, for excitement, for sport.

'People anywhere like to see death,' his father had said. 'It reminds them how fortunate they are to be alive. Makes life a little easier to see someone fall, especially someone bigger than they are.'

As long as it wasn't someone you knew, of course. He'd always hated the crowd. He'd hated Citara. Now he that he had become Kha'a, he could no longer run from it.

Alone, at the far end of the room, Baaku stood before a full-length mirror, his body stripped down to the skin from the waist up, leaving only the leather arm bands Nazir had come to recognize. Gold paint shimmered in the light of the burning fire as patterns emerged from Baaku's fingertips, filling the smooth canvas of dark skin with words of prayers to Birkra. The letters seemed to move as he breathed, brought to life by the rise and fall of his chest. Somewhere out there, a priest was singing, leading a prayer to bless the fighters. Someone would die that morning, after all. One death was inevitable, for the sake of pride, of honor.

It was an old tradition, carried down for centuries in the White Desert. A scheduled duel––always to the death––between Kha'as or Khumars were believed to be witnessed by the gods. Though not generally a requirement, participants often chose to paint their skin with prayers for protection and blessings from their god of choice, hoping to live–or die–in the eyes of a divine being. In the White Desert, how one died was important; the fear death was reserved for the ones left behind, never for the dying. And even then, to his people, all fears must be survived, lived with, and endured.

He closed his eyes for a moment before taking a step forward. They felt heavy this morning––his arms, his feet. "You're making a big deal out of this," he said, didn't like how unsteady it sounded, didn't think he could do much about it, in any case.

Baaku grinned at him through the mirror. The same grin where the left corner of his mouth rose a little higher than the right, telling Nazir he was about to drop a jest. A shrug followed, as expected. "I like my big entrance. You know me."

That, he did. Not well enough, long enough.

Nazir crushed that thought, put on a smile as he crossed the room to stand behind Baaku, wondering when he had come to recognize all these gestures, when he'd begun to memorize them. "I know you." He reached for the wooden bowl on the nearby table, dipped a finger in the gold paint, and let the excess drip off for a time. Baaku watched him take over the task and waited, didn't say a word. Words weren't always needed between them, not at that point.

The persistent draft slowed to a breeze, the shadows stopped moving, seemed to watch them with keen interest. Time slowed to crawl as he reached forward, and in that suspended silence, the world shrank to the space before his fingertips. The prayers outside grew louder, for all that his senses narrowed to accommodate only the patch of skin he was about to touch.

Baaku's muscles twitched at the feel of his finger––or the coldness of the paint, he wasn't sure. It stayed corded and tensed as Nazir traced a line down his spine, toward the small of his back where the hollow ended. "I know this too," he said. He did know them––the shape of Baaku's back, the area where his skin turned from dark honey to pale yellow, the slopes of muscles and bones that surrounded it. "I know how it has changed since then, when you were just a boy." He traced another line, branching off to the side, pausing where the hip bone became most prominent. He said, chasing his own pulse, catching Baaku's eyes, "I want to see it change still. Ten, twenty years from now. Longer, if you will let me. Do you understand?"

Baaku drew a breath, a desperate one, like a child tasting air for the first time. "I have," he said, pausing to breathe again, to smile, "wanted to hear that for a long time. I never thought I would."

"It is not for you to take to your grave, Baaku." His tone hardened at that, at the finality in it he didn't welcome. "I didn't come to say goodbye. Do you understand?" Promise me something. Give me a word, an anchor, something to hold on to, the strength to fight.

Baaku stilled for a time, watching him from the mirror, figured it out. "You want me to promise you I wouldn't die," he said.

"I do."

"Why?" A sadness in his eyes, a ghost of some pain that had never been set right. "What changes if I die? Does it all come down to nothing if you lose me today, tonight, tomorrow?"

What changes? A knot formed in his stomach, in his chest. "That isn't fair."

"Isn't it?" Baaku said, his face hardened, his tone heavy as a hammer. "I've never needed those certainties, Nazir. I don't need to know we will have a happy ending, that there is a tomorrow for you, for me, for us. I need you to be here, to love me without certainties, without promises, without regrets. I want a place in your life that doesn't change whether I live or die. Do I have it? Will you give me that peace of mind before I go out there to fight? Can you give me that much?"

A place in my life that doesn't change...

It brought him to a halt, suspended him in a haze where time had stopped along with everything around them. 'What changes?' Baaku had asked. What if he dies today, tomorrow? Do I forget everything that happened? Does he disappear from my life, my mind? Is it all for nothing if our endings are not perfect? If we don't live for a long time?

Through the mirror, Baaku stared at him, trembling as he tried to breathe, to read something in his eyes. Somehow, in that absence of time, the fog began to clear, bringing back memories he'd stashed somewhere in the dusty corner––memories of their lives from the first time they had met and the tainted moments that had brought them here.

It began with a simple tune, a pair of awkward notes playing slightly off-key. Two clumsy strangers in a cave who stumbled upon each other. Two people trying to learn their boundaries, taking a step forward, holding back, drawing lines. Somewhere along the way, another melody came to life, taking over, turning them into things that suddenly aligned, became something that held them together throughout the fights and the wounds they inflicted.

There had, Nazir realized at that moment, feeling a weight long held being lifted from his chest, never been a time when everything was right in the world for them. They had been clinging to each other in awkwardness, walking together on a path that could crumble any minute, and yet the tune that held them together had never changed. It never would.

And after all this time, Baaku had understood, had needed the same assurance from him––an assurance he'd never offered in return. An assurance, that he would hold on to this, despite everything that could go wrong, and the future that would never give them the happy ending they hoped for. It wasn't needed, after all. Love needed no promises of security, of certainties, of happy endings. It shouldn't.

Nazir dipped his finger into the bowl again, steadily this time, and picked up the unfinished prayer. "I will marry," he said, smoothing the line as he came to the end of the word, began again, "have a beautiful wife, two smiling children." A lie, that. He'd seen his life since he was ten. Wondered if Baaku would catch it.

"Of course," Baaku said, a vulnerability in his voice one couldn't miss. "That is your duty as Kha'a."

"I would go on living without you, to fight my battles without you, and die content without you." Another blatant lie, another life he wasn't destined to lead. "But you know," he said, thinking of his father, of the place he set at the dining table every night for his Kha'ari, "I think I will look for you forever in my tent, at that corner I used to find you waiting, by the table you used to sit, on my bed where we used to lie awake, talking. I will look for you, for as long as I live. That part of my life will never change. I don't think it ever would."

Words weren't needed between them, he had presumed just now. A foolish thought of a selfish man. Some words needed to be said, should have been said a long time ago. Tomorrow was a gift they couldn't hope for during times of war, not for the life they lead.

That morning, underneath the sand of the Birkramsala, amidst the whispers of ghosts that never left its belly, Baaku stood watching him trace the prayers through the mirror, sharing memories that seemed to have come back to life. Memories of doorways and corners once occupied, of wine left unfinished before a fight, of words that wounded, chased away, and replaced by whispers in the dark, of love, made and unmade, broken and mended again and again, of things they knew would never change, for however long they lived.

The prayer from outside ended, signaling the time when the duel would soon commence. Nazir finished off the last word, blew on the gold paint to dry, placed the zikh over Baaku's shoulder, and brushed out the wrinkles.

"Take it off when you're in the pit," he said. "Give them a big entrance. Go out there and fight. Try not to die, and come back to me."

Baaku turned around, and for the first time that morning they stood face to face, breathing in the scent of each other, remembering the presence, the moment that might not come again in their lifetime.

Three knocks on the door tore apart the silence. Kaal stepped into the room, held himself back by the entrance when he saw them. "It's time."

Baaku nodded, grabbed his axe and the rest of his belongings before heading for the door. Stopped for a breath as he walked past Nazir to place a hand on his shoulder, held it just long enough for the weight and the heat from those fingers to linger, and lifted it free. No more words spoken. It wasn't needed. Not this time.

Nazir watched the two men leave the room, feeling a strange moment of calmness as Baaku's touch faded, smiling as he remembered his own destiny and his own death he knew wasn't too far away. Maybe Baaku would survive, and he was the first one to die. It would be all right. Nothing changes. I will wait. Until we meet again.

There were ghosts here, after all.

Something tugged on the sleeve of his left arm. He looked down and saw a girl in red holding a white flower he didn't recognize. She held it up, caught his eyes, and placed it in his hand.

'There's a girl...she brings a flower to the chosen champion,' Kaal had said.

"You are mistaken," Nazir mumbled under his breath, trying to catch the meaning of it. "I'm not fighting."

The girl smiled, turned around, and disappeared.

***

A/N: This is probably the sappiest chapter I have written for this book, and you know what, I don't care. This moment for them is something I will remember forever, and if you are inclined, the music on the header is what has inspired me to write this one. The constant notes playing off-key, picked up and brought together by another tune that caught you at a surprise is precisely what this is. The soundtrack of this movie hurts, if you haven't watched it. But this score is practically Baaku and Nazir for me, if not also Hasheem and Djari. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. The next chapter will probably be the duel.  :)

Edit: if you missed it, there's a filler called "No Happy Endings" at the back of book one which is the story of Baaku and Nazir when they first met in that cave. 😊