"Would you still try, given a choice?" The speaker, a young man, tall, lean and elegant, almost to the point of looking delicate, may have been standing there for some time listening to their conversation. An undeniable air of authority filled the tent the moment he allowed himself to be noticed, giving Hasheem a sudden need to relocate himself elsewhere.

He had come to know this man by experience, had been expecting him to appear at some point. There had been one like him everywhere in his life. In the dungeon, the brothel, the slave quarter, or one of Dee's hidden chambers. Every time, just when he had settled for death, Fate always sent someone to offer him a choice to live, only those choices never came for free.

"And you are the man who would give me that choice, I presume?" Hasheem asked in his most sardonic tone. It was about to begin again, the games, the punishment, the reward. The chains around his wrists and ankles. He'd known this dance for a long time. A price would be named soon.

The man crossed over in three smooth, flawless strides and stopped in front of him, looking down from his considerable height. He was wearing a zikh, the signature white robe given to the most elite class of Shakshi warriors, and had kept the hood on so that only a part of his face could be seen. The way Djari had fallen into complete silence told him that this man, whoever he was, outranked her in more ways than one.

There were only a handful of people who outranked a Bharavi in the White Desert, as far as he knew.

"That depends," the man said mildly, "on how willing you are to consider my proposal."

"A proposal." Hasheem sneered at the irony of things. He hated being right sometimes. "And what," he said, "would you have me do, may I ask? Clean your stable, kill your competition, or fuck your guests? I happen to be highly proficient in all three."

The arrow in his back was suddenly snapped in half, and Hasheem, nearly yelping at the pain, looked promptly over his shoulder.

"You are in the presence of the Khumar of Visarya," Djari said with murder in her eyes. "You will mind your manner or I will add your tongue to the list of things to remove tomorrow."

It would explain a lot of things, Hasheem realized, looking at the young man who was standing calmly over him. This was the Khumar, heir to the future Kha'a of the Kha'gan, the highest ruling figure of the tribe. He might not be the most powerful man on that strip of the desert, but he was the one next in line, bestowed, apparently, with enough authority to change and corrupt the most notoriously strict laws in the peninsula.

A proposal, the Khumar had said. Anything could be bought, even among the most disciplined, code-abiding people on earth. There are no monsters bigger than the worst of men, Dee had said. There really weren't. The world was the same, everywhere, whichever side of the desert you were on.

"Good," he said spitefully, ignoring the throbbing pain behind his shoulder. "I was beginning to wonder who I have to fuck to get out of here."

Behind him, Djari took hold of whatever had been left of the arrow shaft and twisted. It took everything he had to not growl at the pain. He didn't have to turn around to know those yellow eyes would be attempting to burn a hole through his skull right about then. And if her sense of duty toward her Khumar hadn't been enough to make her want to shoot him again for his blatant display of insubordination, the love and respect she seemed to harbor for this man would certainly do the job. That, for some reason, was pissing him off more than anything else.

"My sister has a temper. For that, I apologize," the Khumar said as he gestured something to Djari, who then obediently removed her hand from the arrow. "I will, however, advise against the use of such words and tone with the Kha'a. Many have lost their tongue for less."

He didn't doubt it, but he was way past giving a damn about losing limbs especially when death was already at his doorstep. "Assuming that I choose to live past tomorrow," he said. It was going to be his choice this time whether or not he let himself be put in chains again.

The Khumar smiled. He could see the resemblance between the two of them now, looking more closely. They had the same yellow eyes, the similar straight nose, and the high, well-defined cheekbones. There was a special meaning to that, something about a man who shared the same characteristics with a Bharavi that he couldn't remember. It didn't matter. He was about to die in any case.

"Assuming that you are who I think you are. I believe you will like my proposal," continued the Khumar with the same presumptuous, silky-smooth voice that had been getting on his nerves since the man had entered the room. He sounded like he knew things people didn't, and was certain of it in ways that no one should have the right to be.

"You don't know me."

The gentle, seemingly harmless smile turned swiftly into a poisonous, disturbing one. "Don't I?"

The next Kha'a of Visarya took two measured steps forward to stand before him, looking down from an imposing height with a calmness that stilled the room. Sure, steady hands moved slowly to push back the hood from his head, revealing the long, near-silver hair matching that of Djari.

"You lost your family when you were ten," he began in an unanimated tone, as if reciting from a text or a scroll. "It happened on a moonless night. They came with fire, in the dark, burning first the eastern side of the camp. Your entire Kha'gan was destroyed, burned to the ground as you watched. I think," he said, leaning closer, "that is why you hadn't tried to return to the desert ever since. Or am I wrong?"

Hasheem swallowed as a torrent of images rushed back into his head. They had come with fire, with torches burning wildly on horseback. The tents had gone up in flame, one by one––a giant burning snake slithering though camp, leaving trails of fire everywhere it touched before the main cavalry had charged in. Then came the screams of horses and people, rising above all the sounds in the desert as they began to slaughter the men and round up the women and children.

It had been among the memories he managed to bury in the furthest corner of his mind, now dragged out of hiding by this man—this stranger—who seemed to know every detail of that night. It wasn't possible, not even imaginable, that he could have known these things. Those who did had all died or still resided in Rasharwi.

The Khumar lowered himself to the ground to stare levelly at him, his eyes glowing a ghostly shade of amber. "You killed a man, not too long ago," he continued. "That's why they're hunting you. Why you're on a run. That burn," he glanced quickly at Djari, "was no accident."

Hasheem opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn't. Long, elegant fingers reached over to cradle his head from behind, holding him in place. The Khumar leaned forward, his lips brushing the side of his ear, and whispered in a tone that made every hair on his body stand on end, "I know what you have done, what you had to do to survive. I've seen the faces of the men you've killed, and those you wanted to see dead. Have I said enough, or would you like me to go on?"

If there had been a part of him that thought the Khumar was harmless in any way, it was gone as soon as he'd finished the sentence. This was someone who knew all his secrets, his past, and every crime he'd ever committed. Hasheem suddenly realized what he was, and should have known it the moment saw that silver hair. "You're an oracle." His voice was trembling now, despite all his efforts to hide the fact that he'd just been frightened out of his wits.

"The only one you will likely see outside of Citara," he said, smiling again as though nothing had happened.

Hasheem realized then, why Djari had been so protective of her brother, so respectful of him. No one had seen or heard of an oracle outside of Citara since the hunt that had begun more than a decade ago. Salar Muradi had ordered an extensive search for them, and still offered a large sum for any information that would lead to their capture. To everyone's understanding, oracles, pureblood or imposters, had already been butchered near the point of extinction.

Hasheem, having been caught in the middle of that same hunt that had killed his family, had never truly understood the need for it until now. The late oracle of his Kha'gan, a pureblood with blue eyes and light copper hair, had only been able to see the arrival of a storm or perhaps an unseasonal rain. The man sitting in front of him was something else. This was a trueblood oracle whose visions and foresight could bring down the Salasar, the kind that had forced Salar Muradi to order a wholesale slaughter of the White Desert to get rid of.

Shocking as it was, the revelation had also told him something else with regard to his own situation.

"I'm never going to leave here alive, am I?" It was too much of a risk, now that he knew what he knew. Whatever alternatives the man had been meaning to offer him, it did not include the possibility of him leaving this Kha'gan alive.

"I'm afraid not."

"And the alternative?"

"You can stay," he replied, "and become a part of this Kha'gan."

"I see." He allowed himself to smile a little too widely this time. "As your prisoner or your slave, may I ask?" How many times could one possibly jump from one shackle to the next in the pursuit of freedom before eventually finding it—if one were to do so at all?

The same gentle smile returned, though this time with a hint of something else that hadn't been there before. It might have been uncertainty, or guilt, or even pity, he wasn't sure. "As Djari's sworn sword and blood. If she will take you."

Behind him, Djari stiffened.

"My sworn sword and blood?" she repeated.

"If you will take him," said the Khumar. The coldness in his voice disappeared when he spoke to his sister, Hasheem noticed. "He is your prisoner, Djari, you can let him die, or you can speak for him. It is a choice you have to make."

She grew quiet for a time, considering her options, despite the absurdity of it all. When she spoke again, it was with unmistakable conviction in her tone. "You trust him to be my sworn sword and blood? Is this what you have seen in your vision, Nazir?"

The Khumar shook his head and smiled almost apologetically. There was much love between the two of them that was visible for anyone to see, and neither had tried to hide it. "I see nothing beyond this point, Djari," he told her. "I'm only a messenger. I don't know if he is meant to live or die, or why the gods have sent him to us. All I know is what you decide today will shape the fate of the entire peninsula. It is your judgment that I trust, as the one who has been born to bring an end to the war."

To bring an end to the war. Hasheem found himself holding his breath at the revelation. These words, spoken by a trueblood oracle could be considered a prophecy, and he, after all this time, had been sitting in the same tent as the one who would bring it all to an end—the raids, the bloodshed, the war that had been going on for hundreds of years.

And his life had been tied into it, according to the Khumar. A few moments ago he might have dismissed it as folly, but how was he supposed to dismiss anything this man had to say, having heard what he had heard about his own past, having seen what he could do?

"And if I choose wrong?" Djari asked with uncertainty in her voice, for the first time.

"Then it is meant to be," he replied. "Perhaps we are meant to lose the war or become a part of the Salasar. Perhaps there are other ways to find peace. I don't know. But there are always signs everywhere and all around us. If you look for them, you may see the will of Ravi."

Had there been signs? Hasheem wondered. Was there a pattern, a coincidence, that had led him to this point in his life? He'd never considered himself to be pious. When one had been through what he had, the promise of prayers being answered seemed like a joke. But sitting there, in front of an oracle, knowing what he knew now, it was difficult to not question himself whether there had been a purpose to all this, if every loss, every suffering he'd been through, had simply been a part of a grander design.

'Go west,' Dee had said, for a reason he refused to share just before Hasheem left the city. It had slipped his mind that a gift of foresight was one of Dee's many abilities. Why, he'd often wondered, had he been singled out from the other slaves, to be bought and trained by one of the most brilliant men in Rasharwi? How was it possible that he had survived to this day, given what he had been through? "Why," he said, "am I not dead?"

The tent fell into silence. Nazir Khumar looked past him to Djari, waiting for an answer. She took a breath, and, without further hesitation, plunged the tip of her blade into the arrow wound and began to cut it open. His mind went blank for a moment at the sudden, unexpected jolt of pain. He could have used a warning, or at least a gentler hand, but she seemed to be concentrating on digging the arrow out quickly not digging it out safely at that point.

The arrowhead came off, miraculously, with him still alive and breathing. After a moment of pause, Djari rose and strode to where she'd left her belongings. She picked up her quiver and emptied it onto the floor between him and Nazir. The arrows, beautifully crafted and identical, had all been tipped with small, gleaming black stones.

Obsidian. He knew that stone, could recognize it from anywhere. The iconic Black Tower in Rasharwi was comprised almost entirely of it. 'You should have died,' she had said. Now he understood why. Obsidian broke sharper than any other material could have been forged or sharpened by hand. These arrowheads could penetrate two men and still come out clean on the other side.

It had barely gone halfway through him.

"This is bone," she said, holding up a white arrow point still covered with his blood. "Somebody put a bone arrow in my quiver."

There are signs everywhere, the Khumar's words were still occupying his mind as he looked at the rest of the arrows scattering on the floor. One out of twenty-four. Even if someone had put that arrow in her quiver on purpose, what were the chances that she would have picked it without looking? He closed his eyes and exhaled the breath he had been holding. "Explain to me," he said, "what I have to do."