Waqar Marouf had once been a man of ambitions — he’d risen to the ranks of the Shayfahan military commander during the days of the Wraithknife War. He had fought the Altharin with a rage that rivaled that of the mothers who fought the invaders to protect their sons and daughters.

He had a daughter himself, once, back when the days seemed lighter and more bearable; back before the wars. But he had lost her to an illness that no one could understand at the time, an illness that had slowly taken over her at the tender age of twenty and two years.

For one day — only a day after she had sat down to supper with her family, laughing and running after her little brother — Ruqayyah walked down into the river and drowned herself. What she had really drowned in, something told Waqar, was into the depths of something they could not see; something darker than the river. For months, Waqar would dream of Ruqayyah wading into the murky waters, alone and cold, her hair soaked, her eyes no longer of this world. They would shine in his dreams, with a strange light so brilliant, it would blind him until he could not see her anymore even as he called to her; and he would awake gasping, drenched in sweat.

There were days when he thought that perhaps it was his daughter’s death that finally broke the veil under which he had continued to serve the Emir without a thought. Or perhaps he no longer had the heart to climb the ladder he saw others grinding down their brethren for, stepping on their brothers to reach this great cold iron ladder.

So in the aftermath of the war, when he heard of what the Emir had asked his physician to do with the Wraithknife disease in the midst of the struggle to develop a cure, Waqar threw down his sword, his royal insignia, and left the court.

Now, in his home in southern Arassan, Waqar saw his own past brethren in the streets, the forces of the Shayfahan army, striking down men and women.

In an empty dining hall at Ghulam’s caravan-house at the border of Ifsharan, Waqar sat nursing a hot cup of cinnamon-laced cha’a.

His hands were weary from days of training recruits in Arassan, but it felt good. It had been a long time since he had not felt useless.

Outside, the rain lashed against the stone walls, thundering against it like an insistent drumbeat.

“Waqar Marouf,” a voice called behind him. Imraan ibn Hunayn appeared in the entranceway in all his dark-haired glory, wearing a light grey tunic beneath leather armor and a leather harness with a dagger at his belt. Over it all he wore a dark traveling cloak, the hood pulled back from his head as he entered the hall. “I’ve been trying to track you all across the Ardth, it feels like.”

“Peace, Imraan,” Waqar stood up. “Yes, well, that’s your fault for being hunted through the land, son.”

There was a woman with Imraan. He’d heard of her, but he had expected her to look — more austere?

With stark dark eyes, skin the shade of sienna earth, her hood was pulled up on a blue wool cloak, framing a sharp nose, low cheekbones, and oval features. She wore long sable-colored scholar’s robes. Her eyes struck Waqar in such a way that for a moment he wondered if he knew her, and if he had done her a wrong in a past life.

They both dripped in rainwater.

“Is this the sorceress I have heard so much of?” Waqar asked.

Imraan shook water off his cloak. “Eh…this is Rahena Ansary, a former calligrapher in Ifsharan.”

“Commander Marouf,” the woman said, her voice cool as she and Imraan took a seat across from him on the wooden bench. There was a forthrightness to her movements; yet within it, Waqar noticed a guardedness to her eyes, in the way she held her hands to herself, folded closely upon her cloak.

“Begum Ansary,” Waqar nodded. “It is an honor to see you with my own eyes.”

But she did not reply to him, and he could have sworn she was weighing something about him.

“Rahena is of Bayrun,” Imraan said, taking the steaming cup of chai that Ghulam’s son poured for them. “She survived the Second Purge.”

And then everything aligned, everything made sense. Waqar breathed deeply, and he did not blame her now for looking at him the way she did.

“There are things I thought she could perhaps understand better than you or I, of the people of Khardin,” Imraan said.

Something was different about the young man. Hah, at his age, everyone seemed ‘young.’

But Imraan al-Hunayn was not really young anymore, was he? There were lines at the edges of his eyes, Waqar saw, that he did not remember there before. There had once been a riveting energy about the man with which he had once decried the Emir; one so infectious that any he surrounded would be caught by it.

But there was a sinking in the man’s eyes now, and perhaps an understanding he had never seen in them.

Waqar furtively studied the woman. He had never met anyone who’d lived the Purge. He’d escaped that crucible for many years. And now here she was — his sins staring him in the face.

“Ah,” he could only utter.

But the woman Rahena did not look at him anymore. She only sipped her tea, holding the mug closely with both hands.

“So tell me then,” Imraan asked, breathing in the cinnamon-scented steam swirling over his face. “What has it been like since we left?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Strange times, Imraan. I have seen things in the past few moons that I never thought I would. I’ve also heard news about something very strange. The White Rider…”

“You mean Ardashir,” Rahena Ansary said.

“Yes. He led the raid on the villages at the border of Ifsharan last week. But…they say that…a woman with lightning from her hands stopped Ardashir.”

“What woman?” Imraan asked.

“Nurbayn,” the woman Rahena said, setting down her cup.

“You know her?” Imraan said. “She sounds like a myth someone made up to convince themselves that it wasn’t as bad as it was.”

“No,” Rahena said. “I have seen her.”

“Who on Ardth is she?”

“A woman with vengeance on her mind,” Rahena said.

“Whoever she is, she halted the entire raid. And what I saw of the Jhansari — everything feels different. They truly have a fire in them now.”

“Is it a surprise to you?” Rahena said, setting down her cup. “Shouldn’t they?”

“I did not say they shouldn’t, my dear lady,” Waqar said.

“—Did you see the Wraithtaint?” Imraan asked quickly.

The first time Waqar had seen it, he was certain that the end of the Ardth was already here. The horns of judgment day should have been accompanied with it, but there was nothing but the swirling darkness over them all. He could not understand how the skies above them, now, here felt so harmless in comparison — but how long would it stay that way?

“We should have known,” Waqar said. “That the remnant of the Wraithtaint would not have gone away from the wars. But from a disease to — to that nightmare?”

“As if we are not facing a war already, we have to fight with the Ardth itself,” Imraan muttered. “And how do you do that? We don’t even know what it is!”

Waqar leaned forward. “I have a theory. You must find a Raqini to deal with that. Its the war of the Raqinis and the damned Altharin that did it. Maybe Al-Yaser can understand it.”

“Al-Yaser died, Marouf,” Imraan said. “She killed herself before the Shayfahan got to her.”

Waqar’s heart fell. “Then we are doomed against the Ardth, hai?”

“What do you mean?” Rahena Ansary asked. “About the Raqinis being responsible for the Wraithtaint?”

“Its from their power that the Wraithtaint came, didn’t it, when they fought with the Altharin?”

The woman’s face grew ashen. She was about to speak when Imraan said, rubbing his eyes, “I can only think of the war now. But maybe the Wraithtaint will kill us all before then,” he grunted. “Anyway, how is uncle Jalal?”

Waqar finally returned to his own cup, willing the knot in his chest to loosen. “How do you think he is?” he grumbled. “But we are trying to train as many people as possible. But Jalal has told me they are short of weapons again.”

“And Asfan?”

“Asfan’s thrown himself into his work again, forging nearly perfect steel now.” Waqar knew what it was like to lose a child, and he knew that the man’s grief had now become the molten steel poured into the swords they would all use to fight. “But we still need people to train them.”

“There are only so many experienced defectors to go around,” Imraan muttered. “I wish Kutulun had agreed to my proposal when we saw her.”

“I have some good news for you on that, beta,” Waqar gave him a grin. “I found Rayhan ibn Waleed. Junayd Khasri, and that — that damned soldier of mine I’d once threatened with banishment because he used to tell me he hated wearing the mizaran helmet. They all fought in the Altharin war, and they’re gathering their own recruits.”

Imraan lifted his head. “By Ardth, I am glad you are on our side.”

“Right now, some are training in Arassan with me, some in Miristan.”

Waqar leaned forward. “I know how they fight, Imraan, I know their strategies. The only way I could be wrong is if they have changed their usual strategies since I was last there.” He took a deep breath. “But we’ll be outnumbered by experience. We must find other ways to have an advantage over them.”

Imraan took out a sheet of paper from his robes and began to draw something. “ I thought,” he said, “Cavalry in the front, as long as they’ve had the longest and most rigorous training; and less experienced in the wings, charging after their front has already been weakened, so that we have more chance.”

Rahena Ansary watched his pen crisscross across the page. “Lead with the defectors first,” she said. “I can join after them as they go, stunning them. Strike as many helmets as possible so I can quickly go through the lines.”

“That,” Imraan said. “Leaves us a good possibility. Not all of them will be in Shayfahan armor, and if we can get Al-Ghazan to get those plans, we can determine where to station you based on that information.”

As the two huddled over the paper, Waqar saw a figure emerge from the rain. Clad in velvet and the regal attire of — a damned traveling Ministrel.

Waqar knew him.

He’d once had to work with him after the First Invasion, reporting the information and numbers to him.

Would the man remember him? Waqar was not willing to find out. The man sat on the other side of the hall, as Ghulam himself emerged to greet him. “We are honored to host you, dear Ministrel,” Waqar heard him murmuring. As the man replied, Ghulam met Waqar’s eyes from across the room, and he knew he was warning him.

“That’s a Ministrel right there,” Waqar said.

But as the man settled in and waited for his meal to arrive, he turned to them.

“Commander Marouf?” the man called, approaching them.

Imraan cursed, folding away the sheet of paper and pulling up his hood.

“Ah,” Waqar said, a dread settling in him. Had the man heard of his defection eight years before? Did he know?

“Don’t you remember me?” the man said, eying the other two as he spoke before turning back to Waqar. “Haneem Nasr, at your service, commander.” He bowed his head a little. “We met nearly ten years ago after the Second Invasion.”

So it had been the second, then, Waqar thought. His memory was going to hell.

“Yes, of course, Ministrel,” Waqar said. “How do you fare?”

“I’m still traveling, commander, aren’t I?” he smiled wide, and it made Waqar want to shudder. How did he never notice before, when he was in the army, how unsettling the Ministrels could be? “Brutal times those were, hai?” The man continued. “But we’re facing hard times again with these rebels. I tell you its been a difficult journey with all the chaos sprouting up in these villages. These people have no shame.”

He eyed the other two again as if expecting him to introduce them.

Waqar cleared his throat. “Yes, of course, let me introduce you.” He motioned to the woman Rahena. “My daughter, Fatima,” he muttered. “And my, ah, groom-son.”

Rahena and Imraan murmured their salaams. Imraan had ended up lowering his hood after all, and that was good, for it would have been more suspicious why his groom-son appeared so discourteous.

The man flustered quickly to bow before them. “I did not know I was in the presence of your dear family, of course, of course, what an honor.” He smiled at the woman. “Beautiful daughter, you have, my commander.” Then he stopped. “But ah — are you not in Ifsharan? I thought the Shayfahan are preparing for the rebels.”

Waqar laughed. “About that, you see — I am retired now.” It was not too far of a lie, after all. “Too old to be wearing that heavy helmet, you see.” He smiled wide and hoped the idiot would shut up soon and go back to his own table.

The man paused, studying Imraan suddenly. Imraan’s dark curls shaded his eyes. For a moment, Waqar was certain he would know.

“Your stew, sire,” Ghulam’s voice came from the other table.

Haneem turned. “Mm, yes. Well, commander Marouf — I can still call you commander?”

Whatever it takes to get you away from me, Waqar thought.

“A pleasure again, truly.” Haneem bowed to the three of them. “I wish you luck on your journey, keep those eyes open. You never know when you come across those rebels.” He smiled, and went off to his meal.

“He certainly wouldn’t know,” Waqar muttered, and for the first time since they’d sat down together, the woman Rahena’s eyes softened, and she laughed.