29 Mae 1436

I went to the library this morning. I got really pretty anklets from town. I met Cina—she works at Nima’s Accessories, her mother’s shop, and she is the one who sold me the anklets. She’s pretty but a bit scary. I don’t know what to think of her. Then I met Yohid. He’s a sweet boy. I bandaged him up, gave him money for food. I couldn’t stay long, I was caught by Baba. Baba hit me when I got home, because he’s a weak tempered fool and only weak tempered fools hit their daughters for nothing. This town is witness to my pitiful predicament. I’m a waste of life.

Zara sank back into her covers. Her journal lay haphazardly by her feet. Her “To-Do” list was in the wastebasket next to her bed, crumpled and neglected. Next to the wastebasket was her book bag; she had dropped it there after coming home. The tears on her cheeks have long dried. The bitterness remained.

It was one of those situations Zara believed to be completely helpless. It was also one of those situations she wished magic would actually be of use to her. She didn’t know how it worked, only that she could cause little tremors to small objects sometimes—be it her standing mirror or an oil lamp or a vase—or help plants and insects grow a few centimeters through touch. She had no idea how she did it or what triggered such occurrences, but she really wished she could do something significant with it. Anything that would get her out of this house and these people that got in her way. Simply being in town today was a wake-up call to just how much she was missing. Her interactions with the few people she’d come across were brief, and not all of it had been perfectly pleasant, but they had given her the energy she’d needed to break out of her rut.

Almost. Because her father had destroyed that excitement the minute she’d found it.

When Zara was younger, her aunt had told her the story of Queen Anvi, the first sorceress to have ever been in power well over fourteen hundred years ago. She had blasted an army of both humans and Mages to pieces with one swoop of her arm. She was detested as a bloodthirsty mass murderer. There were many stories that revolved around her violent acts against humanity as a result of her lust for power, but it was a story Zara had alway found fascinating and terrifying at the same time, especially when she first discovered her own power.

Some days, Zara imagined herself as a nicer version of the Queen. At least nothing about her would be helpless.

Zara clenched her sheets hard enough where she could feel her nails digging into her palms. She was still furious with herself for getting caught, furious with her father for treating her worse than a runaway child in public, and furious that she couldn’t count on anyone else in this house to defend her. Father and Mother were a team, naturally. Rowan, her useless younger brother, just laughed the punishment off as her being overly dramatic.

Suddenly, exhaustion took over, and Zara ceased to feel anything. Because what was the point? Anger wasn’t going to change anything. Crying wouldn’t either. This had been her life for almost a decade so…why bother?

But no matter how many times Zara thought she was already used to living like an insane-asylum patient, something like today happened, and it proved her all the way wrong, again.

Better to sleep it off for a few days. Sleep was a good force over the fence, a fresh start to a new meaningless days of nothing, ones where she is neither happy nor sad.

She had almost dozed off a half hour later when Rowan barged in to her room.

“Ma wants you to wake up,” he said. He was eating onion crisps from a bowl and dropping crumbs on the floor. “Why is it dark?” He shivered. “Shit, it’s cold.”

“Get out,” Zara grumbled. She didn’t move from the toasty warmth of her bed, nor bother to sit up yet. It was near evening but Zara didn’t particularly care to light her oil lamp or even a candle right now. She hadn’t even lit the hearth. “And stop eating in my room. How many fucking times do I have to tell you to knock first? What if I was changing my clothes?”

“But you’re always in bed. So…” More crunches. More crumbs.

“STOP eating.”

Rowan rolled his eyes. “You nag more than Ma.”

Zara lifted her head off the pillow upon noticing her brother’s head.

She snorted. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“A tangled mop.”

“What?”

“Or like you ran your hair under a fire.”

Rowan defiantly flipped his head around. His hair was thick and inky black, like Zara’s. Unlike Zara’s however, it was very curly and he rarely took care of it, often letting it get long, tangled, and damaged. Most days he just put on a hat or tied it up, which made him look like a homeless bum.

Zara’s heart skipped. She suddenly thought of Yohid, out there in the cold evening by himself. Homeless, but no bum by any means.

Rowan grabbed some more onion crisps out of the bowl and crushed them in his hands, letting the crumbs fall to the floor.

“HEY!” Zara screamed. This time she sprang up, grabbed the journal off her bed, and threw it at him. If only she could make a trade: bring Yohid in here, leave Rowan out there.

“Ow!” The spine had hit his leg. He grabbed the journal with his free hand and ran down the hall while cradling the bowl in his other arm. His slippers clacked loudly on the stone floor.

“Bring that back! Idiot!” Zara shrieked, going after him. Her bare feet crunched over the million crisp crumbs, heightening both her temper and disgust.

“You threw it to me first!” he yelled back.

She ran down the hall and caught Rowan by his wrangled hair before he could reach the stairwell.

“Ahh! Fuck fuck let go let go let go!” He dropped the journal. His bowl tumbled noisily down the steps and broke, making a mess of ceramic shards and crisps everywhere.

They heard their mother’s voice screech from downstairs, “What was that?!” Her footsteps could be heard approaching the main entrance hall.

Zara snatched her journal off the floor, ran back to her room, and slammed the door before her mother saw her. She could hear her shouting at Rowan for the mess he’d made, and Rowan arguing back—or at least trying to—that Zara was just as much responsible for it, only for her to interject comments about his unkempt hair and that she swears she will shave it off herself once she gets the chance. This, of course, commenced in more quarreling that Zara tuned out as she shoved the journal into her desk drawer and banged it shut.

Rowan had been right though; it was cold in this room. Zara put on her slippers and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders before lighting the hearth. She lit the oil lamps—one by her bedside, one on her desk, and one on top of her dresser. Now she could clearly see just how many crumbs were on the floor. Crumbs that she had to clean even though it wasn’t her mess.

But there was no time for any cleaning now. The sky was dark, and it was time for the evening meal. Zara could already hear from her mother’s holler for her to come down to the dining room.

Zara begrudgingly stepped away from the crumbs and exited her bedroom. She’ll be lucky if the ants didn’t get to them before she did, but she also didn’t want to deal with her Ma’s badgering. Zara and her brother learned early on that in this house, it was better to come forward as soon as you were summoned, and not a minute longer.

The mess on the stairs had been sorted, but she could still see small pieces of broken bowl and onion crisp scattered here and there. It had been a rushed cleaning, no doubt her mother would make Rowan come back to finish the job properly, rather than simply have the maid do it better.

Zara took her time going down. Even though she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, she wasn’t hungry at all. But refusing to eat a single bite in the evening was pointless unless she wanted her parents hounding her over it.

But she also didn’t want to be near her father tonight, and she didn’t want to deal with his usual lectures about responsibility and safety and the awfulness of people and why Zara needed to keep her “abominable” self contained at all times lest she wanted the family to perish and blah blah blah…

Zara reached the bottom of the curved stairwell. The dining room was right across it; a sheer red curtain covered the arch doorway. Paintings of geometric shapes surrounded the arch and two large potted greenery sat on each side. There were more of these pots scattered throughout the house—in the parlor, by the washroom, near the front and back doors—all to satisfy her mother’s taste for extra plant decor. The more green, the more color, the better.

Zara lifted the curtain and entered the dining room. The candles were lit on the small gold chandelier, the hearth’s fire was going, and the long oval table was set with dinnerware, table candles, lemon duck curry, red lentil soup, buttered rice and bread, a jug of water, and a bottle of red wine.

In the corner to the right of the doorway stood a smaller table with a washbowl, a bar of soap, and a pitcher of fresh water. Zara washed her hands. Dinner smelled nice but it did nothing for her lack of hunger.

Her father sat at the head of the table, changed from his work suit into a casual button-down shirt. His face bore a muted displeasure.

Rowan was sitting in his usual next to his father, his hair neatly tied back to reveal his thick brows and pimply face. His brown eyes gleamed idiotically.

“Hey Zara, who’s Cina?”

Zara’s heart skipped. “What?” she said, like she had no clue as to what Rowan was asking about.

“What’s so scary about her?” He grinned stupidly, irking Zara’s already lousy mood further.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she grumbled.

“Zara,” her father warned, glaring as he’d done when he slapped her. She could still sense the tingling sting on her right cheek.

Frustration flooded her once again, threatening to make her cry.

“In your diary, you wrote that she’s pretty, but scary,” Rowan explained.

As though she needed this to be explained.

The fool had read it, though how much before she’d caught up to him, Zara wasn’t sure. Maybe it’s best she continue to play dumb.

“What journal?”

Rowan snickered. “You bought anklets from her,” he goaded. “Can I see them?”

“What anklets?” her father demanded, and Zara flinched.

“He’s lying,” she said. “He’s a liar.”

“You’re the only liar here. What anklets?”

“Never mind Baba,” Rowan interjected, chuckling lightly. “Never mind. I was joking around…” He awkwardly shifted in his chair.

The man didn’t look too convinced, but he didn’t inquire any further. Zara didn’t understand why her buying anklets would be a big deal. Was he worried she was going to use them to practice a hex or something?

Yes, she thought.

And it was likely he’d destroy the anklets should he ever come into possession of them. Zara would keep her mouth shut about it.

Her father was so paranoid. He would do anything to ensure Zara’s magic remained unused, unknown, and unprovoked, because that was the best way for the family to live without the government’s target on their backs. And it would also ensure Zara would not fall into a path of evil and black magic.

As if Zara had any clue about conjuring up black magic.

These were nothing but theories that had been pulled out of mythical legends, which was why Zara had stolen a textbook about Mage history from the library, disguised as home school study material. Granted, history never painted magic in a good light, but Zara was sure there was still something in that book she could note for analysis.

Zara’s mother finally arrived in, looking fresh and polished. Her caramel colored hair was oiled and pulled back into a tight bun; her makeup was done lightly, complementing her slim beige gown and maroon beaded shawl. She carried a bowl of fresh berries plucked from the courtyard’s garden, and placed them on the table next to the lentils before taking her usual seat between her husband and daughter, adjusting her shawl around her slender shoulders as she did so. She glanced across the table to her son, and her pink lips perked up.

“See, what did I tell you?” she said. “You look so much better with your hair out of the way.” She lifted the rice bowl and turned to serve her husband first. “Doesn’t he?”

Rowan groaned and muttered, “Okay.”

“She’s right,” his father said. “Your hair doesn’t look good when it’s let loose. You look like one of those junk people I see whenever I visit the capital. You know, the ones that are always lying out on the streets, dead or alive.”

Rowan grimaced.

“And it’s affecting your skin too.”

“How?” Rowan whined.

“Well your hair is dirty and over your face all the time. Look at you, all those bumps on your forehead.” He chuckled. “Do you also not wash your face properly?”

Rowan mumbled something under his breath, annoyed.

“What’s the matter with you?” the man scolded. “Why are you acting like this? All I did was suggest you take care of yourself and your health. Is it that much of a burden for you, to listen to me? Is it that you hate getting good advice? Is that the kind of man you want to be?”

Rowan still didn’t respond as his mother filled his plate, but his face remained stony. Zara was just glad she wasn’t at the end of her father’s incessant berating this time. She continued nibbling at her bread when her mother spoke up.

“Zahir,” she said, eyeing her husband as she worked on Zara’s plate. “We’re here to eat and not make such a big fuss over nothing.”

“If it’s nothing then why’d you bring it up at all?” Rowan murmured, picking at the meat on his plate.

She turned her eyes to him, and her soft manners from earlier dissolved into irritation.

“What did you say?”

Rowan shut his mouth. Clearly it had been a mistake to open it.

Zahir scoffed. “And you said it wasn’t nothing. Maybe he still needs to learn some respect.”

The chair scraped back as Rowan stood.

“SIT down.”

Rowan was forced to do as his father told, but he looked angrier than ever. Naturally.

It was now that Zara realized her mother had given her too much food. But she didn’t feel comfortable bringing that up. She had evaded their attention so far, and while she’d be naive to believe her parents wouldn’t bring up today’s disobedience during the meal, she would rather it be later than sooner. And a small part of her still hoped that it wouldn’t happen at all tonight.

The only sounds in the dining room now were of eating, the crackling of firewood, and the clinks of silverware as her parents helped themselves to more food and wine.

Rowan reached for the bottle, and his father slapped his hand away.

“Ow!”

Zahir poured himself a bit more and set the bottle down without a word to his son.

Rowan looked to his mother. “Not even a little?” he said. He was thirteen and still young for a tall glass of strong alcohol, but he enjoyed having the occasional wine at dinner when the bottle was out, should his parents allow it.

She frowned. “No.”

With an irritable huff, Rowan began stuffing down the curry and rice. Zara took one bite and felt nauseous. She just couldn’t get herself to eat, even when the food was good. Wine would help soothe her nerves, but she was basically on worse footing than Rowan tonight and doubted that the bottle would be happily passed to her.

“Leyli, can you pass me some of those berries?” Zahir asked his wife. “They look good.”

“They are. I picked them this afternoon,” she responded lightly, passing him the bowl. “Had the maid wash them well before I brought them in. I tried one myself. They’re very sweet, the way you like them.” She plucked one into her mouth the same time her husband did.

“Mm, you’re right. Wow. Last time they were so sour, remember?”

“Yes, you’re right. Must have been a bad batch that time.”

“Or you picked them too early.”

As they sat there giggling over berries and wine, Zara forced down another mouthful of food. Everyone had practically finished their plates, except for her. She downed her glass of water and felt a cough coming. Holding it in was useless, because as soon as she tried keeping quiet, she choked and ended up coughing anyway.

Leyli looked at her, annoyed. She noticed the practically full plate and asked, “Why aren’t you eating?”

Ugh.

It was the last thing Zara wanted to do.

“Um…I’m not that hungry?” Zara mumbled.

“Are you asking that as a question?” her father said.

Zara braced herself for the worst.

“You need to eat,” her mother said. “Finish that. The last time you went without eating you looked like a bag of sticks.”

Zara picked at her food, saying nothing.

“Is something wrong? Are you sick?” Leyli reached for Zara’s head, but Zara leaned away.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Why so glum then?”

Zara frowned. Is that a serious question? After what happened today?

Rowan smiled. It was like the black cloud over his head had suddenly dissipated as he found the perfect opening to act like an ass again. “Is it because Baba dragged you away from your secret boyfriend?”

Zahir plunked his wine glass down. “What?!”

Zara had almost choked on rice. She scowled at Rowan, warning him with her eyes that he’d better keep himself alert while he slept tonight.

“There IS no boyfriend,” she growled.

“Oh really?” Rowan countered. “‘I met Yohid. He’s such a sweet boy, so sweet that I did bondage on him and everything—’” His pitch rose as he mocked horribly paraphrased lines from Zara’s journal.

“Yohid is a little boy, moron. His knee was scraped up so I put a bandage on it.”

“Lower your voice,” Leyli said.

Rowan laughed, and Zara began to panic. He had read the entire entry, which of course he had because it was so damn short in the first place. She peeked at her father and lowered her eyes back on the table, worried that Rowan would reveal her thoughts about him being a “weak tempered fool”.

It was still true. But he obviously didn’t need to know that.

“Yohid?” Zahir said the name like he was testing it on his tongue. “Yohid. And that bandage on his knee. Yes…that was the boy I saw you with today.”

“Yes,” she confirmed uneasily.

“That was him…he looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t get a good look at him from afar. Before he ran off, that is.”

Intrigued, Zara straightened up in her chair. Her father sat still, frowning deeply, as though contemplating something troublesome.

“What is it dear?” Leyli asked. “What did you mean by that? You know the boy?”

“Well, I don’t know him on a personal level. But his name was the point of discussion at the meeting I had today. That boy was kicked out of his home under suspicion of wielding black magic.”

The humorous look on Rowan’s face disappeared. He looked at Zara, confused and…well likely concerned for his own well-being now. Black magic was never a sign of good things to come. And if his own sister was involved with it…

“Black magic?” he whispered.

Meanwhile, Zara’s chest was tightening. “It wasn’t magic,” she lied.

“Oh?” Zahir tilted his head, and Zara knew he wasn’t taking her seriously whatsoever. “So what was it then?”

“I-It-It was…it was a—he was misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood,” he repeated.

“He didn’t do anything. He’s just blamed for his baby sister’s death but there’s no proof he actually did anything with magic at all.”

“And what makes you so sure about that?”

“Uh…” Zara had no idea how to answer such a question without sounding stupid.

“Did he tell you the baby’s death wasn’t his fault?”

“….Yes.”

“And you believed him.”

“….Yes.”

“Of course you did.”

The air in the room was icy, but all Zara could feel was the heat of her lies displayed on her cheeks.

Zahir sucked in a breath. “As if a beating for running off wasn’t enough, now I find you are associating yourself with imbecilic young wickeds.” His voice grew low. “You are playing a very dangerous game, Zara.”

“What in Mother’s name is your problem?!” Leyli shrieked, startling both her kids. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Forget that, she’ll get us all roped into a pyre. Or worse—thrown off the mountain,” Zahir barked.

With a harsh sob, Leyli replied through clenched teeth, “Don’t say that. You know how it makes me feel. Don’t say it.”

“It’s life. And it will be our lives if we let our daughter out of our sights again.” Zahir glowered. “I imagine the punishment is dire enough for an Official like myself to be hiding my witch daughter from the world. But the consequence will be just as dreadful if she is found socializing with—”

“I didn’t think of that!” Zara protested. “I just thought he needed help because he was alone and he hurt himself, that’s it! Th-That’s why I approached him at all. I d-didn’t know any of this and I had no idea who he was!” Another necessary lie.

“A noble effort wrongfully placed,” Zahir responded. “From one glance at him I knew he was a homeless boy. You shouldn’t be helping the homeless in the first place. They are homeless for a reason and their fates rest in Mother Lilith’s hands.”

Zara shook her head. “But—”

“What?” he challenged. “What ‘but’? Do you oppose Her?”

Zara shut her mouth, shaking her head again. “No,” she answered feebly.

“Because as fate would have it, the boy is tainted. He is without a home because our Holy Mother has already set in motion a rightful punishment for the cruelty he has put upon his own family. And if you have an issue with that, you can join him on the streets for all I care.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to let her out of your sight?” Rowan said.

Zahir paused. Then, as quick as a spark, he smacked Rowan across the face. The harsh slap echoed across the room.

“Get out,” he stated.

Rowan held his cheek, stunned. His eyes watered and his face scrunched up, dejected. He shoved his chair out of the way and stomped out, making as much noise as possible as he headed upstairs.

After a brief moment of silence, Zahir turned back to his daughter. “Letters will be sent out starting tomorrow, detailing the boy’s description. We will start with the business district. I will be reporting my sighting of him today to the courthouse early tomorrow morning.”

No…

“So he’s a wanted criminal?” Zara whispered.

“I believe the next time you hear of the boy, it will be about his arrest and execution date. I shall take you to see it. It should serve as a reminder of where you stand with the people beyond these walls.”

The tension stretched on. Zara took this chance to leave. Staying put was getting too difficult to bear. Neither of her parents objected to her standing from an unfinished meal. Her mother was busy staring off into nothing, her face tear streaked and miserable. Zahir reached for the bottle once more.

Zara quietly headed upstairs, her fatigue inevitably creeping back.