Read The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) for Free Online Page B

us.”
    “Nasim needs his own people,” Sukharam shot back.
    Ashan took a large bite of the flatbread, which steamed where he’d bitten into it. He stared at Atiana and then at Sukharam, his eyebrows pinching in concern. “It’s that kind of attitude that put you in those mines, Sukharam.”
    Sukharam’s eyes glowed fiercely. “And perhaps if I’d fought back they’d think twice over doing so again.”
    “The way to vashaqiram is through peace. Only through peace.”
    “And maybe one day we’ll be free enough to find it. But until then—”
    “Don’t allow Ushai’s ways to cloud your mind, Sukharam.”
    Indeed, Atiana thought. The two of them had been talking often over the course of the past many months. Soroush may have set aside his violent ways—at least for now—but Ushai had not, and she’d been plying Sukharam with them for some time. At first she’d seen no change in Sukharam, but more and more he’d brought up notions like this. Fighting. Resisting. But at what cost?
    Sukharam stared at his flatbread as if it suddenly disgusted him. “Haven’t you ever thought you might be wrong, Ashan? How would you know the way to vashaqiram? You won’t reach it in this lifetime. You won’t reach it in the next. We’re all of us eons away from oneness with our world. Perhaps the way to vashaqiram is to cleanse the world of that which is wrong.”
    Ashan had been chewing, but he now stopped. He stared at Sukharam as if he just now realized how dangerously close he was to turning away from the path of peace. He swallowed his mouthful heavily. “You don’t believe that.”
    Sukharam stared at Ashan, then to Atiana. His face was angry, but there was also a look of shame, as if he knew Ashan was right, as if he’d voiced half-formed thoughts without thinking. Without saying another word he stood and threw his flatbread into the dry scrub brush beyond their camp site. His footsteps crunched as he headed beyond the horses and behind the small hill where he’d spent most of the day taking breath.
    “So much anger in him…” Atiana said.
    Ashan took another bite of his flatbread. “We all have anger, daughter of Radia, Sukharam more than most. It’s what we do with it that counts.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of. What Sukharam will do with his.” She paused, letting those words sink in. “I wonder if we shouldn’t send him back.”
    “A desire he leveled against you only moments ago.” Ashan shook his head. “Make no mistake. As surely as the sun needs the moon, we need one another. We are bound together, all of us, by Nasim and the events that lay behind us. By the ones that lay before us as well. Now, we have but to carry one another to the end.”
    “You speak as if we’re trapped by the fates,” Atiana said, “but that’s where you’re wrong. We aren’t bodies slipping through the firmament with no choice left to us. We are our own. We choose our destiny.”
    Ashan put the last of his flatbread into his mouth, smacking his lips noisily. When he spoke again, it was with a seriousness that surprised her. “Believe what you wish, daughter of Radia. We may try to escape the paths the fates have set for us, but they will have us in the end.”

    Atiana entered the tent, holding a cup of water and the still-warm flatbread for Nikandr. He was sitting cross-legged on their shared blanket, his eyes distant. She shook the flatbread at him, and he looked up, accepting it reluctantly.
    “Eat,” she said.
    He took a mouthful and chewed as if he knew he needed the sustenance but could barely stomach the taste of it.
    “Ashan said we would leave in the morning.”
    Nikandr stared at the wall of the tent as if he hoped to peer through it to the caravanserai beyond. “Is your sister near?”
    Though she had tried to find Ishkyna that morning, she cast herself outward again, already knowing Ishkyna was too busy to speak with her. War was brewing to the northeast. Leonid had months ago secured