40°55'54.0"N 47°30'40.9"E

  O?uz, Azerbaijan

  18.05.2024- 22.45 UTC +04.00

  His voice was satisfied with my Farsight, and I could tell he saw what I saw, or at least felt my vision crossing borders. But his intentions remained unclear. I could sense a direction. South-west. But so far away from this country or continent, what was even the point? What did a man of Adil want that was not about the fight in the nearby mountains? He must have had a goal, and as my vision flew past darker nights in the west, I decided that I did not care, as long as I tried my best to stop him.

  I stretched my hands in front of me, hoping they would pull my mind out of the skies and lead me back to my body.

  As if he sensed my resolve, driving me to fight back, I heard the faintest sound of trickling foreign sand. And then I felt grains unfamiliar, from another continent, sipping onto my trembling hands. The lands below me flew by even faster than before, as my Farsight burst uncontrollably past the Middle East, past Qahir?, and into central Africa.

  “Make it stop! Make it stop!” The world spun, but I could still see. I knew, though, I was not meant to see so far away. “Please do not make me!”

  “I've been told the Azeri Whispers cannot be matched. Do not disappoint me.” His hand gripped my throat tightly, fingers dangerously caressing my trachea, directing all breath and oxygen to push my Farsight; but none to my vocal cords. The grains of sand trickled past my hands, and I maneuvered my vision to see all corners of the Sahara Desert.

  Countries and people I did not recognize, mountains and oases that I could not believe existed. Libya, Algeria? Where did this end?

  “Please!” I begged.

  He said a phrase in a Roman language, Spanish perhaps, something I could not comprehend.

  Ellas tienen la Segunda.

  I did not speak or comprehend languages from so far in the West – but something in the last word made my skin shiver, torn by a sense of fear. Fear of calamity.

  “Send this whisper.”

  “It can kill me!” I cried.

  He repeated the phrase. Ellas tienen la Segunda.

  It was a short enough message for me to be able to repeat.

  I started squirming in his cold hands. He did not relent. I could not know if he possibly even cared, but as my Farsight hovered at the far ends of the African continent, I honestly doubted if I could send a whisper that far.

  “Please, at least. Let me hear the rain.”

  He did not let go of my throat. But it felt as if he did let go of some of his control. My eyes saw the deserts of Africa, but my ears could listen to the rain in O?uz, every single droplet, hitting the ground, my cabin’s roof, and the borders of my ward. He had shown some mercy, after all.

  I exhaled, surrendering. The vision finally landed in sky-high stone buildings, in a city I did not recognize. The sun burned hotter than I had ever felt, but somewhere in a vault forgotten by the sun, someone lonely and ancient was there waiting to hear my whisper.

  My sight had brought me to the farthest ends of the Sahara, thousands of kilometers away. Surely, they could not have possibly ever heard a whisper from so far away.

  Ellas tienen la Segunda. I whispered, and I knew I was heard. A hot, viscous liquid started dripping from my nose and ears. Blood, without a doubt.

  And trapped under his tough-as-wood fingers, he continued the message, and I repeated his words, a whisper in a tongue I could not comprehend with consequences I could not fathom. I completed the message, as instructed.

  But I was not done. A smell reminded me where and who I was: ashes from starling feathers, wet wood, and muddy ground. I channeled all the hexes and enchantments from the candle-burnt feathers. And in a violent return of my Curses, I decided I would disobey. I reversed the route back, and in an instant, I pulled my sight back to the people of O?uz. Every desperate woman and man, the scared children, all the mortals in Starling’s domain. They prayed, and although I was too weak to hear their words, I knew what they wished for.

  The rain sounded louder than ever before; one last pour before the storm ended.

  And I had just the time for one last whisper, only for the man responsible for my demise, a wish of doom:

  You are to be caged by my ward’s light, for as long as the rain still plans to fall.

  His hands let me go, and I fell on the wooden floor. The Farsight ended, and my usefulness to him. Or so I thought.

  I opened my eyes, wondering why he had not killed me yet. I looked at the dark-clothed man, whose long braid of hair had appeared out of his headwrap. A veil of scarlet hindered my sight, my blood tears dying the dull cabin in color. I thought I would see him satisfied with his victory, but his eyes behind the mask indicated something new. A fear? A thought?

  “What do you want from me? What did this message mean? Why don’t you just kill me and end my pain?” I wanted to ask all those questions. I was unable to. Where his fingers held me before, throat, forehead, and neck, excruciating pain followed. I could barely breathe, as the world around me turned red.

  Instead, he asked me a question:

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  “First, the silence. Then the command. How can you bend and break hexes like that?”

  He was short of breath. His question was mixed with shock and relief. As if a new idea had just dawned on him.

  I could only breathe heavier by the moment. I did not know what that question meant, nor what he wanted for an answer.

  He kneeled in front of me, his hands swiping my hair off my face. “You are not just another bird, are you?”

  I raised my hand, grabbing and pulling his cloth mask, hoping I would get to see a quick glimpse of his face before I drifted away. He did not stop me.

  But it did not matter. I was ready to go.

  ? ? ?

  I could not remember the last time I laughed like this. Flying above the valley of Q?b?l?, piercing the clouds and painting them in blue, pink, and gold as the sun reflected on my wings. And all the while, I could not stop laughing.

  Up until we finally landed. I had to restrain myself, show I was more than a friend, a teacher, and a mentor.

  “Orxan!” I called the young man with whom we had shared a flight. He was trying to control his laughter, standing next to me. He had landed roughly right after I had. It was infectious, and as I saw him, I could not hold back either.

  His short hair, oilier and sweatier than usual, was made unruly from the recent flight. He passed his hands through the hair, making it even funnier.

  “Can’t an old bird like you laugh?” He asked me. His young eyes shone with silver. They carried a Cursed mutation; it could go unnoticed if you did not know what to look for in men’s eyes, but it was there.

  “Watch your tongue. I could be your mother,” I scolded him. I was not exaggerating. He was just nineteen years old, joining the life of the coven way too young. And my duty was to protect him, not play around with Starling’s blessing.

  “So, besides the hilarious flight, what was the point of this?” He turned to the north-east, where the mountaintop of Bazardüzü, dressed in white from snow, watched over us. There was no walking path to get there from where we stood, but we could always fly there. Everything belonged to Starling’s domain: the surrounding mountain range, the rivers born and poured into the valley, and the regions we could survey from up here.

  “We are watchers, Zephyr,” I told him, “We protect the mortals in Starling’s domain by watching over them. Your Curse will prove much stronger than mine when it comes to Farsight. Your eyes make sure of it.”

  In front of us, north Azerbaijan sprawled from the bases of the mountaintops, from Qax to the north-west and Q?b?l? to the south-east. If I so desired, my Farsight offered me glimpses and visions of what lay below. I was often tasked to fly to the mountaintops and surveil, since my early days in the coven. It was my task to teach the boy.

  “I still can’t see anything but, well, the view,” Orxan said, “and don’t try to make the codename stick.”

  “Oh, trust me, it will. They tend to,” I answered, “and if you watch long enough, eventually you will see. You have done it before.” I encouraged him.

  We stood there for a while until the wind turned cold and moist. His expression gradually shifted from one of excitement to one of boredom.

  “But, Nisy,” he said, his voice deeper and more worried than usual, “when will we finally get the ---.”

  His voice distorted as he uttered the last word, the distortion feeling me with dread. An expectation of calamity. He should not know about it yet. Back then, when…

  “This is not right. You are not supposed to learn about it yet. I don’t even know about it yet.” I responded to him. A cold sensation gripped my heart; was this a memory, going wrong? Was I dreaming?

  My peripheral vision blurred as I walked to him.

  “Of course, I don’t know anything about ---,” he said, the last word now something long forgotten. He turned to look at me, and his silver eyes were now fading away, along with the mountaintops.

  I was not in the mountains. I was in a warm, red, and golden room. Sitting on a comfortable couch, surrounded but luxurious furniture with intricately woven patterns of birds and pomegranates. I sipped some tea.

  “There is no need to. There is no war anymore.” Zephyr’s voice echoed. “There is no war anymore.”

  But he was not with me; I was alone.

  I laughed. The voice was right. No more war. I inhaled the aroma from the teacup in front of me. It smelled like flowers. It smelled like spring.

  ? ? ?

  I awoke carrying the intense smell of flowers and spring with me. Not from my waking time, but from a dream. And for a moment, I could not tell the two apart.

  But I was in clean, silken sheets. Real, soft, enveloping me and my sore body. I felt a searing pain in my throat as I tried to yawn, my dream already forgotten. Something about the mountains, and a cabin. Zephyr was there, or was it Zaman? Or a stranger with a platanus leaf. And I had set myself on fire, somewhere in the desert… Nonsense.

  I opened my eyes. Beams of a setting sun pierced through curtained windows. This was not my house, although the scent permeating the air invited me to feel at home. My senses were reassuring me: I was safe.

  “How…” did I get here, I felt the need to ask myself out loud, but I could not control my voice. I tried to recall, in vain. Yes, I was supposed to be on a mission, ward, and protect. In O?uz. But protect from what? That, I could not recall.

  Pushing my hands against the mattress, I tried to rise but found myself unable to do so, my hands utterly weak to support me.

  I huffed, exhausted. What had I done last night? I looked around for an explanation. A note, maybe, or a piece of equipment that would trigger my memories. My eyes got caught trailing branches instead. Painted on the walls of the room I was sleeping in, in red and gold, and green, was a pomegranate tree. Or rather, its branches, painted tangled on the wall. And a pomegranate, drawn with detail and attention, being the single one the painter had chosen to depict…

  I was losing focus. I made another attempt to rise from the bed, a bit more successful. Overwhelming fatigue and a desire to stay lying down pulled me like gravity. Regardless, I managed to put my back against the bed’s headboard.

  Next to me, on the nightstand, there was finally a hint or clue: a note, besides a small glass of water and a bag of crushed leaves. I picked it, straining to reach it, and read what it recommended with an unfamiliar handwriting: ?ay for a painless sleep.

  Another wave of pain passed through me, starting from my neck. I heaved in an attempt to catch my breath, as if someone was about to steal it. Of course, I could breathe just fine. What a silly thought that was. I was safe. And the pain had to go. I moved closer to the edge of the bed, reaching for the teabag. I tore it open and released the powdered leaves straight into the water.

  I instinctively tried to whisper to it, add a warding blessing to it. Instead, I felt like my vocal cords were ripped apart. Tears welled up, and I coughed, making it even worse.

  I could not whisper through this pain, and I could not remember why.

  I picked up the cup of water, as its color turned into a leafy pink. The dried aromatic seeds floated and swirled as I felt the warmth of the brew against the cup’s walls in my hands. I inhaled its fruity aroma, and before thinking twice, I sipped its contents. I cherished its fruity taste, as a thought crept into my mind: who heated this water and placed it by my bedside?

  A problem for the next day, as my eyelids grew heavy.