Rhys carried the clothing upstairs. The house was still very sparse. Perhaps it always would be. Some men could start over, he knew. Pretend they had never failed. But he was not that type of man. He would live with his mistakes, even if he did not know how to fix them.

“Patron?” Rahel called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes?” Rhys said.

“Pardon, patron, but this man says he’s your father.”

Rhys took a deep breath. He had known it was a possibility for his father to find him. People would talk. Especially his uncle. “Let him in, please. Prepare some tea.”

Rhys walked to the window in his study, and gazed out into the dusty landscape outside Bahreha. He imagined a day when his grandchildren would play in the parks there, and his children would rebuild the roads and the fountains and sponsor the theaters. He imagined a whole world on top of this one, better than this one, a thousand years of peace.

Perhaps even a world he could be a part of.

He only thought of Nyx once, when he heard his father enter the sitting room. Heard his distinctive voice speaking softly to Rahel. Rhys had fled his home a coward. What would his father have to say to his cowardly son? He wanted Nyx beside him then, wanted her easy confidence, her surety.

Instead, he recited the ninety-nine names of God. Then he went to the basin on his side table and performed the ablution, as if for prayer.

When he gazed into the mirror, he saw a face he had thought forgotten, long dead. But as he straightened, he saw that it was Rakhshan Arjoomand, not Rhys Dashasa, or Rhys Shahkam, who now prepared to face the consequences of everything he had fled.

He walked downstairs.

A tall, thin man stood at the door, wearing a beautiful green shalwar khameez stitched in gold. His head was shaved, but a neat white beard clothed his handsome face. The man had his long, slim hands folded in front of him. He gazed up at Rhys; an old man now, much smaller than Rhys remembered.

“Rakhshan,” the man said.

Rhys held out his hands to greet his father.

50.

The season had turned. Cloudy skies and misty days had given way to partial clouds and drizzle. Nyx hadn’t lived on the coast for the weather.

She drove down the long, dreary drive to the coastal compound, past the towering trees, comforting as minarets, and parked next to the ruin of the compound wall. Got out of the bakkie.

The compound wall had been imploded. As had the compound itself. It was just a heaping pile of rubble and weeds now. Nyx knew how it would go because she had been the one to design the blast and set the charges. She had taught the kids how to make eighteen different kinds of mines and shown them exactly how to set them.