“But why? What of loyalty?” Durkhanai asked. “Country? Are these not the codes that dictate our culture?”

The tribes were obligated to protect their own lands, not others. And the Kebzu Kingdom had conquered and killed their brethren in the past, how could the Badshah ally himself with one of his enemies, shedding his people’s blood for another nation?

“This is necessary,” the Badshah explained. “To rid us of the Luhgum Empire once and for all.”

And all Durkhanai saw in her grandfather's countenance was the boy of fourteen who had seen his brothers and fathers killed. How it had molded his entire being, sanded and chiseled him down to one purpose, one thought—revenge. He could not see past his own hypocrisy.

“But at what cost?” Durkhanai argued. “At what cost?”

All of their people were dying.

“Whatever the cost,” the Badshah told her. “Whatever the cost for the greater good. When I am long gone, I wish for your children and your children’s children to live in a world without war. These lives now for the lives of the future. Don’t you understand? Can you not see?”

“I do, but, Agha-Jaan, this is too much,” she said. “Just as the attack on the summit was too much. Was it really you who alerted the Kebzu Kingdom of the summit meeting?”

“I assume Asfandyar told you this, as well?”

“Yes,” Durkhanai replied. “Is it true? And that show of the Kebzu soldier at the fiftieth-year celebration was a lie?”

The Badshah sighed.

“Janaan, there is much you do not understand,” he replied. “Perhaps we have kept too much from you, but only because you still have such a naive perspective, which is only being confirmed now. Yes, the Kebzu soldier’s confession was a lie. But a necessary one to avoid war within our zillas. We cannot handle a triple-frontier war, not now, not when we are so close!”

She knew it.

“As for the summit attack,” he continued. “I never told the Kebzu Kingdom to attack the summit. I merely informed them of the summit, clearly stating that we were not participating, so they did not have to worry. I did not tell them the location or the date—that, their spies must have gathered on their own.”

“Besides, Allah has a way of making things work out. Now see with the summit attack—while it was a tragedy, it was also a blessing, for if the other zillas had unified, they would have been strong enough to wage war against us,” Dhadi explained. “Which would have been costly, especially when we are sending all our resources to the frontier against the Luhgam Empires. Especially when we are so close.”

They had everything planned out, everything explained. All the answers at the ready, calmly explaining things to her as though she was a child still.

Was there anything she had ever known?

No. She didn’t even know herself anymore.