Chapter Text
Nightfall wrapped the desert in cool, creeping darkness. It rolled over the endless dunes and sent a chill up Crow’s spine as he trudged through the sifting sands, trying to ignore the ache in his legs. The moon’s face was nearly hidden, barely a sliver against the mottled black sky. In his arms, little Fluixon lets out a plaintive cry, his small hands balling into fists in his soft purple blanket.
Crow lowers his head to press a kiss into his son’s tiny forehead, smoothing back his downy curls and wrapping the blanket more firmly around him until he falls silent again. It was then that the torchlight crested the hill, and he looks back up to see a patrol of janissaries standing before him at the top of the dune, their spears aloft and their fires blazing.
He locks eyes with one of the men, cast in orange shadows from the lights, and both of their faces go slack with shock. “Zombta,” he starts, his voice halting. “Is that you?”
The wearied brown face splits into a warm smile, though the apprehension still remains in the tense line of his shoulders. “As-salaamu alaykum, Aculon,” Zombta huffs, lowering his spear. Crow tries not to wince at the use-name, pulling Fluixon closer to his chest. “Why… What are you doing here, Lord?”
He does wince at that. “It’s - a very long story, I’m afraid. Are you the head of this patrol? How far are we from the city?”
“What’s going on?” Another voice cuts in, and the soldiers part to make way for yet another familiar face - Zaanga, not the green boy Crow remembered but a broad-shouldered man, brown keffiyeh fluttering in the wind, blue eyes gleaming in a tanned, drawn face. Like his general, he stops short when he sees Crow, and his eyes widen with shock. “...OutlyingCrow?”
Crow lets out a breath he hadn’t remembered holding. “As-salaamu alaykum. It’s been far too long.” Four years, to be exact, since he last set foot in golden sand rather than icy snow. His legs and chest ache from the cold and fatigue.
Zaanga stares a moment longer, seemingly dumbstruck, before his expression settles into something more guarded. “So it has,” he mutters, his voice steadier now as he crosses his arms. “What is your business here? Are you part of a larger entourage?”
Crow snorts at that, shifting from foot to foot in his weighted, fur-lined boots, which were ill-suited to desert travel but were all he had on hand since his flight from the Snow. “Obviously not. I come alone.”
“Doesn’t look like it.” Zaanga nods with his chin at the infant swaddled in Crow’s arms. “Does His Highness Elanuelo know that you’ve taken his heir into the desert in the dead of night?”
He feels his body jolt with pain, and does his best to smooth the grimace from his face and relax his hold, not wanting to upset Fluixon from his sleep. Zaanga was not who he came here to speak with. His jaw tight, Crow replies, “The prince and heir, Ender, sleeps in his rooms in the Aculon Empire along with his father, where he is being watched over by nurses and guards, as does Red his brother. This is Fluixon, my thirdborn.”
His words carried conviction that he didn’t feel, but evidently it was enough to make Zaanga pause. “You’re here alone,” he says, voice flat with disbelief. “You came all the way here from the Snow? Truly?”
“I am at your mercy,” Crow responds, dipping his head as he breathes slowly through his nose. It is hard for his rattled nerves to muster courtesy. “I only wish to speak to His Majesty the Sultan in the city. Wallah, say the word and I will turn away.”
Zaanga, to Crow’s surprise, glances at Zombta in askance, indicating with his spear-hand towards Crow in silent question. Throughout his short conversation with Zaanga, the general had been appraising him with a gaze that was nigh unreadable. Now he nods back at Zaanga decisively, lips pressed into a thin line.
Zaanga turns back to him. “We will escort you back to the city. Do you need someone to carry the child for you?”
Crow tries not to let his shoulders sag with relief. The night was not yet over. Fluixon is somehow still miraculously asleep, and while he’s already feeling the strain on his muscles from the baby’s weight, he finds he doesn’t fully trust the men in their armor. “No, thank you. I carried him this far. A little longer won’t hurt.”
Zaanga nods briskly, and with that, they set off in the direction of the city, the torchlight keeping their backs warm - something Crow was acutely grateful for.
The capital city, even at night, is lively as can be, and much warmer thanks to the fires that light the streets and windows. No curious children run through the winding alleys, having already gone to bed, but the men and women of the Sultanate stop and turn when they see him walking with a throng of their highest officers, murmuring to one another in wonder, their eyes trailing after him and the infant he’s holding. Crow’s skin prickles at the attention, but he lifts his head high and keeps his gaze straight ahead, letting himself be led towards the palace.
He’s well aware of how he looks: tall and pale from his time in the silver snows, feather-lined face drawn with stress and fatigue, dressed in mottled furs and heavy white brocade, patterned in Aculonian red and gold. Desert creature he might’ve been, he had not borne that title for four long years, and it showed. Surrounded by his kin, he takes a deep breath and walks on, and spaces out enough to not notice that the men had stopped walking until he’s at the front of the group, where he stops in his tracks.
Zombta had gone ahead to tell the Sultan of his approach, and now he trails in the wake of his lord alongside his brother, Davarit, whom Crow pays no attention to. He’s too busy gaping at the man they follow, stunned speechless by a joy that claws at his heart - he had heard news of his return three years prior, but was kept away by his duties from being able to see the truth for himself.
Now he does not dare to look away. “Yanhariswid,” he whispers. “My Sultan. You’re alive.”
Storminghell looks just the same as he had in the years before his death, if not greater and prouder still. His turban is pinned with jewels, his beard neatly groomed, his brown skin bright with life. His robes, draped in gallant purple and gold, flow loosely around his intricate armor. He watches Crow with bright brown eyes, and Crow, with muted astonishment, can see the tears that prick and glimmer in them as he takes another step forward, his hands outstretched. “Ya Allah, do my eyes deceive me? OutlyingCrow, my friend - is that truly you?”
Crow’s knees buckle, and before he knows it, he’s sinking to a kneel before the Sultan - his Sultan! His lord, back from the dead! - and lowering his head in subordination. His face presses into Fluixon’s curls, breath trembling. He needs to focus, to remember why he’s here, and it’s a second before he finds the words with which to speak. “Yes, Your Majesty. I come begging for your friendship, and your generosity, for I’ve traveled here all the way from the isle of snow seeking shelter for my son and I.”
Fluixon wriggles and whines in his arms, having been jostled by the sudden movements. Crow keeps his eyes lowered, but he can see Storminghell’s sandaled feet where he stops before him, can feel the gaze boring into the back of his neck. The men around him stir, like unsettled birds.
“From the snow… They told me when I awoke that you were the consort of Solev’s son, and that you had chosen to forget yourself in those lands,” the Sultan says quietly. All joy had vanished from his voice, replaced instead with sorrow and dismay. “You were, so they told me, the appointed heir of Bonjubuemos. I would have kept you and adorned you as such, had you been here.”
“I was pushed into the marriage by Bonjubuemos himself. The arrangement was not my own,” Crow protests, looking up sharply. He quickly silences when he sees the look on the Sultan’s face.
“And yet you were not wholly unwilling,” Storminghell retorts, his voice dark and low. “And you did not return a single time to help your people while they rebuilt their city after the war. Now you come, a half-kafir child in your arms whom you sired with a foreign prince, against my heart’s wish, and you ask me for asylum and friendship.”
Hot shame courses down Crow’s back despite himself, and he bows his head once more, clutching Fluixon more firmly to his shoulder, feeling himself like a scolded child. “I am sorry, Majesty,” he murmurs, “All that you have said is true. I do not deny it. I have wronged these lands and your memory.”
The Sultan pauses at that, letting the silence fall heavy between them. Fluixon squirms in Crow’s arms. “Why are you here?” Storminghell demands, louder. “Your husband and lord, and your eldest sons, remain in the land that was named for you. Have you abandoned them as you abandoned us? Or does Solev’s son seek to insult you by casting you out?”
“...No, your Majesty.” The words taste like ash in his mouth as he lifts his gaze to meet Storminghell. He does his best to steady his voice, cutting all bitterness from it as best he could. “Elanuelo… he is no longer the man he promised to be when I married him. We have cut ties in all but name, and he has let me go, so long as I took only one son and not the others.”
Muttering breaks out amongst the men, only to be quelled by a raised hand from the Sultan, who looks down now at Fluixon, then back up at Crow. His face is impossible to read. “And so you returned.”
“I am sorry,” Crow repeats, a note of pain slipping into his voice that he can’t catch in time. “I ask for no grand luxuries or titles. I only ask for your forgiveness, Majesty, and for shelter for my son. He deserves a home, if not with me.” The shame pools now in his chest and stomach, cold humiliation filling up his cavities. He had forgotten how it felt to be brought so low.
Another moment of silence. Crow swallows down his pride and fear, gaze downcast. He cradles Fluixon protectively to himself, not daring to move a muscle.
A hand rests on his shoulder, and he shudders. Storminghell’s eyes gleam in the lights of the city, and then he’s helping Crow to his feet, his hands on his shoulder and back. “Oh, Aculon. How could I turn away my most beloved of sons?”
And Crow, who had nearly forgotten what his Sultan’s voice had even sounded like, squeezes his eyes shut to fight back his tears. He lets Storminghell steady him as he sways on his feet, relief and exhaustion flooding through him in an instant. “Father,” he breathes. He’s home. He’s home.
Storminghell holds him a moment longer before he pulls away, straightening his back. “You and the child must be tired from your travels, my friend. I will have you escorted to some suitable sleeping quarters in the palace.”
“I will take him,” Zaanga calls out, coming to stand a little ways at Storminghell’s side. He clears his throat, inclining his head respectfully to the Sultan. “We have already finished our patrols for the night, and I am sure that the men are tired.”
Storminghell’s face softens as he looks at his son. “Good. We will speak more in the morning,” he adds, attention shifting back to Crow, “on the business of your severance from the snow, and what it means for you and your son.”
“I understand, Your Majesty,” Crow nods stiffly, shifting Fluixon’s weight in his arms. He’s so, so tired. “Good night.”
“Safe tidings,” Storminghell replies, and his smile is just as it was in the faded recesses of Crow’s memories, if a little sadder. “Welcome home, Aculon.”
Crow smiles back, though he knows it doesn’t meet his eyes. “...Aculon is the name of an empire, my Lord. My name is OutlyingCrow of the Sultanate.”
Zaanga leads him through the royal courtyard, into the palace and through the winding open corridors. Wordlessly, Crow follows him, taking in the scenery. The palace had never been so grand, even in, as indicated by the scaffolding, its currently unfinished state. He remembers King mentioning to him, in the aftermath of the Battle of the Wooden Fence, that he had been preparing a schematic for its foundations, and promising him to be there to help.
He’s too tired to fight against the wave of guilt that washes through him. Storminghell had not been entirely correct about his absence - Crow had returned after the battle, if only to bid Weedy and Bonjubuemos farewell and to help arrange the transport of building materials for reparations before returning to Elanuelo’s side - but as he’d conceded, everything else had been true.
Crow had left his home, his people and his kin for love of a husband who had been on the opposing side, and a land of ice and snow so foreign from anything else he’d ever known. He knew it less when he’d left it.
Fluixon, swaddled in bright violet cloth, is the only thing keeping him warm. He squirms in Crow’s arms, squalling quietly, and he bends his head down to pepper his son’s face with kisses, breathing in the sweet smell of down. “Shh, hayati. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
Zaanga has stopped now before a set of smooth-varnished doors, his blue eyes gleaming in the dark. “You’re both safe now,” he says. “You know the Sultan does not break his word… nor do those faithful to him when they see what he has vowed.”
Crow blinks back at him, unsure how to read Zaanga’s tone. The young man had always been impossibly awkward, and it seemed that much hadn’t changed. “I know. But it’s good to see him again and have it confirmed by my own ears.”
“You could have visited sooner," Zaanga points out, his voice quietly pointed. “He has been back for all of three years, and he was overjoyed to hear that Bonjubuemos had made you the heir. It broke his heart when you didn’t come. He loved you like his own son.”
“And I loved him like my own family, like my father, even, and you and Arvine I saw as brothers. I took over your education after he died when Arvine got too busy to arrange things, for Ish’s sake,” Crow protests, a little more defensively than he meant to. Fluixon whimpers. Zaanga raises his hands in a placating gesture, his head lowering in the face of the elder’s wrath.
“I know that, khayya, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying. You were missed,” he says gently, “and missed very much. I am glad you’re back now. I know many in the palace and streets feel the same. You had kin here, and we wanted you here at home.”
Crow’s exhausted mind takes a moment to process, before his shoulders slump, ice melting off his face. “...I missed you too. I am glad to be back, even though - yes. I’m glad to be back.”
They simply look at each other for a few moments after that, the weight of years fraught with tension and warmth lingering between them. Crow bounces Fluixon in his arms, trying to calm the baby’s whining, and watches Zaanga’s eyes follow the movement. “Fluixon, right?” He holds out his arms. “Your arms must be tired. I can hold him.”
“Yes, it’s Fluixon,” Crow murmurs, grateful for the break and the cutting of the silence. He passes the baby over, and Zaanga takes his son with gentle hands, awkwardly pulling him to his chest. Fluixon grizzled into his neck, gurgling unhappily, but Crow shot Zaanga a reassuring look in response to his kinsman’s worried glance. “He’s hungry and grumpy, and I haven’t exactly been letting him lay down. It’s a miracle he stayed asleep for the majority of my travels.”
“I’ll tell the help to send in some milk. He seems healthy, mashallah. I am glad that his first months in the snow treated him well.” Zaanga rocks Fluixon gently as he settles the baby down, meeting Crow’s eye. His voice carried a note of sadness. “...What happened to you, brother? I remember how much you loved Elanuelo and your son. I know you would never have left him of your own free will.”
Crow lets out a sharp breath, his jaw clenching. He wills his voice to stay level, and only partially succeeds. “Elanuelo was a nervous wreck, Zaanga. He trusted his knights and his walls over his own people. He barely came back to our bed at night. I couldn’t live like that,” he murmurs. “Watching him betray his own vows and his father’s memory just to preserve his life and power.”
He remembers Elanuelo’s face as he’d raged at him, gaunt and dark, eyes lined with a deep-set fear. So like Solev, yet worse. At least Solev had remembered what was important.
Zaanga sighs, adjusting his grip around Fluixon’s tangled blanket. “I understand that… if only a little. You remember how Arvine was. Baba does too, if only through the stories of his ministers.” They both pause at that, and he huffs. “Sorry. It’s kind of a complicated business… You’ll learn more about it in the morning, I’m sure. But you came at a weird time. As far as the rest of the country is aware, the Sultan has no true heir.”
Crow’s eyes widened. “What? But Arvine was removed, and Bonju stepped down, so would his heir not be - “
Zaanga lifts one of his shoulders in a shrug. “I was just a child when the Wooden Fence happened, remember? And younger still when Baba died and you moved me to your apartments as Arvine and Bonju assumed the throne. Very few of the Sultanate remember the second son, or know me beyond my high position in the council. To them I am Zaanga of the Council and the Sultan’s Spear, an enforcer of the law and nothing more.”
His mind reeling, Crow thinks back to when he’d encountered Zaanga’s patrol in the dunes, and how the man had turned to Zombta - a general who, for all his placed prestige, should’ve been his subordinate - for instruction. He stiffens. “You were never crowned?”
“Not publicly,” Zaanga says slowly. “There was a bit of confusion in the years following the war. Bonju wanted to tell you, but by then you’d left for the Snow and all those treaties were signed… No matter. I am set to be heir on paper, but the Sultan has hesitated to declare me as such. Not that I’m complaining,” he admits, smiling slightly. “You were always better at being a prince than I was, Crow. Even without royal blood. Arvine and Bonju knew it, and Baba did too after he awoke.”
Crow’s lip twitches. “Don’t be so sure of that. He just scolded me in front of all the spearsmen for running away from home.”
“But you came back, didn’t you? And he never did end up disinheriting you, not like he did Arvine.” Zaanga follows Crow into the bedroom as the two of them finally stop lingering by the doors and walk inside, Fluixon gurgling in his arms, hands stretching up towards his face. He looks down at the tiny infant, and his expression softens.
Crow follows his gaze, and his heart twinges. Once, long ago, before it all burned with the Wooden Fence, he had visited the desert with an infant Ender and let his foster-brother, then a scruffy teenager, hold his eldest exactly the same way he was cradling Fluixon now. “I’m just as selfish as His Majesty said, I’m afraid,” he murmurs. “I’ve abandoned two families, now.”
There’s a crib below the window beside the bed, which Crow assumes was carried in before they got here, and Zaanga gently lowers Fluixon down onto the soft mattress. The baby babbles up at Zaanga, little face scrunched up in a pout.
“He’ll have a good life here, Crow,” Zaanga tells him, straightening his back. His face is dripping with pity. “And Ender and Red… if what you’d said was true, you couldn’t have - “
“Yes, well,” Crow interrupts him before he can say any more. “...I will see you in the morning, Zaanga. Please don’t forget about the milk, Fluixon is a demon when he’s hungry.”
“...Right,” Zaanga says reluctantly, though he’s already inching towards the door. Feeling a little sorry, Crow gives him a tired smile, one he returns half as wide. “I won’t. Good night, khayya. And welcome back.”
“It’s good to be back,” Crow says as he leaves, then lets himself crumple as the door shuts with a click.
Elanuelo and Aculon were far, far away. The only cold in the desert was the nighttime chill. Little Ender and Red slept in their quarters in the imperial apartments, not knowing that their father and brother had left them behind, never to come back again. Elanuelo, who had loved them all so much, had not even tried to stop him beyond a few spiteful words. He was as steadfast as the course of the boat that had carried Crow and Fluixon to the desert over the terrible, jet-black sea.
And OutlyingCrow was home, and his son was safe and warm. Now he sits on his bed like a puppet with its strings cut, still draped in Aculonian finery that he would never need again, thinking back on all the years of his life.
After a moment, he slips the silver ring off his dark-taloned finger. It was not Sultanate custom to wear jewelry, even as a wedding band. He sets it on his dresser and turns away.
A knock on the door. The help, he thinks as he rises to meet it, here with the milk, thank goodness. Fluixon would need to eat.