It wasn’t enough.

Maslakhat’s restlessness drove him from the heart of the Dunes to the edges of Salem where he wandered aimlessly, his mind blank and his body numb from inaction. He crossed along the borders of the Desert and the Badlands and looked inward, but instead of the usual disdain, he felt nothing. A younger version of himself might have been indignant, spurred into action by the blasphemous existence of an unworthy ruler. He would have driven such a fool away and installed a new more suitable king—one beholden to his whims, perfectly groomed for such responsibilities.

But he didn’t.

He pushed the issue down to the depths of his consciousness—convincing himself that with every trip he took in search of like-blooded creatures, he might be bolstering his ranks until they reached a critical mass, that he might subversively force out those who did not belong. It was a subtle and cutting and carefully orchestrated tactic, executed in such a way that none of it—his desires, his bias—could be traced back to him.

It would have been so much simpler to just fight them. For Maslakhat to accept that there would be blood, and for him to embrace the chaos and all that it meant.

But he didn’t.

He had convinced himself that his way—slow and deliberate—was the best way. This way would not leave scars on his reputation or his slender frame. But the small, slow burning embers he had been kindling were too weak to burn anything to the ground, and there was no amount of wind that might fan the flame enough to reignite the fire that once burned so passionately inside him.

Maslakhat paused when he reached the edge of where the Dunes met the Hills—where the sloping sands turned to dirt and the scent of his first born son was strong in his nostrils.

Zahhāk.

The smoky black stallion stood atop a nearby knoll, his head low and his black tail lashing against his flanks, decorated with scars from all his past transgressions. He glared down his nose at his father, his dark eyes smoldering like coals, full of hatred.

Maslakhat stood opposite him, his posture a stark contrast to his son’s. His neck, long and sleek sloped into his shoulders effortlessly, his golden, dappled coat gleaming clean and unmarred as the sun started to fall behind him, turning the sky a deep crimson.

His son was perhaps the most profound disappointment of his life, but as he stared him down—the golden bay Akhal-Teke could no longer deny his role in shaping the beast into the ragged, vengeful creature that stood before him. In some way, Maslakhat had dealt with him the same way he dealt with every obstacle—he convinced himself that he was intentionally shaping it, when in fact he was pushing it down and further away into the mire of his mind.

Zahhāk was no longer a feeble, helpless, starved creature—but one who had come into his own in the face of constant adversity, shame and shunning. Nearly everyone who had ever crossed his path thoroughly underestimated him, and with each affront, the fire inside his heart grew into a raging inferno. Maslakhat cannot help but think of Valve—and how he embodied her fury, but without the sinister cool shielding it like a lead case over a bomb. Zahhāk was unhinged. And now, he was locked and loaded, pointing directly at Maslakhat.

“You took everything from me,” the smoky black stallion murmured through clenched teeth, unfurling his fuse before his father.

“You had nothing to take,” Maslakhat spat in return, striking the match.

Zahhāk pawed the earth below him. He would get it all back. He would strike down his father from his seat of power and take up residence within the void he created, crawling inside his role and wrapping himself in the respect he believed he had earned. Too long had he let himself believe he was unworthy, unfit. Too long did he cower in the shade, falling further into a black hole of unending deprecation.

He crawled from the abyss, his heart full of hell fire, and Maslakhat could not acknowledge such resurrection, despite the burning obviousness of the truth.

“You are nothing. You have always been nothing.”

“Not anymore.”

“You will always be nothing. Incapable.”

Zahhāk’s coal-eyes glower, his ears pressing firmly back against his skull as his legs quaked in the dirt.

“I am a billion smoldering ashes. You have no idea what’s happened to me.”

Maslakhat’s lip curled, his ears flicking backward to match the growing fury of the stallion before him.

“Prove it.”

Zahhāk exploded toward him, his lean legs flying over the yielding earth as Maslakhat dug in to meet his blows. They collided, clapping like thunder, the tangle of hooves and teeth they each haphazardly sent at each other snapping and shuffling in the sand. Thin skin ripped and split under each of their driving blows, new blood seeping as droplets scattered in the air with each flex of their lean muscles. Every pinch and strike and lurch and squeal with black lips pulled back over dry teeth meant more pain and scars and bruises and cuts.

Exhaustion overtook them and they pulled apart, their rib-laden sides heaving with effort as the adrenaline coursed through both of their bodies. Blood streamed from Maslakhat’s nose, dripping from the end of his muzzle and metallic in his mouth. Zahhāk’s eyes stayed trained upon him and without warning, the golden bay stallion laughed uproariously.

His strength stripped, the perfect picture he’d attempted to craft doused in paint thinner and ignited from the spark of live wire he’d fashioned with his own neglect. In some way, Maslakhat had always known it would come to this, and finally, in facing his demise, he found the entire charade largely pointless.

“You are still nothing,” he barked through gritted teeth, the rush from the fight subsiding and the utter pain of his head injury setting in, blurring his vision as his heart thrummed erratically in his chest.

Zahhāk stared on blankly, the blood streaming down his legs from twin gashes on either side of his neck pooling at his forelegs. The satisfaction he thought he would feel in victory was instead met with hollow futility. All his life he thought Maslakhat had everything—that his father was everything he was not—but it was all a lie. The kingdom, the power, the respect he held was all an elaborate deception.

“You're right…” Zahhāk whispered as his father crumpled into the sand, his eyes empty and still.

Zahhāk & Maslakhat