Chapter One

 

Amsheer. He was born in the desert, on the first day of that stormy month known as Amsheer.

He was born in that moment when time is still. When the air has been yellow and unbreathable, and then the manic rains fall, cleansing the earth and all that dwell upon it. That silent moment in between when the sun hangs as a sullen disc of rock, and when its life is returned to it - burning dust and breaking hearts; the giver of life and its foretold reaper.

How exquisite he was, unlike any other. He bore no resemblance to any of his kin; it was as if he had been born to the desert herself, that she and her unceasing bedfellow, the night, were the sole providers of his genes. 

His father winced as Amsheer was bundled into his arms. He had caught a glimpse of golden hair stained with blood in the eruption of activity that had surrounded his wife’s limp and lonely body. Now, on closer inspection, he found himself peering into a pair of raven eyes. 

He lamented. He looked from this unfamiliar child, this strange fruit, to the naked body of his lost wife, and he lamented. The price paid for life to find this child was too heavy.

In the place of congratulations, the abrasive palm of condolence was now grasping his hand. In the place of the long anticipated celebrations, there would be an immediate funeral. 

In the place of love, a bearable numbness grew within his chest. 

As the wails of affliction rose to meet with a greeting of thunder from the sky, he placed the newborn on the sand beneath his feet and looked away. He resolved never to look into those eyes again. 

Thus the child was named Amsheer, in his father’s mind the harbinger of storms and sorrow.