Page 72 of Triplets for the Barbarians

Slowly, Jewel puts Shaytan’s badge in her back pocket and looks at the warriors around her. “Which of you is the highest in rank up here?” she asks. Smart girl.

Fadai can’t help but smile when a tall Sunnaite with a shaved head and golden tresses on his uniform steps forth. “I am,” the bald man says. “Second Commander Garza of the Fifth Platoon,” he adds.

“Commander Garza, do you accept our request for a truce and peace talks? Your leaders are dead. Out here on the battlefield, the men are now under your command,” Jewel replies.

“I accept,” he says, then turns to his men with a stern look in his eyes. “The weapons stay on the ground. We will gather back inside Opal City and start organizing peace talks,” he shouts. “I’ll liaise with the Sapphire City operation and stop their advances.”

“Thank you,” Fadai says. “Commander Garza, you are finally on the right side of history.”

“We’ll see about that, Kreek scum,” he retorts.

Granted, we’ve killed many of his men prior to this conversation. The grudge he’s holding is the size of Kaos Volcano. If I were him, I’d think twice before leaving this roof without chopping some Kreek heads off, and he’s got two of them within his reach.

So I bow politely, quietly admitting my own role in the war, and Fadai does the same. It’s enough to keep everybody’s spirits calm as the crowd parts in the middle for Jewel.

She comes toward us, trying so hard not to breathe that sigh of relief we’re all so desperate to breathe, taking cautious steps and keeping her eyes peeled for any possible transgression. But nothing happens. The Sky Tribe soldiers simply back off, letting her move freely.

“It’s really over, isn’t it?” she whispers.

I’d like nothing more than to wrap my arms around her, but it’s too soon. All I can do is nod slowly.

“It is,” Fadai replies.

Whether it’s over for good or only over for a few more days remains to be seen. But the siege of Opal City has ended. In a few minutes, the siege of Sapphire City will also stop. The world has come to a violent and bloody halt, and tomorrow will see the suns rising again.

Hope draws lines of its own along the scarlet horizon as the summer heat sizzles from the battered ground.

I wonder how many of us will be left standing by the time the peace treaty is signed.

I wonder how many lives will be spared with the stroke of a pen.

Wonder no more, I tell myself. Only look around and thank the universe for giving us another chance to save ourselves.

29

Jewel

Second Commander Garza didn’t think he’d ever assume a leadership position, especially while Blaze and Shaytan led the Sky Tribe. As the days pass in tense silence while they assess their losses and options going forward, I take advantage of every moment I can spend in his company to better understand his mindset and figure out what drives him.

Had we come to him in the first place, we might’ve been able to avoid so many casualties. It turns out Garza is one of the last genuine pacifists in his tribe, one of the few who constantly advocated against the fighting and the aggressive takeovers. No wonder he allowed us to leave the military base without punishment. He’d been fighting a war he never wanted since he was a boy.

“My father believed in peace between our tribes,” Garza says as we walk together through the gardens outside Opal City’s royal palace.

Signs of battle are scattered everywhere, but there are also signs of the world healing and coming together again. Everywhere I look, I see residents working hand in hand with surviving Sky and Fire Tribe soldiers to clear out the rubble and restore the beauty of their precious citadel.

“On his deathbed, he begged me always to be a voice of reason at the negotiation table,” Garza continues.

“What happened, then?” I ask, shifting uncomfortably. I’m still sore from my injuries, but I’ve been chugging plenty of Sunna’s inner fire since the fighting stopped, and I believe I’ll be as good as new within the fortnight.

Garza takes a deep breath as we make our way toward the palace steps. At the top, Solomon’s widows await our return, accompanied by the Kreek brothers.

“No one wanted to listen,” Garza says. “Not while Shaytan’s voice was so loud above everyone else’s. I don’t know how, but Selina Sharuk really brainwashed that man into submission. He used to pretend her death didn’t affect him and that he was never that devoted to her ideas for Sunna’s future, but we all knew; we all saw the signs. And we all heard him during every single briefing session. Parroting her words, repeating the same nonsense… albeit in a different tone. It was more of the same. Our genes are weak, we’ll never survive the next epidemic, we need human bloodlines to join ours, and so forth. He said it so many times that the others sort of just went along with it.”

“What other choice did you have?” I reply with a tired shrug. “In times of war, we follow our leaders. We followed ours, and you followed yours. They’re supposed to be leaders for a reason.”

“Yes, but I should’ve known better. I could’ve done something.”

“Against Shaytan?” I scoff. “You didn’t see him up there or the speed with which he murdered his own partner. Blaze didn’t stand a chance. Shaytan would’ve killed anyone who got in his way, and he was so determined to push Selina’s plan forward that I doubt you would’ve managed to accomplish anything. He would’ve turned your own platoon against you. Power does that to people.”

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