“I…” Kavil blinked, tilting his head. “I don’t think I’ve heard of it?”

  Sulaiman had to pause for a moment at that unexpected revelation.

  The conflict, though slaughter might be a better way to describe it, was something that impacted Sulaiman’s life on a daily basis and was so ingrained into his view of the world that to hear that someone had never heard of it was… oddly discombobulating. For Sulaiman, he never had the luxury of not knowing the intimate details of what happened, to know that good Kavendash citizens died in agony because of people like him (everytime he heard that damned phrase, Sulaiman wanted to scream at them that he wasn’t his parents, that he couldn’t remember anything about them except the fact that they abandoned him).

  But the more Sulaiman thought of it, he supposed it made sense that Kavil knew nothing about it. The village had been far away from the fighting and the people who lived there probably thought it would be better to tell Kavil tales with happy endings.

  “I’ve heard of the word Muloian before,” Kavil said, as Sulaiman had taken too long to respond in his shock. “Is it a kingdom like Kavendash?”

  That simple question showed so much ignorance and innocence that Sulaiman felt like laughing. But Sulaiman didn’t give into that temptation because he didn’t want to kill Kavil’s curiosity. (Not like the way Sulaiman’s had been.)

  “No, Muloian refers to the people,” Sulaiman said, pausing before folding his hands over his lap. “My people, technically, and Muloi is the name of where they’re from, a mountain range due south of the Kavendash capital, on the border between the Kavendash kingdom, the Oshad Confederacy, and Aswar.”

  Kavil froze like a deer staring down a hunter’s arrow.

  “Ah,” Kavil said after opening his mouth a few times, “I hadn’t known, I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t something you need to apologize for,” Sulaiman said as a way to buy himself time, wondering just how to portray history that was both his and not. The history he had been taught at the orphanage was soaked in bias and prejudice, but he had found one book in his years of searching that told a more balanced tale, so that would be what he would try to emulate.

  “I suppose I’ll start from the beginning,” Sulaiman said, “so you have the full context.

  “No one knows exactly when the Muloi mountains were populated, but people had lived there for as long as Kavendash has been a kingdom. Being a mountain nation, Muloi had innate defenses against invasion, but it was unfortunately positioned between three countries that held significant military, arcane, and economic power and used all generously to claim as much land as they could. Kavendash in particular was quite greedy, expanding at a rate that dwarfed the confederacy and Aswar.

  “However, Muloi had one thing that none of the other countries had access to – orichalcum, an ore that, when refined, channeled magical energy like no other. Muloians turned that ore into weapons the world had never seen before and their neighbors clamored over themselves to trade with people that they had previously seen as primitive mountain dwellers. There was a tacit agreement between the kingdom, the confederacy, and Aswar to leave Muloi alone so that the weapon production wasn’t affected, and they turned their sights elsewhere, using that weaponry to rapidly expand their territories.

  “And then, fifty years ago, it was discovered that it wasn’t the Muloian forges or techniques that allowed them to create such weapons, it was the ore itself, and that was the beginning of the end for Muloian independence.”

  Sulaiman’s throat felt dry as he adopted a clinical tone. Perhaps other’s voices would cloud over with emotion speaking of their ancestor’s plights, but Sulaiman was not one prone to wasteful expression. The people he spoke of were dead and gone, and no amount of tears or anger would change that fact, just like it couldn’t change what happened in his childhood. When he was younger, in moments of weakness, Sulaiman wondered if Muloi’s fate could have been avoided, if he would have had the chance to grow up in a place where he did not stick out like a blemish against silk. But now Sulaiman knew it was inevitable that one day Muloi’s secrets would be uncovered and there would be no chance for peace once that knowledge spread, not when avarice was written with blood into Kavendash’s history.

  “The three countries didn’t appreciate being ‘lied’ to,” Sulaiman said, unable to keep some of the bitterness out of his voice probably because of the buzz of alcohol in his veins, “and it was Kavendash who moved first. The former king sent his troops to forcefully annex Muloi under the guises of merchants and, overnight, Muloi became Kavendash’s newest vassal state.”

  That night was one that was memorialized in the textbooks he was given, morbid artwork depicting Muloian tribal leaders being slaughtered, their blood running down the mountains as Kavendash generals proudly placed their flags atop the corpses.

  “The orichalcum mines needed workers, and who better to mine it than those most familiar with it. Every Muloian worked day and night in the mines to get the orichalcum Kavendash desired.”

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  “They turned them all into slaves?” Kavil whispered, cutting in when Sulaiman took a moment to breathe. Kavil’s face was horror stricken, a dangerous shine in his eyes like he was close to tears.

  “That is one way to put it,” Sulaiman said, looking away because he didn’t know what to do with Kavil’s reaction, the way he so clearly sided with Muloi. “But don’t say that around anyone else, most prefer to call it indentured servitude because technically a Muloian could have one day earned their freedom if they mined enough ore.”

  “Even Priscilla?”

  Kavil sounded heartbroken and that wasn’t what Sulaiman intended. This was why Sulaiman hated speaking because he could never find the right way to deliver his words.

  Sulaiman forced himself to look back at Kavil.

  “Priscilla is probably one of the few you can speak candidly about this around,” Sulaiman said, “though if you do, prepare yourself for her to start ranting about… ‘stupid fucking racist dipshits.’”

  Despite Sulaiman’s hesitation in saying the words, the direct quote from Priscilla almost made a smile creep across Kavil’s face, the corners of his full lips twitching upwards, but it didn’t fully break through his somber expression. Kavil wiped his eyes and straightened, meeting Sulaiman’s gaze head on.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting,” Kavil said, “please continue. I want to know what happened next.”

  Sulaiman watched Kavil for a moment longer but Kavil seemed resolute and no longer on the verge of tears.

  “Twenty-five years ago,” Sulaiman began again, “Muloians couldn’t take it anymore and thus the uprising began. The mines shut down as the miners refused to work and hid within the cave systems, only coming out to strike at the Kavendash overseers. They took no prisoners, killing anyone who was not a Muloian and strung up the bodies at the cave entrances as a warning to any who came near.

  “Kavendash took that as well as you’d expect and entire platoons of soldiers entered the mountains, armed with weapons the Muloians had created. When even that failed to regain control, Kavendash turned to the confederacy and Aswar to help suppress the rebellion, promising more orichalcum once the mines were back in working order. Muloians only fought more fiercely, summoning flames to burn the soldiers in their armor and harassing them at night so the foreigners could not rest well enough to coordinate attacks.

  “After a year and a half of fighting and failing to regain control, Kavendash decided it had had enough. An artifact was pulled from the royal vaults that amplified magical capabilities, and the best mages from Kavendash, the confederacy, and Aswar were gathered. They discovered the locations of the rebel bases through scrying, and in one decisive strike, Kavendash teleported explosives into every base and detonated them all at once so there’d be no chance to escape.

  “The army swept through afterwards and the mountains were divided between Kavendash, Oshad, and Aswar. With no leaders to rally behind, the Muloian people scattered rather than be forced back into the mines. Kavendash hasn’t forgotten nor forgiven the Muloian's resistance and many still believe that we’re going to start slaughtering them at any second.”

  Sulaiman grew quieter without meaning to, a strange melancholy pulsing through him. He shook his head to rid himself of it and refocused. Sulaiman had started telling this tale to provide context, not to regale Kavil with sordid history.

  “Earlier, the innkeeper told me that he didn’t want any blood gold from a Muloian,” Sulaiman said in a detached manner, “and to take my savagery elsewhere. So, I left that establishment as I was told and joined you with the horses. Simple as that.”

  Kavil was quiet as he absorbed that information and Sulaiman’s throat felt sore from talking so much at once. Sulaiman stood to take a drink of water, letting the cool liquid soothe him.

  Speaking with the innkeeper had been like being dunked into a freezing river, a brutal reminder of reality after spending time in Kavil’s village where Sulaiman’s heritage wasn’t the only thing people saw. Sulaiman had almost deluded himself into thinking he might be accepted for he who was rather than who his ancestors were, that he might be a hero if given the chance, but Kavendash always had a way of reminding Sulaiman of the truth – that he would never be more than a poor Muloian orphan to be watched with distrust and disdain who had to rely on pity and sympathy in order to live.

  “That innkeeper was full of bullshit.”

  Kavil’s voice cut through Sulaiman’s thoughts, the unexpected swear word startling Sulaiman mid-swallow. Sulaiman didn’t choke but it was a near thing as he turned to look at Kavil.

  Kavil was standing, shoulders pulled back in defiance as his hands were balled into fists.

  “You don’t deserve to be treated like that,” Kavil said fiercely, crossing the distance between them in three short, determined steps, “and, and the innkeeper must be addled if he’s blaming you for something that happened before you were even born.”

  Sulaiman stared at the shorter man whose eyes burned with indignation on his behalf and Sulaiman felt his throat grow tight for reasons that weren't simple overuse.

  “I hope that Priscilla’s tales make sure that inn doesn’t get any business for a month,” Kavil continued, “and that everyone believes mutant cockroaches and rats infested the building like stupidity infected that innkeeper’s brain.”

  He would never admit it, but in that moment Sulaiman felt the closest he had been to crying in a long, long time. (He blamed the champagne.) But Sulaiman was the master of his body and was not ruled by emotions like others, forcing his body into practiced calmness.

  “She does seem to be leading a one-woman smear campaign,” Sulaiman said, purposefully not addressing the part of Kavil’s speech that brought about those pesky emotions.

  “It’ll be a two-person campaign starting tomorrow,” Kavil said firmly.

  Imagining the two of them doing that brought out an unexpected bout of laughter out of Sulaiman.

  “If you want to join, feel free,” Sulaiman said as a warmth filled his chest at the thought of these two foolish but well-meaning people he had found himself traveling with, “but let’s make sure to get some rest tonight. You wouldn’t want to be too sleepy to project your voice, now, would you?”

  Kavil couldn’t argue with that logic and they both settled into the bed and dimmed the lights.

  Sulaiman stared at the ceiling for a long time before falling asleep, as his thoughts kept snagging onto the fact that for the first time in his life, Illnyea wasn’t the only person willing to stand by his side. It was a hopelessly sentimental thought, but one that made Sulaiman smile nonetheless, and it was that smile that stayed with him as he closed his eyes.