#makram

[migglingginotaur]

Makram, a Githzerai Onomancy Wizard/Peace Cleric for an upcoming arc on Limbo

[youareanemberintheashes]

"You have no idea, do you?" he said, curious. He turned her face one way, then the other. "Poor, simple child. You do not even know what you are. What you can do. What you can help me to do." She clawed his head, digging at his eyes with her nails, and brought a knee up into his groin with all the force she could manage. He doubled forward with a grunt, releasing her. Nesrin tumbled to the floor and jumped up to bolt, but remembered Reyhan. In her moment of hesitation, the Grand Vizier recovered and caught her by her hair, wrestling her to the floor on her belly. "I cannot abide a fool who does not even know themselves" He pinned her to the tile with a knee in her back and a hand on her shoulder, the other in her hair, smashing her face against the floor. Pain like a knife slicing her open went through her newly healed skin, as if someone were trying to peel her like a lemon. She cried out. Black swept over her, dragging her into the emptiness of her dreams. Reach for me. "Rings," the Grand Vizier said, like an order, and the room flickered back into existence. Cemil crouched in front of her and held his open palm out to his father. Nesrin gulped a breath, and when she squeezed her eyes shut, she was back in the dream. Reach. The voice was hollow. Yet, everywhere. Male, but millions. It was echoed, into darkness, into ages, beyond existence. Old, and new. Demanded. Break. pg.359

[youareanemberintheashes]

Neither did sleep offer her a respite. Her dream...or nightmare...had been growing stranger. More real. More insistent. Nesrin did not understand it. Always it began the same. In a place where nothing existed. It was not that it was dark, just emptiness. Voices whispered, hundreds, if not thousands—words in languages she did not understand. They tumbled under and over each other, in chorus and dissonance, so that every now and then a word would echo alone that she did understand. Wake. Every time the word came, her body ached. At the edges of her vision, green glowed. But she could not find its source. She could not move to obey the command. She wanted to. Was afraid to. Each time she tried, the scar that wound her body blazed with ice and fire, as though she were ripping apart. But tonight was different. There was something with her in the darkness. Something she could not see or feel. A presence nonetheless. Nesrin knew, without looking, without seeing, something was wrong. She craned her neck, straining against whatever cocoon held her curled around herself. She managed just enough, a fraction, the tiniest turn of her head. All she saw was a shift on the peripheral of her vision. Something trapped. The awareness of it was a connection, and for a moment, enough to send her heart racing. Nesrin felt panic. Not her own, but someone else's. Panic—and wrath. Something reached for her, a tendril of ending that terrified her. pg.341-342

[youareanemberintheashes]

His father’s marriage had been arranged. But Mazhar had known Lalam, even if they had not been friends before, and there had eventually been love between them, though nothing like the love between Omar and Dilay, or Naime and Makram. Ihsan thought he might be capable of the former, a friendship. But to love? That ability had burned in Wheel fire, along with his magic. pg.119

[youareanemberintheashes]

"Be safe." Naime's words faded like ripples as the image wavered. "Return to me." "Always," Makram said. The women's figures melted into the basin. He dropped his hand from Ihsan's shoulder and let his head fall back. No one spoke, allowing him a moment. Ihsan wondered if he was ever permitted that, as a commander in a battlefield that spread two nations. pg.31

[youareanemberintheashes]

"Do you have more for me?" Makram asked quickly. The figure of Naime shook her head. She appeared to stare straight ahead, but Ihsan knew she was taking in the watery figurine of Makram on her side, just as he gazed fiercely at hers. They stood silent, and Ihsan wished he could be less intrusive for them, even as a thin flutter of jealousy made his mouth sour. Naime needed Makram. For so many Turns, it had been her and Ihsan, together against everything, bound by family and shared trauma. But what she needed now was a blade, not a shield, the only thing Ihsan had ever been good for. He could not settle himself into a purpose, now. pg.31

[youareanemberintheashes]

"There is more." Naime's voice hitched, even distorted as it was by the water. Ihsan would have liked to warn Makram of this, but there had been no opportunity. "My father is declining rapidly. I fear when he..." No one spoke as she took a single breath for composure. "When he is gone, I fear those behind the fire mage attacks will see it as an opportunity." "To what end?" Makram asked. "I do not know, but I must assume it is about me taking my father's seat. That they will seek to make certain I do not. That I cannot, so they can place whoever they wish." Makram's fingers dug into Ihsan's flesh, but Ihsan did not flinch away. He understood the emotion. It had been a relief that the Sultan had been able to announce Naime as the future Queen Sultana, but without him, even as a figurehead, the words meant little. They faced a revolution. Makram was strung tight, his grip painful, his body tipped forward as if he thought he could jump through the water to her. "I will return," he said. pg.29

[youareanemberintheashes]

"Are you in danger?" Makram's question sounded like a drawn blade, and Ihsan had to step quickly away from his touch as the Charah's power bolted awake beneath his skin. "You must control yourself, if you wish to finish this conversation," Ihsan warned. Makram exhaled and nodded. "I am fine." Naime bristled. Ihsan and Makram exchanged a look, and their shared humor seemed to rein Makram's power under his control once more. He gripped Ihsan's shoulder again. pg.29