Beside me, Ekram walked down the dock with his ledger open in one hand and a piece of dried meat in the other. We could have been sitting in his storehouse back at the shore—the assembly of guards that trailed behind me would have preferred it as they eyed every passing stranger—but he knew I preferred to be out with the salt and wind, and I knew he felt the same.
“Shipments from the north are up, which is good, hm? Falsa Mawk helps. So does Helena.” He tore at the strip of meat with his teeth. As we walked, people came and went from the ships like ants on a stick, slowly and methodically. “I’ve been sending out more salt to the east, but they’ve not been sending very many goods back. Linen is down. Maybe not so good of a price here?” He was staring at his list of numbers and words, not paying attention to the wooden planks under his feet as we passed the moored ships. Still, he managed to step over a plank that jutted out above the others. “Thali said her sugar and flower suppliers will be finding more fields, so we should receive enough by the time of the festival.”
Even the docks couldn’t distract me from the Falsa Mawk today.
It was an old tradition in Almulihi—a celebration for Eiqab during the day and Wahir at night. At first, it had been a quiet party shared between neighbors and families, but my mother loved the different displays and dances and games so much my father had transformed it into something as grand as he could—a citywide parade. He only cared that he was king, he told me once, because with that crown he could give my mother everything. I think it was in his guilt for his past that he had found his commitment to give her the entire world.
Each year’s Falsa Mawk seemed more elaborate than the last, with more and more of the city joining in. Now it was an extravagant quilt of celebrations that showcased the people who lived in the city. If it was my choice, I would not have it at all. It would be agony to watch the displays going by the palace. These people had once spent days pinning dried petals and leaves to wooden posts or practicing synchronized twirls and dips with their absurdly ornamented costumes, just so my mother would smile and clap. And she was not here to see it this year.
And then there was the wedding that would conclude the festivities. Thali and Mariam were handling the event with deft hands. They both had prepared the marriage of my father to my mother. Though the wedding would be easy by comparison, it would only deepen the loss I felt. That aching hollowness that would not go away.
“Here again,” Ekram said. In the direction he stared was a familiar old woman talking to a young man.
“Altasa?” I asked, squinting against the sun.
“Mhmm.” He chewed loudly.
I scanned those in her group. Was she with them? I exhaled, the question leaving with my breath. Emel was there, standing beside the healer, peering down at the dock. A flat wagon with two crates rested beside her.
Ekram continued. “Altasa has been here—”
I raised a hand to Ekram and excused myself.
Several of the shipmen saw me—or, they saw the retinue of guards behind me—as I approached, and they scurried back onto the ship, pretending to be busy. The healer turned, annoyed by my interruption.
“Altasa.” I nodded. “Emel. What business have you on the docks? There are people who can do this for you.” Though she had evidently regained some of her strength, Altasa still seemed only held up by her bones, and even then, barely. The enormous ship rocked up and down behind her. I could not imagine the pair carrying their things all the way back to the palace.
“Can’t trust some boy to run my supplies for me. Barely can trust this one.” She pointed her elbow in Emel’s direction.
Emel frowned at the healer. Using her distraction to my advantage, I surveyed her. Emel’s hand, gripping the wagon’s handle firmly, was stained red. Altasa’s hands, I noticed, were clean. Emel’s arm was not as thin as I remembered. Her face, too. She was softer now. I wanted her to look at me, but she had turned toward the ship and watched its hull as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
I turned to Altasa. “Tell Nassar if you decide otherwise. The docks are no place for women.”
Altasa scoffed and looked at my clasped hands. “Nor soft hands.”
Ignoring her, I asked, “Has more salve been made?” Though the aches of the journey were behind me now, I kept requesting more, hoping Emel would deliver it.
“Take the tonic! It’s quicker to make—”
“Finished preparing it last night,” Emel said. “I planned to deliver it to Mariam today.”
“Bring it directly to me after midday.” It came out of my mouth before I could think of an excuse for why I might need her to deliver it personally. “The last time one of the jars, ah, was missing.”
“You see!” Altasa pointed her finger. “And you expect me to have someone do this for me? Your own steals from you! Take care, Saalim—” She was the only one who managed to make the use of my name feel like an insult. “—people in your own palace could be against you.” With her penchant for the dramatic, Altasa reminded me much of the old palace healer, Zahar.
“Shall we clear it first?” The guard asked as we approached the low temple. There were more windows than walls, and I could see a number of people circulating inside.
“No. Let them pray.” Leaving the guards behind so as not to disturb those inside, I passed through the arches, the squares of sunlight through the windows spreading across my shoulders like a warm blanket, and found myself inside the temple.
The tedium of my meetings with Ekram used to send me to furious boredom, but I had seen the consequences of inattention and impatience. I would not make those same mistakes. So I listened, had him repeat that which I misunderstood or did not hear. I showed Ekram and the seamen that I was to be taken seriously, that they were to be taken seriously. But now my mind hummed with numbers and goods, and I needed something to calm it.
This temple was the largest and most ornate in Almulihi, but there were many more scattered throughout the city. It was a large room with a round, shallow pool at the center—wide enough for ten people to lie across, head to foot. Echoing around me was the sound of trickling water from the fountain at the edges of the room. People were kneeling at the pool, the fine reflection of the sun creating webs across their bodies. They pressed their hands into the water, then against their shoulders, their brow, their wrists.
None took notice of me. When people were in Wahir’s temple, they thought only of him.
I walked to the fountain—a tipping of vessels fed by the aqueduct and then by each other. I held my fingers under the stream, letting them fall against the weight.
The Darkafa planned to destroy Almulihi because it was Wahir’s city. They wanted Eiqab to reign to the edge of his desert. So it had to be salt chasers who wanted me dethroned. When a war wasn’t fought to place a new king on the throne, it was fought to put a god there.
When the king crosses the desert, the goddess will return. She will unleash the second-born Son to put the first-born to death. My family had been attacked before I journeyed to Alfaar’s, and I could not remember the last time my father had left Almulihi to travel inward. He had long used my brother for those errands. The Darkafa seemed an obvious explanation for the death of my family, yet their augury suggested a different timeline.
Pacing around the room, my fingers following the trail of the water, I prayed.
I needed only one opportunity to prove I could rule like my father had. That the crown he had given me was not in vain. His blood was half of me, I reminded myself. I was of a king, and I could be the same. Though I felt myself to be a husk of what a king should be.
My knees sank into the cool water as I pressed my palms to the bottom of the pool.
A murmur came from across the room, an echo like the splash of water. I refrained from peering up at them. Talking was not forbidden, but should the whispers drown out the sound of water, it was frowned upon.
“The child carries it still.”
“But has not the goddess been found?”
The goddess.
“Yes. But the child still has it.”
“Why hasn’t the goddess come for it?”
“She came once.”
“To the cave?”
“I was not there, but I heard she took it, then gave it back to the child.”
A woman hissed from across the room. “This is a temple, not a Bura-den.”
When I noticed the whispering pair’s appearance, I swiftly left the temple, water leaving a dripping trail behind me.
The guards waited for me outside and stood upright when they saw the urgency with which I approached. I told them what I had just seen and heard. “They are cloaked and hooded. I want to know where they stay, and why they are here.”
They nodded. Kofi and Tamam pulled the guthras from their heads and the blue belts that held their swords from their waists, handing them to the others. Tamam was reluctant, as I knew he would be. He did not like to be without his defense. But they could not wear what marked them as king’s men while maintaining discretion. Now they looked like civilians. They slipped beneath the archway of the aqueduct that fed the temple, waiting to follow the men.
I wished to have been the one to follow the Darkafa. My hands itched to grab their throats. Murderers. They had to be.
When I entered the palace atrium, Nika rushed up to meet me.
“King Saalim,” she said in a hurry. “I am sorry to disturb you. There is a visitor here.” She stared at the tiles.
“Not now,” I barked. Primed by the men in my temple, anger ignited easily and spread through me, liquid and hot.
Nika was still as a statue. “I told her you did not like unexpected visitors. She said she was expected . . .”
Incredulous, I stared at the vines behind Nika that still swayed from her rushed entry. Right now, I wanted to rip the vines down, let their pots come clattering to the floor.
Nika flinched. Had I moved? “Where is she?” I asked more gently. The Darkafa, the death of my family, was not Nika’s fault.
“The dining halls.”
“Thank you, Nika,” I said.
Nika let out a quiet breath as I departed.
My mother had warned me many times to temper my ire toward the servants. Since returning from Alfaar’s, it had become less difficult to remember. Maybe it was that I was now king. Or perhaps things had changed after I had seen that pathetic man pretend to be a god over gullible people.
The dining halls were normally bright this time of day, but clouds had rolled across the sun. Emel stood alone in the room. Hurriedly, I waved away the guard who had followed me in.
“Emel?” I asked, stepping forward quickly. The pinch of guilt and anger releasing when I saw her. “What is it?”
She held the sack in her hands toward me. “What you requested.”
“Of course.” I had forgotten. As I took it, my fingers lightly brushed against hers. She pulled her hand away so quickly, I nearly dropped the sack. “Thank you. Please sit,” I said, pointing at the empty dining table.
After pulling out a chair for her and myself, I said, “I have been meaning to speak with you for some time. Sons, it has been two moons now, hasn’t it? Time has slipped by me. Do you have everything you need?”
Emel nodded.
“Is Almulihi to your liking?”
She looked away from me, staring at the long tapestries that hung from the ceiling. “That which I have seen, I enjoy. I have not seen much. Altasa keeps me busy.”
“Is there somewhere you would like to see?” My father’s insistence on propriety clamored loudly in my ears—this was a palace worker, a salt chaser. I kept talking to drown it out. “I can take you. Or if I cannot, I can have it arranged.” I couldn’t take her. What was I thinking? Why did I keep talking?
She smiled weakly and shook her head. “I have a friend who can show me.” The sun briefly peaked through the clouds behind her. She looked to be wreathed in gold.
Twinges of jealousy. “Friends from your settlement?”
Suddenly she frowned. “King Saalim . . .” She looked down at her fingers, distracted by her nails.
My name from her lips.
I urged her to continue.
“My friend has told me he has heard rumors . . .” she paused again.
“Of?”
“He said people are talking about a new king who will try to take the throne during the Falsa Mawk.”
Leaning back, I said, “My father warned me that there will always be someone who sees himself a better fit for the crown. People will talk. It does not often mean sedition. Do not fear.”
“I do not fear for myself.”
Her eyes were as dark as ink and fathomless as the sea. I wanted to see their depths, know what she was thinking. “Who told you this?” I asked. I wanted as little known as possible of the threat of the Darkafa. It would serve poorly to have that knowledge permeate through the people. What boastful fool was telling everyone he met? Unless he was one of them . . .
“My friend.”
“But who was he? Where did you meet him?”
She shook her head. “The baytahira—”
I shot forward. “Baytahira? Emel, don’t waste your time there.” It was not a place for foreigners, easy prey for coin. As a child, I’d snuck away to the street often. It was forbidden, of course, so it was always exciting. So many times, Kahina and her friend walked me back to the palace, holding my hand as softly as Mother. I never understood how people so kind could be found in an area forbidden to me. “Have you even seen all of the palace? It is the most beautiful place in Almulihi.” I gestured around us, considering whether or not this was true. “Perhaps second only to the temple.” The sun was gone again, and it grew darker outside with each breath of wind.
“No.” Emel looked out to the balcony. “The sea is the most beautiful.”
“Someone once told me they thought the water seemed angry.”
Her face snapped back to me, eyes wide. In a rush, she asked, “Who?”
I thought about it, trying to recall who had said it. I could not remember one single detail from that conversation other than those words. I told her so.
She nodded, seeming as though I disappointed her.
There was a pat, pat. It started slowly, then increased in its frequency.
“Rain!” She ran to the balcony and spread her arms, face turned up.
Enchanted, I followed her out, unable to take my eyes from her. She laughed, letting the drops fall onto her face and hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked, laughing with her.
She spun, her clothes sticking to her as they became soaked. “The finest gift Masira can give.”
I had never considered rain to be so wondrous. It helped to fill the water stores and cleaned the dust off of homes, but I did not feel the need to dance beneath the drops.
“Come,” she said, watching me with bright eyes. She pulled my hand, tugging me outside so easily that it felt like we had done this one hundred times before.
With eyes closed, face tipped up again, she said, “Back home, everyone ran outside when it rained.”
Of course. She was from the desert. She soaked it in, her sandals leaving wet, brown footprints on the balcony with each turn of her feet. Suddenly, she slipped on the slick tile, her arms flapping to prevent her fall. I caught her shoulders, and she spun toward me, gripping my tunic as she steadied herself.
We stood there beneath the rain, staring at each other. So close, I noticed the dip in her lip looked just like Anisa’s wings when she soared.
Her shoulders rose and fell with her headiness, and though she was stable now, I did not let them go. And she did not take her hands from me. There was the gentlest press of her fingertips to my waist, her palms curving around my sides.
“Saalim.” It was a whisper so intimate I took the smallest step toward her.
“You almost fell.”
“You did not let me.” She tilted her head, her lips parting like she was asking for more. Drops of rain slipped into her mouth, onto her tongue.
Oh, to be that drop.
A longing, deep and heavy pooled, and I slid my hands down her arms.
Misunderstanding my movement, Emel backed away. “Thank you,” she said, her liquid gaze clearing as she pulled her hands away, leaving me cold and wanting. Her mouth closed as she adjusted her sopping fustan.
Clearing my throat I said, “Well, if you are done with your dance, I would like to show you the palace.”