I wanted to tell Mariam I would give her one hundred salt bricks to never speak of the Falsa Mawk and the wedding ever again. It all could not come at a worse time.
Each day I searched for clues of Edala, sending letters to monarchs and tribal leaders asking if they had seen her, questioning traders who had arrived from the desert, sending Nassar to different parts of the city, requesting that people report any information they might have. Tomorrow would be an entire day wasted watching displays roll by on wagons, pretending that all was not amiss.
The wedding would follow the day after. I dropped my head into my hands, not wanting to think of the days that came after, when I’d have to be a doting husband at a time when there was so much else to do.
Helena was a crown-bearer, the binding of two arms, the bringer of peace. My father’s marriage to my mother had been arranged, of course, but he had always talked of how much he loved her. My mother was the heartbeat of the palace, of Almulihi. Did he love her because she had done so much for him, forgiven him for so much? Or was it because he was fortunate, and she was truly his other half? Perhaps it was both. Though I appreciated Helena’s breeding, I could not see myself loving her as my father had loved my mother. It was my duty, though. A royal marries for power, not love.
Helena and her family had arrived five days ago. There had been feast after feast to welcome the new queen, my court receiving her with lavish attention and gifts. Bless Wahir for my people, since I barely managed to receive her myself. Each meal, my attention was divided between my guests and Nassar coming with messages. Whenever she and I had the opportunity to be alone, I promptly excused myself to see what news there was.
Helena was not blind. She could see something troubled me, but she played her part well. I could not tell her that my city was threatened, nor that I had only recently learned that my entire family was not dead, as I had believed them to be.
Edala was alive.
It had been years since I had seen her, so long ago had she left us to live in the desert. She might know the people who attacked Almulihi. Perhaps she knew more about Zahar, and where she was hiding. That damned woman. My mother had never liked the healer. Edala had clung to her, though, desperate to learn magic. I had thought Edala a fool for believing Zahar’s tales, but now I wondered if I was the fool all along?
A memory pulled, something trying to drag itself to the forefront of my mind. Something about Zahar and magic—
Footsteps approached. I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword, waiting.
Nassar’s head appeared as he ascended the stairs. My grip on my sword released.
“Saalim,” he panted. One would never guess that this man had crossed the desert with us. “More soldiers have been sent.”
“Good.”
“I do not think it wise to send more.”
“Azim will have the final say.”
He was in front of my desk now, taking a seat in one of the heavy wooden chairs.
I said, “None have returned, I assume?”
My advisor shook his head. “Maybe tomorrow, but I would not expect it.”
“We have to find her.”
“I know, but we cannot lose sight of the Darkafa’s warning—”
“We haven’t!” I slammed my fist onto the surface. “They are being sought out, questioned!”
“They are.” He leaned onto his knees now. “I have said this before—”
“You think them sand with salt.”
“I do.”
Staring at Nassar’s shoulders, his small frame and sinewy neck, I wanted to send him back to Alfaar’s and demand Usman come in return. How many times he had told me he thought that the Darkafa were no real threat. Nothing masquerading as something, a mask behind which the real threat stood, salt spoiled with sand. They did not have the will, he had said. They wanted their goddess, not the throne.
“They worship Eiqab,” I reminded him. “They plan to take down Wahir.”
“There is a distinction you forget that is important. They are unfurling the rug for Masira to send Eiqab. I’ve dealt with the type of people you think the Darkafa are. People that come in and unsettle, warning of attacks.” He stared at nothing as he remembered. “Those do not wait in the open like the Darkafa. They are insidious.”
“What do you mean you’ve dealt with people like this? I remember nothing like this happening to my father.”
He looked at me, gaze glassy and unfocused. He was tired, and I think, too, he was scared.
Passing Altasa’s home, I stared at the curtained windows, the door ajar. Voices came from inside. I paused. A man was speaking with Altasa.
I kept walking, thinking of Emel. When she joined me tomorrow, it would be the last time I could gaze at her untethered.
The birds began chirping and cooing, rustling their feathers as I approached the aviary. Lazy things all hoping I’d toss them meat rather than take them out to hunt on their own. I fed scraps of meat to all of them, except Anisa.
Though she wanted to stay for her easy meal, I wanted at least one thing I could depend on. Nassar had demanded I leave the palace. I can write letters, Saalim! It is why your father kept me around. He was right. Sitting and waiting was doing me no good, so, with guards at my flanks, I went to the hunting grounds.
I stood with the golden eagle, her jesses tied to keep her on the glove, and let my shoulder tire from holding her. Let myself feel something other than worry. Anisa was agitated as she waited for my shoulder to burn.
Finally, I untied her and watched her fly. I remembered her soaring around Alfaar’s tent, capturing another bird in her talons, and flying to the goddess in my challenge for the throne. How long ago that now seemed. My futile attempt at finding the people who killed my family, finding instead only trunks of stolen salt. And Emel.
I had never been able to make sense of the quantities of salt Alfaar possessed. There was something impossible about it.
Never had I believed jinn to be real. But the day our water stores were filled, many of the soldiers swore they remembered a group of nomads stopping to fill our barrels enough to reach to the next oasis. I know that did not happen. Unless I was going mad. Now the Darkafa claimed to have a magical jinn that would somehow unseat me from the throne, and my thought-to-be-dead sister had written me a letter saying the same.
It could not all be a coincidence.
Anisa vanished into the blinding sun. The desert unrolled before me, the sea to my back. Edala was out there, and something told me she would be able to answer my questions.
Anisa appeared first as a speck in the sky and grew into a bobbing bird as she neared. Finally, she spread her wings and landed on my arm, searching my hand for the dead rat.
She had nothing in her beak for me in return.
“You lazy thing,” I hissed at her, as she took the carcass and ate.
“Someone approaches,” Kofi said from behind me. “It looks like Hassas.”
A glossy, brown horse galloped toward us, holding Tamam and kicking up dust behind her like the cause of a sandstorm.
“Find out what he wants,” I said to Amir. Anisa was not yet done with her meal and would not be pleased with the interruption. I watched Amir approach Tamam. Their horses shook their heads against the reins as the men spoke. Before the beasts had even settled, Amir was returning.
“They have a child of the Darkafa!”
Anisa could finish her meal later.
The child was so repulsive that I could barely recognize it was human.
“And you found it?” I asked the pair of women who stood beside the child.
One, dressed in the red-stained browns of a spice-slinger, wiped at her cheeks and with a shaky voice said, “She was in a cage.”
With her was a heavyset woman who looked as though she had raised children her entire life by the way she softly traced her hand over the creature’s brow. “On the docks. The cage was covered with a cloak.” Her eyes misted. “We heard her bang that—” the woman eyed the metal box in the child’s hands “—on the bars. There were so many people around. None paid her any attention.”
I could understand why they kept her covered. Her skin was as pale as the full moon. Her eyes the same. She turned her head at our voices yet stared at nothing. She could not see. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but only garbled sounds came out. I saw no tongue.
A heavy surge of nausea came over me.
The woman was still speaking. “—must be done. They must be punished.”
“And this box?” I asked, nodding to that which the child clutched tightly. A chain attached the box to a silver cuff on her wrist. It appeared like a puzzle box that children kept. My brother had had one to keep his frivolous children’s treasures in.
The spice-slinger said, “She won’t let us have it for long. But even if she did—”
“It is locked,” the heavyset one interjected, kneeling beside the girl and whispering that she was safe, she was well, none would take her box. The girl leaned into the woman, who seemed soft and warm. Like Mariam had been to us when we were young.
“We will keep the child here,” I told them. “She will be cared for until we can find a place for her.” I was not sure if even the orphans’ home would take her.
“My king,” the large woman said. “I will keep the child. I have—”
“It is not safe. There are those who may search for her and do whatever it takes to get her back.”
She nodded gravely, the red-eyed spice-slinger reaching down and pressing her hand against the woman’s shoulder.
When they left, I called for Mariam, who seemed as distraught about the state of the child as the other two women.
“Your heart is soft, Mariam,” I said quietly as she coaxed the child—who struggled with her large black robes—up from the floor.
“My granddaughter would have been her age now.” Mariam did not look at me.
I did not know she’d had a child, let alone a grandchild.
“Would Nadia and Edala’s tower suit?” I asked. “The child might like seeing the garden.” Most importantly, it was opposite mine.
Mariam gave me a tired look and tapped her temple.
The child was blind. She would not see anything, let alone the garden. I stood in a rush. “Look after her. You can stay there, too.”
Mariam spoke warmly to the girl and then smiled widely at me. Never had I seen her so happy.
I said, “We will break the chain that attaches it to her. If she’ll give you the box, bring it to us immediately.” Though we had far more important things to do than investigate a child’s trinket.
When they had gone, the throne room was quiet. The guards lining the room were both silent and still.
My father’s throne—my throne—was firm against my back, soft under my thighs. So the back never bends, my father had said. The throne to my left was empty. Helena would be seated there in two days. I remembered Alfaar’s throne—twisting metal that poked and prodded and insisted that none sit in it for prolonged lengths. It was the chair of someone who did not address his people. And there was no chair for a queen in that tent they called a palace. His wives held less importance than the piles of stolen salt that had a seat beside him.
Shaking my head, I tried to rid myself of thoughts of that so-called king. I could not understand my fascination with Alfaar. I thought of him too often.
When I rose, the guards bowed their heads. I used to dream of being king. Now, I dreamed of anything but. Maybe a life where I could be a seaman. Where I could take a wife like . . . Emel . . . or someone who boasted no high breeding.
“Send Nika,” I said to the guards. She had not yet finished telling me of the schedule for the Falsa Mawk. “I will be in the atrium.”
She did not take long to arrive. I had barely begun to pick apart the pomegranate the servant had brought. The highest victory if no seed was destroyed. Had Emel ever had a pomegranate? When I saw her at the festival, I would ask.
Nika talked through where I would need to be and when. The places the people expected me to be seen, where I would need to sit to greet them, how the seats would be arranged. Drivel, compared to my thoughts of Edala and the Darkafa.
“You’ve coordinated these things with Azim?”
“Of course. There will be a full guard with you.”
“Inconspicuous?”
She nodded. “Half will be in plain dress.”
“Good.” It would not do to have the king swarmed by guards. The people would question why I felt unsafe around them. “I’ve invited one more guest.”
She folded her hands in front of her. “Who should I prepare for?”
“Emel.”
“Altasa’s apprentice?”
“Yes.”
She pressed her lips together as her eyebrows flicked upwards.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“Very well. Tomorrow we will be ready at midday. Oh, and Nika?”
“Yes?”
“Make sure there are pomegranates.”
“Pomegranates?”
“Halved.”
She bowed her head.
“Actually,” I said. “Some seeds in a bowl.” In case Emel wore something light in color. I remember Nadia had hated the stains.
Through the windows, the city was still, the sea at its side appeared to be frozen, too, as though this magic had reached out its wayward hands and sunk its fingers in to calm it. But a sea without waves, without current, would be no sea at all.
Magic would bring ruin.