“Look here,” Edala said to Amir, pointing at his map when we had stopped at an oasis. These two were always back and forth about the damn map. “This is where it is. We are right here,” she said, leaning back onto her hands. Beside Edala was Tamam, whose gaze followed her hands as they slid near him.
I would have thought nothing of it had Emel not mentioned it to me—the way Tamam looked at Edala, acted around her. Emel was right. Now I could not unsee how they seemed to orient around each other. Never had I seen him like this.
Could he be the man Edala referred to—the man she once loved? I remembered nothing of them before Edala fled into the desert. Then again, I had thought of little except the crown that would one day sit upon my brow.
Following the line of heads bent over the map, my gaze settled on Emel, her mouth curving into a half smile at something Amir said. My blood thrummed, pumping swiftly through me, and I looked away, thinking of Edala’s tale to distract me from Emel’s mouth.
I was a jinni. Emel had freed me. How could I possess no memories of such wild stories?
It was well into the morning as we sat under the shade, deciding on the best time to arrive at the Darkafa’s cave. We were surprisingly close to Emel’s home, I realized, when I glanced down at the map. Saying as much aloud, Emel looked puzzled.
“How can we be so close? It took us nearly forty days to get to Almulihi. We have been traveling half that time.”
She was right.
Edala smiled. “I don’t take small steps.”
Darkness crossed Emel’s face.
Amir gasped. “What do you mean?”
“The desert bends beneath my feet so we can travel more swiftly. Each step might be twenty.”
Amir appeared wildly delighted.
“You use magic,” Emel said bluntly. Even I recoiled from her tone. Tamam scowled as he turned to Emel.
Edala was unapologetic. “Time is not an unlimited resource.”
Without another word, Emel rose and went to find shade under the furthest tree. I followed.
“What is it?” I asked, watching her unroll her mat with the methodical movements of someone in prayer.
“I don’t want to be around it.” Magic. It was like she had said this one thousand times. She seemed so tired. She went on, “It might seem harmless, warping the desert beneath her feet, but that is what Zahar thought when she made you a jinni. Who lies in the folds of the desert? What happens to them?”
“She said with her magic there is no change to the people affected by it. There is no loss of memories,” I said feebly, trying to tear down the wall growing fast between them.
“Still, it should not be used so carelessly. It is not the way for a human to live—with divine gifts, without real work.”
Understanding, I sat next to her as she brushed sand off the mat’s surface. After a long stretch of silence, I said, “Anisa still flies.”
Emel stilled. “Your eagle?”
Lowering my voice, I said, “Tamam interrupted us at Jawar’s. I have been left without an answer.” I waited, but she continued to brush the mat. “Edala told me of our past.”
Her mouth fell open. “Everything?”
“No, not everything. Some.”
Though her face was drawn in exhaustion, when her eyes met mine, they were wide and awake. “Then you have your answer already.”
“Dare I believe it?” I held out my hand.
“Yes,” she whispered as she took it. “There is so much I want to tell you.”
“But?”
“Fewer eyes,” she said, gently squeezing my hand.
Behind us, I could hear our companions talking back and forth about the journey, Edala and Nassar arguing about his opinion of the people who lived in the nearby settlement.
I asked, “May I share your shade?”
She helped me unroll my mat, dusting it just as carefully with the palm of her hand.
When everyone had quieted down and found places to sleep, I rolled to my side.
“Would you want to see your sisters again?” I thought of her with Raheemah, how happy it made her. “We can visit your home.”
“You would delay our return so I could go to my village?”
For her, I would do anything.
Before I could answer, she said, “I do not want to. Not yet.”
Her eyes were as dark as night. I studied them as if there were stars I might find in their depths, trying to understand what she could not yet face at home. “You will travel into a desert you’ve never traveled to before, and you will see the Hayali and go into hostile caves, but you will not return home.”
“It is easier to face that which you don’t know.”
Returning to a city I’d failed where people knew my father’s secret. My secret. Yes, I understood. “We will travel to the cave just after midday, so try to sleep.”
A long pause. She turned to me. “Why do you hate the desert so much?”
I could not meet her eyes. Instead, I stared at the sky. “I don’t hate—”
“You do.” She sighed.
“It can be a hostile place with people who match it in inhospitality.”
“I see beautiful bleakness with strong people who have learned to thrive in it.”
“Taking another’s life because of this or that minor offense, trading people like something to be sold. Never mind the incessant heat and the scarcity of water and food.”
“But with every bad there is good should you choose to see it. What of the night so dark the moon is the lantern? And the fox that hunts by its light? Or Masira’s birds that take water and meat from the dead? Or the sand that is smoothed by wind, the same wind that moves dunes like they are nothing. And the people who live here make it even better. We’ve been shaped by the hands of the desert—by the sun and sand. Think of Raheemah, of Edala. Think of me. Of your mother.”
I winced, hoping Emel did not see my face. “I did not know her.”
“But you are half of her, and since I know you, I know that she was good.”
What I knew of the woman that gave birth to me was that it was a mistake. Right before my father was to be wed to my mother, he visited a band of eastern nomads so prominent in the desert, they often sent correspondence to the larger settlements and cities letting them know where they headed next. There he met a woman who captivated him, he said. He was drawn to her like no other. They lay together, and he thought he would make her his queen.
But, of course, that was not to be. His father forbade it, and the pieces had already been placed for a wedding to the daughter of the Hayali king.
It was not until I was born that my father—married to Kena now—learned of my existence. He sent for me and my birth mother, and took me in as his firstborn.
The timing was such that most could be fooled into believing the queen had a son. It is not often that the people saw their queen, especially when carrying a child. Of course, though, the palace staff knew, and word spread.
But I was accepted and raised as one of their own. Queen Kena’s tolerance for my presence was boundless. She treated me like one of her own, and as she grew to love me, she found many ways to forgive my father for what he had done.
My birth mother was brought to Almulihi to watch me grow, I learned much later in life. She stayed for years before she finally left the city to return to her family. There was still a bitterness—an acrid over-steeped tea that dried my tongue—when I thought of how she could leave her child behind.
“Where did you go?” Emel whispered when I did not respond to her.
I said nothing, sorting the angry thoughts.
“Are you thinking of her?”
I nodded. “Just as you cannot face your home because it has left wounds, it is hard for me to face the thought that the woman who gave birth to me was good.” I told her what I knew of her, of how she left.
“It is unfair, isn’t it? Our expectations of mothers?”
“How do you mean?”
“We want them to lay down their lives for us. Stop everything they want or plan to do so that they can be there for us. As if they have no life of their own. Many mothers do that, even want to do that. So we take it for granted.”
Her fingers stretched toward my neck, and she rested them there. Her touch was comforting and familiar, but I could still remember a time where it was foreign and exciting. Two worlds collided in my mind, creating clouds of dust that cleared only to obscure and confuse something else.
“My mother tried to flee our settlement and was killed,” she said. “I was angry and jealous.” Her voice softened. “I hated her for what she did—leaving her children. But I envied that she was strong enough to do it. Even as her selfish child, I could see that she had to take care of herself.” Her fingers were soft on my cheek. “So maybe that is why your mother left. She had to do the same.”
It was hard to hear Emel defend the woman I had grown up despising.
“Maybe,” I said, no longer wanting to think of her.
After some time, Emel fell asleep. My eyelids grew heavy, the heat of the day lulling me into lethargy despite the urgency of my thoughts, the planning and preparing for what lay next.
Still, sleep did not come. I sat up. The sand was smooth as Emel said, with watery heat, moving like a spirited wind, rising up from it. The sun was white-hot against blue sky. A breeze, the faintest that could be felt, nudged the leaves and I could hear their whisper. I had vague memories of admiring oases. Of a life where I had learned to love the desert.
Was this something contained in the memories Edala could return to me? Perhaps I could take those memories, take the words from Emel’s lips, and learn how to do so again.
“If we don’t leave now, we will arrive when it’s dark,” Edala said, her voice a rope tugging me awake.
Slowly, I roused, rolling the stiffness from my shoulders. I jumped up when I saw the sun had begun its descent. We should have already been on our way.
Emel sat with Amir sharing strips of dried meat.
Edala said, “If it wasn’t clear, that meant that we all need to leave now.”
We were packed and on our camels before Edala could chide us again.
We traveled toward a cluster of dunes that hid the cave where the Darkafa were believed to be. Edala reminded us repeatedly that they were not a people prone to violence and to behave as such. Still, I feared what we were walking into. I was glad Edala would be with us. It would be foolish to seek out Kassim and Zahar without her, as they could easily overpower us. And even if they weren’t there and it was just the Darkafa, we would be greatly outnumbered if she was wrong about their peacefulness.
“What do you know of this goddess they search for?” I asked.
“The goddess!” Edala laughed mirthlessly. “It took me a while to piece together that story. Luckily, the Darkafa have been all over the desert, searching for hundreds of years now. Sorry, I know the warping of time is confusing.” She looked at me with a small shrug, then back at the dunes we approached. “Over time I learned the Darkafa were much more than a strange cult. It did not take much to convince them to tell me their mission.” She rubbed her finger against her lip. “See, when Zahar made you a jinni, she was depleted of strength. It took all she had left to do the same to Kassim.”
“But why turn Kassim?” I asked.
“I still don’t know the answer to that question.” She chewed her lip, lost in thought.
She did not speak for some time, the silence stretching as we waited.
“Please continue your tale,” I begged.
“Where was I?” Edala asked. Then, “Ah. She lost your vessel during the attack on the palace. I wish I could have seen how angry she was to have lost you.” She chuckled to herself. “She did not want to lose Kassim, too. She needed someone to protect his vessel while she recovered.
“She showed small magic to aimless nomads who thirsted for a purpose, convincing them she was a goddess. They promised to protect Kassim until she was strong enough to return to him. Did they know he was a jinni, or did they think his vessel treasure? I don’t know, but I do know they were devoted to their task like zealots. After so many generations, they transformed into their own sect, really, idolizing the goddess Zahar.” She rolled her eyes and then looked at me. “They knew ‘when the king crossed the desert,’ Zahar would return. See, she had set the rule that when Saalim was freed, he’d return as king. She rightfully assumed he would be long gone from Almulihi by the time he was freed—taken away from the ruins to wherever his masters lived.
“The Darkafa were diligent stewards of the vessel—always leaving a maimed child as his master so they could not—”
“Wait.” I stilled, a chill spreading across my back. “The child is his master?”
“Do you know the current keeper?”
I explained the girl Bilara. “She has no eyes to see, no tongue to speak.”
Edala nodded. “I imagine she was the keeper. Of course, now that you have returned to Almulihi, Zahar had to retrieve Kassim. She is his master now, I am sure.”
Mostly to himself, Nassar said, “So that is the reason for the black hands they leave behind. Their way of telling others they’d already searched that settlement for the goddess. I’ve never seen anything like it . . .”
I asked, “So she was waiting in the cave for me to return? Playing a goddess?”
“No. After Kassim, she had to heal. She changed her form.” Edala shook her head. “Unlike how I change, she required ingredients and mixtures to become something less of what she was to save her energy and heal. From what I’ve heard, she was first a cricket.”
Emel’s inhalation was sharp. “How do you know all this?” She was finding fewer reasons to speak with my sister after Edala confessed to using magic to speed our travels. So even though the question was layered in accusation, I was glad she spoke to her at all.
Edala held up her hands. “Whether I want to or not, I feel the magic in this desert. Like strings attached to me, I feel their vibrations when magic is used. And, too,” she glared at Emel, “people are always talking. It’s their constant storytelling of unusual events that get me most of my information. I don’t magic the information from them, I use my ears.” She took the camel’s reins in her hands again. “I suspect that when Zahar grew strong in that form, she changed to the griffon, still requiring less energy to heal than a human, eh? I can’t tell you how many people have reported odd behaviors of a griffon over the past sixty years or so.”
Amir’s eyes were glazed as he shook his head slowly back and forth. I felt the same as him. This was all too much.
Edala went on excitedly. It was very much like her to enjoy an audience. “Being a griffon allowed her more easily to search for Saalim, I think. When she was strong enough, she finally was human again. I imagine a very weak one, because I have not seen her nor felt much in the way of her magic.”
Amir said, “This is the wildest thing I have ever heard.”
Edala continued. “People have told of impossible things: crickets that jumped into a bird’s nest, a griffon that dove into waves and never returned to air. When those impossible things coincided with tugs of magic, I put it together.” Her smugness made me smile. My sister had, indeed, returned.
The sand grew coarser as we neared the cave, and I could see these dunes were more like mountains than hills of sand—they were jagged and sturdy.
Emel was beside me. “We are moving too fast, Edala.” Her words were so taut, I thought she might snap in front of me. The sun seemed to have barely moved, yet we had traveled a day’s journey. Still, we had far to go.
“We’d otherwise arrive in the middle of night,” Edala said.
Emel tugged the reins of her camel. “It was the one thing I asked.” She twisted her body so she faced my sister.
“I live and breathe magic. You asked of me something impossible.” At once the camels stopped moving. My eyes shot to Edala. The pull of her fingers, tucked into her palms, told me anger—and magic—drove her decisions. She was fury and bone beneath her traveler’s robes.
Emel did not back down.
“You cannot deny the drain the magic causes, the misery and ache that it can leave behind. Every time you do something even small, there are ripples that turn to waves, and the desert suffers. Even if you claim your magic leaves no traces, it is inevitable that it will!”
Now was not the time for this. Magic, I agreed, had fouled us, but right then, we needed what it was giving us. “Emel—”
Both Edala and Emel stared at me. I closed my mouth.
My sister turned to Emel. “You overstate.”
“I don’t!” Emel clenched the reins in her fists. “I lived through it. So did he!” She pointed at me. “So did Nassar!”
Confusion creased Nassar’s face. He opened his mouth to protest, but Emel did not let him.
“See? He doesn’t even remember a past he’s lived. But you feel it there, don’t you?” Emel asked Nassar. “You don’t remember handing my father the whip that gave me the scars on my back.”
My mouth dropped open. Nassar recoiled from her words, and looked at me apologetically. “I . . . I did not . . . I don’t know what . . .”
“It is all right,” I whispered to him. Sons, what was happening?
My sister leapt off her camel and went toward Emel. “Magic can never be cleared from this sand.”
“Edala,” Tamam said, a warning of caution.
She acted as though she didn’t hear him. “So grow used to it.”
Emel said, “Leave Masira to her own doings. Cut her off from this world. It belongs to her Sons. I’d do it myself if I could.”
“You would have to kill every single one of us.”
Emel leaned down off her camel, staring into Edala’s eyes like an eagle peering at prey. For a breath, I admired her bravery, but then she said, “If you won’t stop on your own, it would be for the best.”
Leaping off my camel at the same time as Tamam, I moved toward them. “Stop this.” I turned to Edala and said, “We can move more slowly, arrive tomorrow at dusk. Let us travel without your help right now.” I was putting too much pressure on everyone in our party. Stress was adding tension where it didn’t need to be.
Edala pinned her gaze on me. “Clearly, I am not wanted here. It matters not to me. I can live happily whether Almulihi is standing or rubble.” She turned away from me as she wiped her cheek.
A violent wind whipped up around us, the sand pelleting my face and hands. When the wind passed, she was gone.
“Edala?!” Tamam called. He spun on his heels, calling her name again and again.
“She’s left,” Emel said, almost as smug as Edala. She wouldn’t look at me.
Tamam continued to call her name, pleading with her to come back, his voice splintered with longing. I could not stand it.
I said, “Let’s continue.”
Amir gasped. “To the cave? But we will be outmatched, outnumbered.” That we would have no magic on our side was left unsaid.
“We go.” I nearly shouted as I went back to my camel, trying to coax the beast down so I could mount it. It wouldn’t listen. As if it sensed my willingness to kill it with my naked hands, it finally lowered to the ground, and I was able to seat myself upon the saddle. When we were all ready to continue the journey, I noticed Edala’s camel was gone.
Silently, we traveled on.
The journey took much longer than we expected. Bleary-eyed and quiet, we arrived at the cave just after dawn.
“What if they attack?” Nassar whispered to me as we dismounted.
Handing my camel’s reins to Amir, I said just as quietly, “We are trained soldiers. We fight.” My tone implying more confidence than I felt. Should they attack, should Kassim or Zahar be there, we would be easy prey without my sister.
“And if Kassim is a jinni?”
I exhaled away my doubt. A leader must feign confidence if he does not feel it. “We are brothers. I refuse to believe he won’t at least talk with me first.”
“But if his master commands otherwise?”
He was right. But what choice did I have? “You can stay with Amir if you wish.”
Nassar followed us, and we left Amir with the camels. The cave was tucked into a rocky dune, and as we moved near its mouth, sand dripped down its entrance like the falling water in Jawar’s village.
Emel looked up uneasily, apparently more worried about sand blocking our way than walking into a cave of madmen.
The cave darkened quickly. Slowly, voices trickled down the tunnel, and as the light dimmed behind us, a bright glow grew before us.
“We should let them know we approach,” I said. “I do not want them to think it an attack.”
“But brother,” a voice said from behind us. “We already know you are here.”
Kassim.
At the same time I felt my belt lighten, the sound of my own blade leaving its sheath rang in the air.
I had not removed it.
Everything happened so fast. My wrists were grabbed, pulled behind me. I could hear the huff of Emel’s breath as she struggled. Darkness and tugging hands kept me from comprehending what was happening to Tamam and Nassar. “Careful with them. It will be no fun if they die,” Kassim said. “Hello, dove. Sorry about the fire . . .”
“Don’t touch me,” Emel spat.
I struggled hard against my restraint to no avail. “Leave her!” I shouted.
Kassim sighed.
Tamam was still fighting, I could hear his effort, feel the jostling as they bumped into whomever restrained me. Pulling my hands was of no use. The man had them locked behind my back.
“Why are you doing this?” I could only see my brother’s silhouette, but his voice was unmistakable.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” Kassim asked, drawing near.
Silence fell as Tamam was finally overcome. Relieved when I heard his ragged breaths, I said to Kassim, “All this to be king? We are family.”
Kassim just laughed.
A sharp pressure hit my back, driving me deeper into the cave toward the orange light.
We entered a cavern taller than it was wide. People gathered at the periphery. Behind them, I could see more tunnels that led to places I did not want to know. Were it not for their pale skin and scarred scalps, I would have thought them travelers by their dress. But even without their black cloaks or dark gloves, I knew it was the Darkafa. Just as Edala had predicted, this was where they lived.
We were pushed to the center of the room. “Secure them,” Kassim said. And then, impossibly, he reached into the sand and with his fingers coaxed a stone rod from the ground. The Darkafa cheered at the magical display. It was then that I saw the ropes and short knives they clutched in their hands. Bile burned my throat.
“Let them go,” I said when they shoved me to the pillar. “If you want to be a king, you only need me dead.” Emel was still unharmed. Nassar, too. Tamam’s fight left him with swellings on his cheeks and bleeding from his brow and lip, one eye closed tight.
Kassim approached me as the others were bound. Nearly my height exactly, our eyes level. Our mother had always said we were as opposite as our eyes. Mine like the sun, his a storm. Now, his eyes glittered like polished silver.
“Actually,” he said, “that is not quite true. It seems as if we might do better without her.” He nodded to Emel.
She did not miss it. “What of our friendship?” She paused. “Was I only a means to reach Saalim?” I heard it loudly: her sadness, real and undulating.
Kassim looked at her with a flash of regret, but he said nothing.
The Darkafa watched us. What were they planning? Women were clustered behind the crowd; I saw babes in their arms. Did they really live here? Disgusted, I looked to my companions. We all were still standing, though the hang of Tamam’s head worried me. There was a press of another’s hand against my own. Emel.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, and I felt her breath against my ear. “This is my fault.”
Pressing my fingers against her palm, I said to Kassim. “If you are so powerful, be done with me. Why this show? What are you waiting for?”
“I am unimpressed,” Emel said, her voice hardening. “I’ve seen a jinni work his magic. He needs no display, no show. You must not be as powerful as Saalim was, eh? Is that where your anger lies? Are you jealous?”
The ground shook, sand fell from above us like rain. The people in the cave screamed and dropped to the ground, glee etched on the faces of most despite their fear. The knives that slipped from their palms in their panic told me Edala may not have been wrong. They carried weapons, but they did not know how to use them. Violence was not of their nature.
Emel whispered, “Still, it isn’t enough, is it?” Kassim’s chest heaved like he’d pulled an anchor by himself.
The ground shook harder. Tamam fell forward, his arms taut behind him like a sail in wind. Emel knocked into me, and I dropped onto my knees. The shaking stilled, but the sand cascading from crevasses above did not stop.
A rolling whisper rushed through the people, and they rippled apart. Words slipped through the susurrus: goddess, presence, here.
I stiffened.
“Kassim was waiting for me,” a voice said from the parting swarm. I knew that voice. I remembered that voice. I felt sick at the sound, as if I had drunk some foul tonic.
Zahar.
She came forward, just as I remembered her: small as a sparrow but face as sharp as a griffon’s, mouth pulled down with perpetual displeasure.
Forgetting I was tied, I lunged forward, fury for all she had done driving me. I snapped back hard, my skin burning from the tight ropes. “What have you done?” I cried.
She sighed. “What have I done? Me? What about you? What about your father?”
My father?
“This is all more complicated than it needed to be.” She sounded bored. “Were it not for that girl, we would have been done with this already, see? I had hoped I could change her mind about you, but it was not to be.”
My thoughts reeled. Zahar and Emel? I could not make sense of anything.
Zahar came close enough that I could see the creases around her eyes. She was not much younger than my mother. Facing Emel, she said, “We could have been something together—salt chasers, eh? You have the ability, but you shun it. Squandering your gift. You betray the sand in your blood by choosing him.” She spat onto the ground.
The people around us trembled, staring at the spit muddied with sand like it was salt.
“Altasa?” Emel asked quietly. I heard the confusion and the certainty tearing each other apart as she sorted through them.
Altasa? I stared at the healer. She looked nothing like the frail old woman who had traipsed through the palace. But then, hadn’t Mariam mentioned Altasa looked well? Hadn’t Nika said the same, that Emel had been good for her? I had not seen the old woman for . . . how long had it been? Two moons? If she had magic at her disposal, what could she have done in that time?
Zahar laughed. “I’ve always thought Altasa was a nice name . . . But we are not here to talk of me.” She grew serious and stepped in front of me, just out of reach. Even with my arms bound, she was not strong enough to risk getting close. “We are here for Saalim. And Emel, of course. We have tried our magic. Imagine my disappointment—and Kassim’s!—when he found that even he could not sway Masira to act for him. Curious how she placed you in my keeping. Purely accidental, you know. I was happy to take on an apprentice while I healed. Even grinding seeds put me out for too long. And when I learned you were marked? When I learned that it was you who freed Saalim and forced me back to this form!” She gestured to herself. “Ah, Masira . . .” She laughed. “If we had swayed your opinions, if you had cared less about Saalim, we might finally have brought about his death through magic. But you were stubborn as my sister.” She shook her head and looked at the sand. “How could we kill him if Masira’s chosen wanted otherwise?”
Chills pulled taut my skin. It was only Emel who protected me from death? I stepped ever so slightly in front of her—as much as the ropes would allow.
“Ah!” Zahar barked, missing nothing. “It is too late, Saalim. We have to do things more traditionally. We did not expect you to walk right into our nest. So now, my king, your protector has to die. Then, we can kill you.”
Zahar spun and faced the Darkafa. “My children!”
They dropped to their knees, mumbling about the goddess and her voice and her power.
The same healer who had cured my fevers, aches, and wounds when I was a boy, now gestured to us. “They are here, and they are ready to be sacrificed. Kill the girl first. Then, the king. Unless . . .” She held up a hand in question to Kassim. “The brother would like the honors? It is your throne, after all.”
A gust of wind pushed the torch flames into a frenzy, but I did not blink.
I watched Kassim, and prepared to be killed by my brother.