31

SAALIM

The palace was enormous, vacant. A sham of a home. And I was, once again, a puppet forced to live there forever. Only the swish of fabric and smack of stone were my companions as I walked through the halls. I lived through this before. How cruel to mourn a family twice.

I stopped mid-step. “Where is Tamam?” A slack-faced soldier was standing in front of my tower where Tamam should have been.

“I cannot say. Azim posted me here. It was empty.”

Did Tamam know about Edala?

On the landing, I glanced up the stairs to Kassim’s quarters. I would have the servants destroy everything that remained inside.

Turning into my room, I let out a breath of relief. Finally alone to think.

Since the death of my parents, I had spent much of my time remembering how I had failed and acting so that I would not repeat the same mistakes. Because of this, I had not behaved as king of this city. I was a blundering idiot, considering most that which would be perceived as right, not what was right for my city and the people that lived in it. It was not behavior of a leader.

Now, I needed to lead.

Pushing away from the window ledge, I went to the basin of water by my doorway. Three stones lay at the bottom: Father, Mother, and Nadia. Outside of the basin was the linen-wrapped package given to me by Liika. Peeling away the cloth, I peered at the jagged, white stone. Salt in rock form—halite, I think they called it. It would dissolve if left in the water. It preferred the dry air, the sun.

It was my mother completely.

I pulled her stone from the basin and set it aside. I carried the salt rock to the window’s edge so that it could spend its days in the sun. There my mother could rest. With Eiqab.

Kassim and Edala’s stones were still in my pack. They clinked together as I tightened my fist around them. I hesitated after placing Edala with the others. Did Kassim belong with them?

It was not my decision to make. His fate was with Masira. Everything he was, everything he did, must remain behind me now. I set his stone—smooth and gray—in the bottom of the basin with the rest of our family.

Finally, I took my father’s stone from the water: black, heavy and gleaming. Pressing it between my palms, then to my brow, I prayed.

Wahir let me stay this sea.

I returned to my desk and began sorting through the letters, the tasks. This time with focus, an eagerness. I was the king. Each time I thought it, an ease traveled through me, a soft tingling over my skin. Tomorrow, I would speak with Azim, Ekram, Nassar. Together we would put the soiled past behind us. We would move forward, with me as its leader and these men at my sides. It would take time, but I would earn my place as king.

As I worked through the inquiries, addressing this and that, finishing tasks that had long been waiting for my attention, things seemed to shift back into place. At the bottom of the pile I found an old letter from Helena’s father indicating when they would be arriving for the wedding. The parchment was soft, of a fine quality, and my fingertips brushed against it absently as I read the words over and over.

Footsteps. Mariam bustled in to fuel the fire.

“Do you need someone to sleep?” she asked, glancing at my work with ill-veiled surprise.

Shaking out my aching hand, I handed her the completed letters. She set them on a chair before moving to the fire. I considered her offer. Tonight, though, Dima was not what I wanted. I glanced at the letter in front of me again. Helena’s name stretched toward me like eager arms.

“Not tonight, Mariam. How is the child?”

She prodded the fire. “She was inconsolable, reaching for everything and becoming more upset when she couldn’t find it. Emel came in with a bag of dates, which helped. Finally, Bilara’s asleep. I don’t understand how we lost her box. She never let it go.”

“Should I have a new one made?”

Mariam stood slowly, rubbing her lower back. “No,” she said, lifting the letters from the chair. “She must learn to live without it.”

When Mariam was gone, I rose from the desk and began to undress. Beside my wardrobe, I saw the polished boots that had been set out for the wedding, kicked to the side in a frantic exit.

There she was again. Helena.

Kneeling, I set the boots beside my sword that leaned sheathed against the wall. My father’s sword, now mine.

Too long I had sat upon the wall dividing my lives, thinking I could keep a foot on both, but I could not. I was not a child who dreamed of holding a sword.

I was a king. It was time I acted as one.

I looked at the boots again and nodded, committing to my decision.

I was a king. A king married a princess.

I wrote my letter to Helena’s father.

I was a king. I was no boy.

These words did not buoy me as they had moments before. Not when this goodbye loomed so near.

The moon had not yet risen high. It was not too late.

Moving down the stairs, the finality of my decision terrified me. Saying goodbye to that part of my life . . . to that tapestry of my future, nearly made me turn back. To say no to her. I sat down, nausea rising in my throat. Taking heavy breaths, I stood and continued down the stairs.

“My lord,” the soldier said, pushing off the wall he leaned against.

“I will return soon.”

“Do you need an escort?”

I shook my head and went down the hall, unable to utter another word for fear I would have him stop me, fearing that I would have him pull Nassar from his bed to seek his counsel. But it was a decision I had to make. I knew it was the right one.

I was up the stairs of the guest tower standing outside the doorway. Hesitating, I looked back down the stairs. No, this could not wait. She would need to decide what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go. Again, nausea unfurled through me. It felt like a whole part of my past was being loosed, a ship’s mooring snapped.

“Emel?” I called out, voice tremoring like a child’s. Pathetic. Clearing my throat, I pushed the door open wider and called again when she did not respond.

Still nothing, so I stepped into the room. It was well-lit, the torches and fire blazing. It appeared as if Mariam had just been there as well.

Where had she gone after dinner, if not here? Traitorous relief told me that I could tell her some other time. It did not have to be now.

It felt like trespassing, stepping into the room, but it was my palace, after all. The space was untouched, the bedding smooth as stone. There was nothing in the room that told me Emel was staying here.

Unless she was not staying here? My hands dropped to my side, limp. Had she left for good?

I threw open the wardrobe and exhaled. Drooping fabric was suspended from hooks and settled into shallow wooden boxes. Her clothes. Something bright caught my eye in the back of the wardrobe.

Her pack.

It was sagging open, gold glinting at me. Gold? Why had she been carrying around gold all this time? The pack was surprisingly light but noisy as I moved it to the bed.

“Emel?” I called again, looking toward the bathing room.

Nothing.

The metal was cold when I touched it, and though I wanted to examine all the contents in the sack, I let it go and walked away from the bed.

Wind brushed in, and I followed it out to the balcony. Orange-lit windows glowed throughout the city, the clouds still smothering any light from the sky. The rain had stopped, but the stone below was still slick with it. Leaning against the rail, the water cold beneath my fingers, I thought of the people that lived here. They slept, worked, loved because they trusted me and my father before me. That we would protect them, serve to anchor and shelter their lives. Today Kassim had attempted to shake that trust. He failed, but what if Emel had not been here? That was a future I prepared to face.

“Saalim?”

My pulse quickened, and I turned to Emel.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, sounding nervous as she stepped toward me. “My things . . .” she said, glancing behind her.

“I did not go through them,” I said.

Though I wanted to reach out to her, to hold her face in my palm, my arms were fast at my side. “I needed to talk to you.”

“It is late.”

“It could not wait.”

She led me back into the room, and we found ourselves in front of the fire, Emel forgoing the chair to sit upon the rug. She was already reaching out her hands to the flames, warming them, when I sat.

Leaning my elbows on my knees, I watched her face. “I have made a decision.”

She waited, glancing at me only briefly before watching the flames again. She pressed her lips together.

I said, “There is a chair that sits in the throne room. It is empty, and it needs a queen. There is a crown that is cold. It belongs on the brow of a woman who is strong enough to hold it.” I hesitated, looking down at my clenched hands. “There is a king who sits in front of a woman—a once ahira, a healer’s apprentice, a freer of jinn—who is equally alone.”

Her eyes met mine, mouth parting slightly.

I said, “My father chose the crown over his heart. He chose wrong. I will not do the same.” I knelt down before her, taking her warm hand carefully. “I choose both.” I took a breath, then said, “Would the daughter of the Salt King deign to wed the son of a salt chaser?”

Her eyes were so dark, I saw nothing in their depths. So many secrets she could hide in them. What would she say?

She pulled her scarf away from her neck, then folded her fingers into a fist. “Me?” she asked, eyes glistening. “You are choosing me?”

The way she looked, the way she said it, I could almost convince myself she was saying—

“Yes, Saalim,” she breathed. “Yes.”

Sons, there it was. That word like an anchor. A heavy, comforting weight that pulled me to the ground and held me there. She was holding me there—holding me home. Reaching out, I pressed my hand against her cheek. She leaned into it, and almost unconsciously, pressed her hand over mine. It was like she had done it one hundred times before. And apparently she had.

I said, “Since I went to your settlement, I’ve felt a void within myself. I always thought it was grief for my family. But you have filled it.” How could I describe it to her without sounding mad? “Like I was a musician who had found his hands.” I took both of her hands in mine.

She smiled knowingly. “A nomad who has found his feet?”

“Yes,” I said, laughing. That was exactly it. “I am a bird, and now I have wind.” I dropped my gaze to the ground. “If she will have me?”

“How many times must I say that I am already yours?” She rose to her knees and brought her face near mine. So close, I could almost feel each exhalation against my skin. Her lips so close, I could see them bow like an eagle’s wings.

Slowly, I moved my hand across her back, feeling the rise and fall of the bones of her shoulders, how they moved just a little under my touch. I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her toward me. A tacit request for more. Heat pooled, and all I wanted was her lips against mine, our bodies crashing together on the bed.

But Emel stilled. “Saalim,” she said. “There can be no secrets.”

“No,” I agreed. I would have agreed to anything in that moment.

“Then—” she pushed off me and hurried to the bed, bringing back her sack. Without explanation, she dumped the contents onto the ground. A glass vessel filled with sand rolled toward me. It was etched with the symbols of Almulihi. Two golden—?

“Cuffs,” Emel said when she saw my face. “These were yours.”

“Mine?” My breath paused, and I lifted one. It was so heavy.

“When you were a jinni.”

Jinni. I swallowed. Edala had said as much, and Emel, too. But seeing it in front of me felt unbelievable. Those had once been around my wrists? Emel held out the glass and told me it was my vessel. Then she showed me a moon jasmine with bright white petals, alive despite being plucked from the ground.

“You gave this to me when we visited Almulihi together.” She watched the flower swirl between her fingertips.

“We came here?”

She nodded, explaining it all. She showed me a tile that I was sure had come from the palace. Emel confirmed it had, that I had given it to her. “I often wonder if there is a missing tile somewhere.”

“There must be many.”

Emel showed me the map I knew she carried with her, a necklace I had many times seen around her neck, and finally, a half of a wooden soldier.

“You have this?” I was incredulous, thinking of its other half tucked away on a shelf.

She explained that, too. It would never be easy, knowing there was a past that Emel claimed to have memory of that I knew nothing about. What were we like? What was I like? How did I compare to the man she fell in love with? Perhaps Masira covering her tracks was not so wrong. Magic warped sanity, and I would have been better off not knowing this in such detail.

“I show you this,” Emel said, “because I will hide nothing from you. And that includes this.” She pulled out the wrinkled parchment. “The letter from Edala.”

The one I had thrown aside. I thought it had been lost forever. It the last thing I would have from my sister. Greedily, I reached for it. The wax seal had been broken already.

“I read it,” Emel said. Her voice was low, eyelashes brushing her cheek. “I know I shouldn’t have, but you threw it aside, and I thought you might never read it and if you . . .” She stopped herself. “Well, go ahead.”

Saalim,


This letter gives me as much joy to write as it does sorrow. If you are reading this, then Masira has taken me.


I feel it is the second time I have chosen death. Only this time, it was not for selfish gain. Though it grieves me to admit it, I see wisdom in a desert without magic. A life without divine meddling.


Emel seems to be the last piece in the puzzle of our entanglement with the gods. She was placed to bring us all together, so that in one final rent, we would be pulled apart again. Only this time with finality. And this time, without the goddess having her say in how it unfolds.


Father was wrong. You do not have to wed for blood, Saalim. There are few whom I would view as your equal, as worthy of your love, of Mother’s crown. Emel is one of the few. She is a sister I would be proud to have.


Almost as proud as I am to have you as my brother. I thank the Sons every day for our father’s decision, because it brought us you. As a foolish child, I did not see it. Now, I see that none could hold this city on their back as well as you.


I hope that you have already learned all of this for yourself, but if you are unsure and care to know the past, you will find a drink I have left you behind the portraits in my room.


Finally, if you choose to take the drink, please give Tamam the portraits.


With so much love,

Edala

Confused, I looked up. Emel held a small clear vial in her hand. Inside, there was a small amount of liquid—one swallow at most.

“I know I should not have read it, I should not have gotten this, but—”

“What is it?” I asked, uncaring of what she had done. What had Edala left me?

“I do not know.”

I took the vial, peering closely at it through the firelight. “It is not safe to drink.”

“Do you trust Edala?”

I nodded. Know the past.

I held out my hand. Emel took it in hers. Nothing felt as right as these moments with her. So far, nothing with her had been wrong.

Tipping the vial into my mouth, I swallowed the tasteless liquid.

Then, like the sand of an hourglass, memories seeped in.

The pull of fire on my hands, my voice speaking words I did not want to say.

Trapped under the sun.

An angry man.

Trapped in the coolest water.

A monster’s mind, a demon’s wish.

Trapped in foul conscience.

A girl, a woman.

Emel.

Freedom, but not quite. Warping minds, changing hands.

Dead strewn like pillows in a harem.

A woman—Emel.

And she was there, and there, and there some more. We were together. When we weren’t, still she was with me.

Her mouth on another. Her hands on another. Man after man.

Of Almulihi, broken and vacant.

Her naked body pressed against mine.

Agony, desperation, grief like I had never felt.

And there was a bending of time. Of two lives that blurred into one. Traveling to Alfaar’s, being ripped from the oasis. My memories colliding like waves in the deep sea. The merging and tearing of time made me sick.

Then I was back in the guest tower, sitting in front of Emel. I saw it all: the suitors I had swayed, death around us, her hands in mine, her lips against my neck, selfish desire, our bodies together, the cruelty from her father, her life as a slave. All of it because of me.

Clearer than the vial I held in my hand, I saw it all.

Everything I had done before crashing into everything I was now.