The food kept coming out on trays, and the wine was flowing as if from a fountain. The people talked loudly and laughed even more loudly. They faced each other with piles of meat and bread and fruit in between. With so much joy to be had, why did I worry?
“Have you learned anything more of those that killed your family?”
What small joy I had fled like mice in the shadow of a falcon. Omar, tactless as always.
“No,” I said. “But our guard remains. We will find them soon.”
“We’ve a pack of louts, too,” Omar said, licking the wine from his lips. “They left their marks all over my city. Black hands.”
Ah, yes, Omar. Your little pack of vandals who mark your city are certainly equal to the men that assailed Almulihi and killed my entire family.
Unclenching my fists, I reminded myself that the man meant well. It was not his fault his father indulged him. “What does Ibrahim think?”
“That they are waiting for—you, there!” Omar raised his empty goblet to a servant who advanced into the dining hall with a decanter full of arak.
“Ibrahim’s settlement is not alone,” Gaffar said as Omar watched his goblet fill. “I have heard of similar sightings in other settlements.”
“More hands?” I asked out of politeness, growing wearier with each sip of wine.
Omar slammed down an empty goblet, drops of the arak dregs splashing onto the table. “Come back!” he shouted to the servant.
“It will hit you quickly,” I said, sliding mine out to be filled.
“Exactly,” he said. “No better way to welcome my friend to his throne.” Omar was never one to miss a party.
Everything had moved so swiftly after the attack on Almulihi, we barely had time to mourn my family before we heard news of Alfaar. Thinking his hunger of power reason enough to attack my home, I’d left in a hurry to see if the rumors of the Salt King were true. Though it was confirmed that he had as much salt in his tent as we did in the palace stores, and was indeed a threat worth ending, it was evident he’d had no hand in the ambush of my home.
So I returned to a waiting throne and uneasy people with no new information. And tonight we celebrated my acceptance of the crown.
Everything felt wrong.
The guests grew rowdier as the night wore on. Amir stood and pounded the hilt of his sword against the table until everyone fell silent. I watched him, thinking of our earlier discussion.
There had been no unusual sightings at the city’s edge since we arrived and no word of suspicious behavior in Almulihi. I shifted, remembering the foolish haste I demanded of our journey. How many died because of my blindness, my insistence of taking the wrong path? Men patrolled the city’s borders night and day looking for suspicious people in black cloaks, for soldiers, anyone or anything that might tell us who had attacked our city and on whose behalf the three suspicious travelers might have approached us during our journey. Were the events related? Nassar insisted they were not. I could not admit aloud that I wondered the same.
“We are glad you all have joined us to welcome our king,” Amir said. “Though we still keep in memory the royal family, tonight we celebrate King Saalim. We are here not for sadness but for triumph. Bathe in Wahir’s water, and pray with his gift.” He dipped his fingers into a shallow bowl of water that rested beside his plate.
Doing the same with my bowl, I said a quick prayer for peace and resolution. I pressed my fingers to my opposite wrist. Others did the same.
“Now,” Amir continued, reaching for his wine, “to King Saalim’s homecoming! And since she has joined us, to the future queen!”
With escorts lurking behind her, Helena sat several seats down from me. Despite her pallor, she was worthy of viewing. She had broad shoulders, a full mouth. Her waist appeared small beneath her dress, her hips, though, did not seem much wider. Helena’s eyes—green like the sea—met mine, and she studied me like she knew my thoughts. She smiled. I nodded in return, my goblet held aloft.
Others echoed Amir’s sentiments while I gazed at them through a blur.
“A song! A song!” someone shouted.
Gaffar jumped onto his chair and began clapping and stamping his feet into a familiar rhythm. Others jumped up, clapping, and with Gaffar’s lead, they sang the words we all knew:
O! You who braves these shifting sands.
To venture t’ward more salted lands.
If amongst the dunes a skull you find
Flee fast that cursed corpse, if you can!
For in tusked-skull a si’la dwells
Exiled, her love torn from her hands
She studied the darkest magic arts
Her power beyond the grasp of man
The goddess weeps to look upon
One who freed herself from fate’s plans.
She’ll steal your soul and cast it out
A feeble whisper upon the sands.
Magic. It was a word I once laughed at. Edala had believed in it, and I had always thought her a fool. It was perhaps the only matter my brother and I agreed on; our sister was starry-eyed and stone-headed, always searching for the goddess’ gifts.
But then there had been water in barrels. Water from nothing. And why, when I thought of magic, did it feel different now? Like peeling back a curtain to reveal something real.
I stood from the table and walked to the archway, where Omar and Tamam stood looking out onto the night-lit balcony.
“Saalim honors us with his presence!” Omar yelled, slapping my back.
Tamam, surely still on his first and only cup of wine, watched me with clear eyes and a furrowed brow.
Buildings in front of the palace had darkened with the evening, with slices of light peeking out from them. Bright like iron to be forged. Beyond the city was Wahir’s greatest gift: the sea. I could smell it in the air—the brine and wet sand.
“My, this one is different. Straight from the desert,” Omar said, and I knew that tone. He saw a woman. “Is that how you like them now?”
Laughing, I looked back to see what poor palace servant Omar had his eyes on now. The man had married recently, but Sons, it had not quelled his enthusiasm.
The drink made her hazy, but I could see she was as beautiful as any of the ahiran here. I leaned back on the balcony railing and said, “Mariam sent you, then?”
She had stopped completely beneath the archway that split the dining hall from the balcony. It framed her in such a way that it looked like she belonged there—like my mother had when she walked these halls.
“Altasa,” she said, and when she spoke, I knew her voice.
The smile fell from my face, and I pushed myself away from the railing to stand upright. In that loose dress, I had not recognized her. It was something a woman of Almulihi might wear, senselessly embroidered and brighter than the flowers in the garden. With no scarf covering her head and face, my eyes traveled greedily from her mouth to her neck to her chest. Her hair and eyes blacker than the night. My blood stirred and pooled, and I felt myself moving toward her.
“She sent me to give you this,” Emel said sharply.
Something was not quite right, and it distracted me from the image of her naked legs twisted with mine. Her voice had a hard edge to it, and she was not looking at me but beyond me. At Omar, like he was a scorpion in her bed.
I cleared my throat. “What is it?”
She held out a lumpy sack. “The medicine.”
For the aches that persisted still from our journey. “And you deliver it tonight?”
“She said it must be delivered on a first quarter moon.”
I exhaled and rubbed my brow. All healers were the same. I remember my mother complaining when servants would interrupt their sleep to deliver tonics sent by Zahar. “Of course. A servant could have brought it.” I should have just taken the sack, but instead I continued to talk. She dropped her arm, the bag dangling by her side.
“It was your servants who directed me here. I did not know there was a party.”
No, but the servants did. A cruel joke for the salt chaser.
Taking the medicine from her, I said, “Thank you for bringing it.”
She nodded briefly and turned to go. Tonight she was different, closed and reticent.
“Won’t you stay?” Omar asked her.
I bristled.
“I’m alone tonight.” He laughed.
“Omar,” I warned.
He looked at me, surprised. “Who is this? Become king and suddenly you’re too good for a whore?”
In my periphery, I saw Emel flinch. I closed my eyes, sobering quickly and willing patience with my friend. We had fun, in part due to his boorish behavior, but tonight I had no tolerance for it. “Go inside,” I said with my hand to his back, my fingers slipping on the silk.
“Come now.” He stroked his beard. “I can’t have any fun?”
I looked back to Tamam, who was watching us like he watched everything—alert and wary. Leaving his goblet atop the railing, Tamam led Omar inside.
“He is drunk,” I said to Emel. A poor explanation, and I regretted it immediately when I saw her frown. I was alone on the balcony now. Emel still remained under the archway as though an unseen barrier prevented her from coming closer.
“I need to return to Altasa,” she said, making to leave.
“Please wait.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Grasping for some reason to have asked her to stay, I blurted, “Have you seen the ocean yet?”
“I have.”
“But not from here. Come and see.” I gestured to the view, then realized it was night, and there would be little to see. My hand dropped.
Emel took maybe two steps onto the balcony and stopped. “It is lovely.”
It did not sound as though she thought it lovely. She sounded terrified, and I said as much.
“We’re quite high up.” Her eyes darted to the balcony’s edge.
Resting my hands on the railing, I said, “But it offers the best view of Almulihi.” I saw it from her eyes—seeing my city for the first time, how beautiful and impressive it must be. And I, its king. Pride lifted my chin and chest.
“I’ve not been up high like this before.”
I dropped my head, looking down at the rooftops. Of course she had not. She had lived in a village of tents. My silver-tongued mother would not have erred so. “There is nothing to fear. It will hold,” I said finally, pounding the balcony with my heel. She flinched, moving closer to me. I could almost reach out and touch her.
She watched me carefully. What is it you see?
“Emel means ambition, does it not? In the old tongue?” I asked.
“I was told that once.” She stood next to me now. Her fingers slowly stretching out to the railing.
“Not that I speak much of it. Tutors tried, but I was too stubborn. Didn’t understand the value. Now, of course, I am reliant on translators to read the old scripts and laws.” I was rambling.
“But that is appropriate for a king, is it not? My father had Nas—” She stopped and looked at me. “Men that helped him.”
“It is, but a king should have help because he has too many tasks, not because he can’t complete them on his own.” I thought of Azim fighting the invaders I was too cowardly to face. “Dependence is weak.”
She was leaning over the railing now, bolder by the moment. The scarf draped over her back could not hide the curve of her spine into her hips. I wanted to pull the scarf away, trace my fingers along that sloping line.
Another raucous song started inside, but it felt so far away.
The wind whipped up, swirling around us and fluttering the dress around her ankles so that I could just glimpse that she wore slippers on her feet. No sandals. She pushed back from the edge with the gust, fear widening her eyes. Her hair was fashioned similar to my sisters’, who used to spend far too long with their reflections, twisting their hair and placing it just so. It had seemed like such waste to use time so frivolously, but seeing Emel with her hair spun around her head and dress swept down around her like a bird’s plumes made me reconsider. Perhaps it was not so needless. Another gust of wind, and the scarf fell from her shoulders.
My eyes, greedy for more, dropped to her shoulder. I paused. Stretching over her skin were dark scars, shining in the light. The trails of at least five lashes. They were not the scars of a laborer, someone who had been in a horrible accident. They were the scars of disobedience, put there intentionally.
I gasped. What could a daughter of a king have done to warrant the punishment?
She looked at me suddenly. When she saw my face, her brow furrowed, and she reached up to her neck, fingers closing over the tapering ends of the scars. Slowly, she backed away, pulling the scarf tightly over her shoulders, just as my mother used to do. But my mother had not been hiding scars.
“Was it worth it?” I asked.
Her face softened. What was she remembering? It wasn’t the pain of the whip, the itch of the healing wounds. No, she was remembering what she had done to earn them.
“He is,” she said, before she walked away.
Anisa flew back swiftly, prey dangling from her beak. I held up my hand, luring in the golden eagle with bloody meat. She landed with a soft thud, dropping the mouse onto the ground in a frantic hurry to get the prize. She took the meat in my hand and turned away from me, shielding herself with her wing. I watched her fondly, listening to Nassar and Kofi speak at my back.
“And who were these travelers?” Kofi asked.
“People from the east,” Nassar replied.
Kofi scoffed. “I doubt they can be believed.”
“What motive would they have to lie?”
Anisa finished her meal, her ocher eye flashing to me.
“They bore you, too?” I whispered. Anisa was my best huntress. I was pleased, but not surprised, when she returned to me after the ceremony with Alfaar. She was more loyal than most.
No, she was not loyal. She was lazy. She knew who provided her meals.
“Saalim!” Nassar said, voice raised.
“I have no interest in travelers who say they were lured from their journey by a strange woman.”
“Helena’s family will want to know that you take all matters seriously,” Nassar said flatly. “It could be a test.”
“Ah, then please, tell me more.”
“They say she was there one moment, gone the next. Found her by a skull larger than any animal that lives.”
“In the east they must also sing the song of the si’la and drink too much arak,” I said. Kofi grunted in agreement. Anisa fanned her wings when she finished, as if she knew how beautiful her feathers were.
“Then you will not care to hear what they said of the black-cloaked people they called the Darkafa.”
Black hands.
Nassar continued. “They described them as you did.”
“As I did?”
“The ones we met on the journey.”
The travelers that approached us had hands gloved in black. The louts Omar described left painted black hands throughout his city as if it were some message. Were they the same, after all?
Quietly, Nassar said, “Saalim, you will want to hear this.”
I sent Anisa to the sky and walked back to Nassar and Kofi. “What did they say?”
“The Darkafa claimed to have found the goddess, and now they search for the Sons.”
Losing my patience, I sighed and turned to watch Anisa soar. These Darkafa sounded addled. But it was always the addled ones that were the most worrisome.
Nassar went on. “‘When the king crosses the desert, the goddess will return. She will unleash the second-born Son to put the first-born to death.’”
I cursed my poor memory of the Litab Almuq. “Which of the Sons was born first?”
“Clerics debate this; however, most believe it to be Wahir,” Nassar said. “If the Darkafa believe the same, then I fear they will travel to Wahir’s kingdom so that he can be destroyed.”
Silence, save for wind. I stared at the horizon, where Almulihi looked like a stone cracked in half.
“To Almulihi,” I said.
That evening, there was another party. The people who had traveled far to welcome me home would not leave quickly. My father’s gatherings were the same—night after night of elaborate dinners and drinks, guests long overstaying their welcome. My mother never tired of it, or if she did, she hid it well. She would bring in men to spin fire and women to swallow swords, singers and bards, dancers and tellers of fortune.
When I was young, I would tiptoe down the steps barefooted so none would hear me. A child eager to be king so I could have parties every night and stay awake until sunrise. Now, I preferred to be the boy sent to bed at dusk.
Tonight Omar was sharing, as he often did, the details of his nights spent with women in Almulihi. Thankfully, Helena left to her quarters early in the night so she did not have to hear his lewdness. Always tactful, she had the makings of a fine queen. She would be returning home tomorrow to finish preparations for the wedding before making her final journey to Almulihi.
“You are certain that the salt chaser was not available?” Omar asked me through the loud stories other men shared.
I shook my head and chuffed. No matter how hard I tried to think of anything else, my mind swirled with images of Emel. Of her breasts and waist, her back and legs. Of scars that hinted of things I wanted to know.
Tamam sat quietly. I leaned toward him. “When are you going to find yourself a woman, eh?”
“Long ago I had a woman I loved,” he replied, “but a soldier’s life is one of duty. A scabbard has only room for its sword; there is no space left to carry love or soft things like that.”
There was nothing Tamam loved like he loved his sword. Stoic and silent, I could hardly imagine a gentle woman in his arms.
He almost smiled. His lips parted as if he were going to say something more, but then thought better of it and sipped his drink, looking away.
I regretted dragging him into the talk. “It is late. My bed awaits.”
“And surely a woman, too,” Gaffar said.
“Wahir knows you won’t be alone tonight!” Amir called. “Will it be Dima or someone new?”
“Dima! Always Dima!” someone called from behind me.
The clattering dishes and scraping chairs gradually quieted as I retreated. Away from the party, the palace was silent at this time of night, most of the servants had gone to bed or were tending to the partiers. The day-guards had long ago left their posts to sleep. Now, only night-guards flanked the palace perimeter. I took the stairs up to the tower slowly, my hand steadying me against the wall. The moon was bright through the windows. It was late, indeed.
When I turned into my room, Mariam was still there ensuring the fire was fed and the bath kept warm.
“Go to sleep, woman,” I said fondly.
“My king.” She dipped her silvered hair toward me. “Have you any other needs?”
“Dima.”
She nodded before she took one more glance at the fire and scanned the room. All was satisfactory, I assumed, as she left quickly, closing the door behind her. She had been in the palace since before I was born, tending to my father and perhaps even my father’s father. Her familiarity with this palace and my family did not strip her of her formality, however.
I pulled off my tunic and tossed it onto the ground as I sat on a nearby chair.
Like a tethered ship, my drifting mind snapped back to the water that filled our stores on our journey. Nassar had searched desperately, trying to find accounts or explanations that would help us understand. But drunk men talking about a woman who lured them from their path was getting us nowhere. I wanted to accept there would be no explanation, but no matter how I tried to let it be, my mind pulled me back.
The fire was enormous, whirling in quiet thunder. The gauzy netting suspended from my bed’s tall frame swayed from the wind that came in. I followed the wind out onto the small balcony. This view was my favorite—overlooking the sea, the docks, the horizon. The salt-laden wind whipped up the tower. I inhaled, letting the wetness of it sober me, letting the coolness carry away my thoughts of magic and the woman whose black eyes haunted me.
Finally, a knock on the door. After stumbling through the seating room, nearly tripping on the leg of the desk, I found Dima waiting in the doorway, dressed in the color of red wine with her long hair braided over her shoulder.
“Again? You flatter me,” she said as she walked past me to stand before the fire with hands outstretched.
She was not wrong. I had been needy since our return from Alfaar’s. I had hoped all of that emptiness would be gone when I arrived home. But it had not left, and if anything, seemed to grow worse by the day. It had been how many moons since my family was taken? Since Almulihi was given to me? Four? Five? I thought by now the loneliness and the confusion and longing . . . I stopped myself.
I went to the edge of the bed, sinking into the feathered mattress. “Come here.”
She did as she was told, as she was supposed to. But just once, I wanted her to say no, to refuse, to do something else. But she could not. This was her work.
Tonight, I was not interested in pleasantries, in sharing drink or lingering touches. I was drunk with muddled images of Emel in my bed that needed to be washed away. Pressing my mouth to Dima’s, I pushed the dress from her shoulders. I untied her top, poorly it seemed, as it did not slide off easily until her deft fingers intervened.
Sons, the woman was soft. I pulled her to me as I lay down. My hands ran the length of her back, to her thighs and up again. I closed my eyes, thinking of Emel’s skin beneath my hands. Dima removed my clothing until I was stripped to skin. Her hands were so perfect they felt wrong, and each night, they felt more wrong than the last. They were only there to touch, nothing more, nothing deeper. She swung her leg over my hips and there was no more thought of her hands.
I was barely aware of Dima. She was just a woman I clung to and thrashed against. A woman who had lips, breasts. Someone soft who tasted like sweet fennel seed. When it was done, I lay beside her and pulled her to my chest. I wrapped my arm around her waist and pressed my lips behind her ear. She pressed back into me. She would stay until I told her to leave.
“Tell me,” she said. When I said nothing, she continued, “You do not call an ahira to your bed this often because you want to bed. There is more.”
“Hmm.” I pressed my mouth to her hair, her braid wrapped loosely in my fist.
“I am here, should you need someone to tell. You know I can keep a secret.”
The palace ahiran were tested and tested again with false and scandalous secrets before they were allowed to stay. So yes, she could keep any secret I asked her to. It was her job.
“Is it Helena? She will suit you well.”
“Helena is fine.”
“It is something else.”
“I am so tired.”
“Then sleep, my king.”
I pulled the blankets over us. Despite the woman that lay sleeping beside me, the friends that lingered in the dining hall below, the future queen that slept in a neighboring tower, I still felt the nagging hollowness.
I still thought of Emel.