“Where are we going?” I followed the man down the street through the clusters of people. He took enormous strides.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “It’s just so . . .” He threw his hands out beside him. “Infuriating.” Suddenly he stopped and turned to me. He pushed his hair off his brow and grimaced. “Sons, I have not even introduced myself.” He nodded his head. “Kas.”
“Kas,” I repeated, looking up at him. “Emel.”
His smile broadened, and I warmed, just a little.
“How would you like to get something to drink? To forget the fools that don’t respect Masira. Or, are you hungry? We can go to my favorite place.”
I shook my head. I had eaten my fill of dried, honeyed apricots before I’d left. “Not hungry, but a drink, I think I need.” The last time I needed a drink, I was being prepared for a muhami. Tonight’s drink was not to wash away my pride but my past. Although I had only just met him, already being with Kas felt effortless. The promise of this easy evening with Kas was almost a relief after everything with Firoz.
We went to the opposite end of the baytahira to a shop where people crowded both inside and out—it had walls that opened up like a market stall. Men and woman handed goblets across a low wall in chaotic order. There were tables and chairs scattered outside and each one was filled, some chairs even held two people, one sitting on another’s lap.
“They serve wine from across the sea. The best there is.” He smiled and fanned his fingers. “The grapes grow to the plucking of a guitar.” Guitar? Did he mean sitar?
Kas went to find a place for us to sit and told me to wait by the street. I decided I would count to forty and if he had not returned by then, I would go back to the palace. But before I got to twenty, he was leading me toward an empty table with two chairs. Smiling despite myself, I followed him.
“I didn’t think you’d find us a place,” I said, sitting down.
“Just cleared,” he said. “Let me fetch our drinks.”
It was a cold night, and I wrapped my cloak tightly around my shoulders. I touched the camel fur gently, relishing its softness.
With a loud clunk, Kas set two goblets of heavy brass on the table. Thanking him, I took a long drink.
“So.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What does the maiden think?”
“Grapes enjoy music, too, it seems.”
He laughed and took a drink himself. He watched the people around us for several breaths before he said, “Odham is a fool, always has been. Doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“A friend works there. He helps with the arwahs.”
“You should tell—”
“I did. He won’t listen.” I had drunk half the wine already. “Where I’m from . . .” I began, then paused. It occurred to me that he hadn’t asked. He hadn’t faltered when I spoke to him or when he saw me, wondering at my foreignness. I warmed to him even more, my tongue loosening. “You can’t even say jinn without everyone shushing you.”
“Really?” he asked, slapping a hand to the table.
“Yes!” I said, smiling. Already, he felt like a friend.
“They are smarter than the people here.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Here, they’re spoiled by peace.”
“But it has not been all peaceful, has it?”
Sighing, he looked down at his clasped hands. “I try to forget. That was not peace, no. Enough time has passed since the attack that people are already forgetting. So quickly we take safety for granted.”
“And now there is a new king.”
“There is.”
“Is he a good king?” I wondered what the people thought of Saalim.
Kas shrugged, and interlocked his fingers. “He is not King Malek.”
The wine loosened my tongue. I said, “My father was the king of my settlement. He was killed.”
He let out a long breath and met my gaze. “I am sorry.”
“It was for the best, I think.”
He cocked his head, and I began to explain who I was, where I had come from. It was easy, trusting him. “He was cruel. He kept my sisters and me locked away. To him, we secured allies. Made him powerful.” The people at the nearby table stood, their chairs scraping across the stone. I watched them.
“Look at us.” He grabbed the table’s edge. “Talking of ignorant people and lost kings. This is not what we need and certainly not what I had in mind when I invited you along. Apologies.” He offered up his palms and shrugged. “Perhaps we can try again?”
I smiled at him and pulled my cloak high over my neck as another gust of wind ripped through the street. “The wine was good. And the people are entertaining.” I nodded to the rowdy crowds that surrounded us.
“I will make up for it at the gambling house.”
Absently, I pressed my fingers against the small pouch at my hip. There were only a few coins, and I was not eager to gamble them away. It was strange to think that I had been so much wealthier back home. Granted, Saalim had given me all the salt I carried then, but still. Now I had less than a handful of coins that I protected fiercely. Wealth did not come by magic anymore.
“Come on,” he coaxed, smiling. “Think about it like this—you’re paying for the fun.” He saw my face. “Do you have a fid?”
I fished out my pouch and searched for a silver coin. I had two.
“Promise me just one fid for the night, and I promise you I’ll make up for the poor start to our evening.”
“Just one.”
We stood and left the table. Once I was clear of the crowd, I turned back, realizing we had not returned our goblets.
“What is it?”
I could not find our table. I told Kas, and he laughed. “Here, you pay for the wine and for someone to take the empty goblet when you’re done. Now, shall we spend that fid or would you like to clear more tables?” He walked away from me, talking about how thrilled the shopkeeper would be to have someone do the work for free.
The gambling house was enormous inside. The ceilings were so high over our heads I could believe I was in the palace. Inside, it was calmer than the street had been, but there were still rounds of shouting, speckled cries—of happiness or lament, I could not tell. There were gambling dens back home—clandestine places hidden from the Salt King in plain sight—but I had never visited them. They were not where I wanted to spend the little freedom I had. Nor the salt.
Kas led me to a table surrounded by a large crowd. Nudging people aside, he pulled us up to the front. There was a wooden carving of a coiled snake, its head at the center of the coil. Painted cowries were scattered across the tabletop, some seated within the deep grooves of the snake, while others lay around it. Three people played this round. They were tense, holding their shoulders up to their ears and their fingers in tight fists as they waited for the other to throw his cowries. A man did, and one of the red ones landed on the neck of the snake, the other off the board completely. The other two cheered, and the next man threw his cowries.
“Have you played?” Kas whispered. His breath touched my ear.
I shook my head.
“It’s called maha—you feed the snake. Land as many as you can on him. The ones closest to his mouth get you the most points. Land one on his nose, and you win.”
The nose was rounded in a way that landing a shell there would take incredible luck.
The round finished, and the points were counted. When the winner took the money, others began to hold their bronze out, ready for the next game.
Kas spoke. “How about a fid for this round?” Those clutching their nabs withered, but a few others took their place and within a moment, my silver coin was in the middle of the table, and my palm was full of black cowries.
When it was my turn to throw, I took three of them. You could throw as many as you wanted on your turn—one at a time, or all at once—depending on your strategy. I had no strategy, so I simply tossed.
Two bounced to the outermost grooves, near the tip of the snake’s tail. The other landed on the center of its neck. Kas nudged me, and I grinned.
The next player went. He cupped his blue shells and said into his palm, “For King Malek’s soul, may Masira guard it.”
“With wings spread wide,” others said in unison.
The man threw his shells.
An older woman standing nearby absently watching the game leaned into her neighbor. “King Saalim is in a dark shadow.”
“He can’t be what his father was,” a man replied.
My throat tightened at the disapproval in his voice.
“You think he’s not fit?” the man throwing the blue shells asked as he waited for the player with the red to go.
“Of course he isn’t,” she said it as if it were obvious. “He is arrogant, too.”
“Both boys were.” The man shook his head gravely, his gray beard swaying. “The daughters were good girls. Masira protect their souls.”
Kas stiffened.
Horrified that they would disparage the royal family in such a public place, I poked my nail into the cowrie’s cleft like I was fascinated by its shape.
“I have heard whispers of replacing the king,” Kas said. “Come time for the Falsa Mawk.”
Gasps. Even I stopped fussing with the shell.
“So soon?”
“Who?”
“How?”
Kas began to explain, and I stared at all their faces. They had forgotten the game and watched him eagerly. I dropped my fist to the table, letting the shells fall on the surface.
“Forfeiting your hand?” the man with the blue shells asked, eyes dancing between my coin and the cowries.
“Yes,” I said, backing away.
“Wait,” I heard Kas say to the people around the table. His hand was hot on my shoulder, and I turned around. “What is it?” he asked.
“I won’t be associated with maligning the king or his family.”
Kas made a face that looked as though he’d tasted something awful.
I said, “I can’t risk losing my place here.”
His eyes widened, and he laughed, shaking his head. “This is not some settlement, Emel. They cannot punish me for speaking words.”
Now I made the displeased face.
“Please, will you come back to the game? I promise we will talk no more of politics.” He rubbed his hands together and frowned.
“If you hold to your promise,” I said. Together, we went back to the table. I picked up my shells. “Let’s finish then.”
When the people asked Kas to go on, he shook his head and said it was all meaningless gossip anyway.
The other two had tossed all their cowries, knocking my black shell from the neck. Peering at the hungry snake, red looked to be winning with two shells near the head and four on its body. Blue had only three on its body.
I picked up the remaining shells and with a gentle swing, tossed them. They dropped to the board like rain.
A woman laughed across the table from me. “It’s no wonder you played the fid.”
One of my cowries lay, impossibly, on the tip of the snake’s nose. I stared at it, disbelieving it possible. We all stared as though waiting for it to slide off. It held.
Like magic, my one silver coin suddenly was three.
“Again?” Kas asked.
“No,” I said, holding tightly to my silver coins. “I don’t want to lose fid because there is a breeze in the room.”
“It is not all luck. There is some skill in how you throw them.”
“No,” I said again. “I want to play something that I can control.”
“Gambling is mostly luck, Emel.”
“Then you play, and I’ll watch. If I lose my money, I want it to be because I failed. Not because it was fated from the start.”
In the way he narrowed his eyes, I knew he was making a decision about me. “This way,” he said.
We strode up to an open circle of people around a low table. Kas gestured to an empty cushion, and with reluctance, I sat down. Five faces peered at me curiously.
“Buying a hand?” an older man asked me. His voice was sand ground against stone, and his hands looked equally worn.
“Just one,” Kas said from behind me. Then he mumbled, “Have to see if the lady approves.”
I smirked.
The hands from the previous round were laid out in front of their players. Beautiful illustrations were painted brightly on the thick vellum. I could see a drum filled with water, a dune of sand beside a single palm, a trio of vultures soaring in a circle, an urn of fire . . . my smile widened.
“It is my favorite,” I said eagerly.
“You know ghamar?” Kas asked, surprised.
Nodding, I set down my fid at the center of the table. The old man took it and scooped up the cards. He shuffled them and dealt me my hand. I knew this game well. Though we did not call it by the same name, my sisters and I had a similar worn deck that we gambled with days and nights to pass the time. We had no coin, of course, but our cowries and chipped beads served the same purpose.
I studied my cards: a scorpion beside a dead rat, a silver chain wrapped around a thin wrist, a desert cave, and an enormous wave hovering above a small boat. The last card gave me pause. Ghamar was a game of power and storytelling. The goal for each round was to place the most powerful card to win the hand. There was no one card that was necessarily more powerful than the other. It depended on the player and how convincing they were in their storytelling. With my sisters, there was no explanation needed. We knew what we would say for each card—we had heard each other’s stories one thousand times—so it was a quieter game. We knew which cards would win each round just by seeing the image.
The deck at home was the only one I had ever played, and I knew those cards well. Seeing this one now, I realized decks could be different. While it did not surprise me to see a card with the sea, I did not think that I would be able to win any hand with that card. What did I know of water?
The players began to lay down their cards: a snake with its jaws stretched over a fox, a sword with blood on its edge, a glistening, empty chalice, and a woman who cried into her hands—that was a throw away, I was sure. I looked back at my cards and reached for the card with the cave.
“Do you not think this one instead?” Kas pointed to the chained wrist.
I shook my head.
“If you’re not playing, then you cannot speak,” the old man said. I understood now he was not playing either. He was the keeper of our money, the dealer of the cards, and the judge of our game. Quickly, I placed the card on the table, excited to convince the others of why mine was the best.
“A sword takes a life with ease,” the man sitting to my left said.
“But a snake is silent, and though its bite is small, it is deadly,” a woman with a green scarf draped over her shoulders replied.
The man who played his sword shook his head, about to speak, but the scarved-woman continued. “A sword meant to kill must be precise and strong. It depends on who wields it. A snake is born with that power. He simply needs to sink his teeth once.”
“Does drink not give you power?” the other man said, pointing to the empty chalice. “Wetting the throat of your enemy will always allow you the advantage. Especially when they see three of you.” He chuckled.
“No, no,” the woman in red said, shaking her head. “There is nothing more powerful than a crying woman, eh?” She raised her eyebrows and looked and me and the other woman. “A few tears, and we get what we want. I think, perhaps, being a woman is the most powerful thing of all.”
Kas laughed with the other men. I smiled as I knew I was supposed to, but I was too excited to listen closely. This was too easy.
“You all speak of mundane power. Yes, these things can be strong, but what I have is ethereal, see.”
“A desert cave?” The scarfless woman scoffed.
“It is no ordinary cave,” I said quietly, becoming absurdly serious as I drummed my fingers against the table. “It is the home of a si’la. The strongest magic in the desert hides in this cave. The si’la can alter her appearance, convince nomads to do anything she wishes, and send people to the sky with the wave of her hand. She does not need a sword nor wine. Snakes nor tears. She has the providence of the goddess.”
There was a grunt of approval behind me, and I allowed myself a small feeling of satisfaction. But I had not yet won. The card keeper would have the final say.
Without pause, the old man shaped his hand like a crescent moon and pushed the coins toward me as the others groaned. Then he tapped the table. “Coins for the next hand.”
I threw in another fid, and Kas did not again suggest my play.
Although the moon was high, people did not seem to be thinking of home in the baytahira. They still milled here and there as if it were the start of the day.
“Is it always so busy?” I asked Kas as we left the gambling house, my coin purse notably heavier.
“Until the sun rises, and even then, sometimes it continues well into the day.”
“I can find my way back,” I told him as we left the baytahira.
“Oh,” he said, stopping. “This is your way of telling me to leave, eh?”
I smiled weakly. “But it’s also true. I know my way.”
“You’ll have to be careful going home.”
“Why?”
He cocked his head as though it were obvious. “Not every person you meet on the street will take you to drink wine and a gambling house and expect it ends there.”
My cheeks heated. “Of course. I am careful.”
More people now were cloaked and covered. I passed two leaning against a wall with hoods pulled so far over their faces I could not see where they looked. I thought of the pair at the jalsa tadhat. Had I been foolish to follow Kas?
Kas said, “My night would not have been the same had I drunk wine by myself and gambled away coin. And I probably would have gambled it gone. You are the best ghamar player I’ve met. Though I haven’t met very many. It’s not my game of choice.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You prefer testing Masira’s charity.”
He laughed loudly, and I couldn’t help but laugh, too.
“I’ve spent many evenings at the jalsa tadhat, trying to convince Odham to stop what he’s doing. It ends as it always does—unsuccessfully. Tarnishes the whole night. Never has someone walked out of that place agreeing with me. It was an unexpected but welcome change.”
He had been kind tonight, and now that we were parting, I found I was not ready to say goodbye. I recalled something he said earlier in the evening. “What is the Falsa Mawk?”
“A day parade, night party. A celebration of the Sons. It goes until daybreak the next morning. Sometimes longer.” A crooked smile slid up one cheek.
“When is it?”
He did not hesitate. “Just over two moons. Right before the king’s wedding.”
With his last words, Madinat Almulihi disappeared. I was suspended in the middle of nothing, the words echoing around me like a bad dream.
The king’s wedding.
Could Kas see my face? Did he feel the panic that beat through me like a drum?
“The king will be married?” I tried to keep my voice level, to sound as if this was simply the curiosity of a woman who enjoys love. But the words came out breathy and shaky.
“Of course. To a woman from across the sea.”
Gathering myself, I said, “How lovely.” I pressed my hands to my chest, willing my heart to stop pounding. “I should return home.” This man did not need to witness my coming apart completely.
We stood in the middle of the wide road off the baytahira. The palace soared up over the rooftops. Light sparkled from the windows. Saalim was in there somewhere, waiting for his queen.
We said goodbye. I had not gone more than one hundred steps when I heard fast footsteps clapping toward me. Turning around, I saw Kas running.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I think we should do this again.”
“This?”
“Yes,” he said. “I can show you other parts of town. There is a great place we can walk—spectacular views of the city and sea. Or if you don’t want that we can try this cook-house near the water. Fish come right from the nets. Or we can go back to the baytahira if you want to win more coin at ghamar.”
His sheepish grin slowed the chill that was spreading fast through me. “And if I say no?”
He shrugged and ran a hand across the back of his neck. “You go home. And we had a fun evening.”
I had come to Madinat Almulihi for Saalim. Though I’d vowed I would fight for him, he was set to be wed to someone else by powers much greater than mine. Did I think I could convince a king a salt chaser was worthy, because I was marked? Because Masira had chosen me? I pressed my hand to the golden smudge on my chest, nearly laughing aloud. What a fool! The mark meant nothing.
I meant nothing.
Grappling with the revelation that Saalim would never be mine would have to come later. Perhaps in bed, knees to my chest, tears spilling on the softest pillow.
Saalim wasn’t the only thing I’d wanted when I wished for freedom from my father, I reminded myself. I wanted a life that was all mine, that I had chosen for myself.
Tonight I had found that. Tonight was fun.
Firoz and Tavi had built new lives without me.
Saalim would never have me.
And Kas was standing here asking for me. The answer was obvious.
“When?” I asked, and he smiled.