The golden smoke bloomed out into the oasis until it slowly coalesced down into the shape of the jinni. Seeing him like that, with his head bowed and shoulders curved forward, I wavered. Would it be better to free him? Could I live another day knowing he was still a slave to Masira, to his master, trapped in his prison?
“Emel,” he said quietly, breaking through my doubt, “have you a wish?”
I sucked in a shaking breath. I hoped that I was not wrong, misled. I hoped I would still have him with me when freed, but if not, I hoped I would find him. Only the one who wished will remember what was before. The one who wished and the jinni who granted it. Saalim had told me so long ago. I was relying on that truth.
“Emel?” Saalim asked, sensing my reluctance. He looked up. “You must do it. You must be free.”
I looked into his eyes and saw his heartbreak, his hope, his fear. I ran to him, tossing his vessel into the sand beside us, and fell into his arms.
“I hope—” I began.
“It will work,” he assured me.
“If we are apart, I will miss you. However long it takes for me to find you, I will miss you every moment.” My tears came again. “I hope I find you,” I whispered, and I felt Saalim pull me even closer to him.
I was sure I would be sent far from my home—how else would I reach my freedom? I did not dare to hope that I would be freed and still within reach of the vessel. That would be much too simple, and Masira was not so generous. Would Saalim and his prison be left in the oasis? Surely he would be found by someone else. Would it be the Salt King again, Nassar, or someone else entirely? I only hoped it was someone kinder than the King, so that while I joined the Dalmur’s hunt, he did not suffer.
“I love you,” he said to me. I heard the aching sadness in his voice.
Finally, I pulled my head back and looked into Saalim’s agonized face, his glistening golden eyes. I held his face in my hands and mouthed, I love you. I kissed him, just once, on his cheek.
Masira did not care about small sacrifices of water and salt. She heard real sacrifice. So I would sacrifice everything I had, just like Saalim had once done—my family, my home, my love. Take it all from me, Masira, if it means you will listen. I hoped She heard. I hoped She would deliver. I soaked in everything I wanted to come from this wish, let it saturate me—my hopes for Saalim, for myself, for my home and sisters. And I couldn’t resist, I thought of my father. That one day, Masira would give him everything he had given us.
With indisputable resolve, I leaned to Saalim’s ear. “Saalim, I wish for freedom from the Salt King.” My words were simple but my heart said so much more.
Had his mouth not been near my ear, I would have missed his words. “Master, I obey.”
Still holding the jinni, I waited to feel something—a tingling in my chest or my toes or my fingers. But I felt nothing.
Suddenly, Saalim’s back arched. A gut-wrenching scream ripped from him, and he clung to me as though I were an anchor to a world that he was being washed from. He roared a single broken no.
“Saalim?!” I shrieked, pushing away from him.
“Emel!” He cried, staring at his hands.
It was the last word he would speak to me, and it echoed into the desert for only a moment before it was snuffed out like a flame.
The jinni held his arms before him, looking with terror at the changes in his body. The gold of his skin was leeched from his body into the golden, petaled manacles. And when they had swallowed all, they fell from his wrists and dropped dully onto the ground.
“No, no, no!” I yelled. “What is happening?! I didn’t wish for this! This isn’t what I wanted!”
Saalim could not respond. His hands, then arms, feet, then legs, began to swirl violently with a hot wind that seemed to tear him apart, removing him one grain at a time. His extremities disintegrated into dust, swirling wildly around him. Saalim spared his limbs only a moment’s glance before he looked back to me, a tortured expression on his face.
I tried to grab him, prevent the magic from taking him away. But when he was only dust and wind, there was nothing I could take hold of. I screamed, tormented as I watched Saalim being pulled apart, as I watched him splinter into dust.
I couldn’t make sense of it. I had not yet wished for his freedom. It couldn’t happen yet. How would we find each other?
“Saalim!” I cried again and again until there was nothing left of him. The golden ash fell without a sound, leaving not a single trace.
Had I misspoken? Had I said your freedom?
As I gazed at the empty place where Saalim used to be, I began to understand implication of what I had done. I felt like a fool. I had been so confident, so sure that I was doing the right thing. That my fate was in my hands when I held Saalim’s vessel.
I was so wrong. My fate was in the hands of Masira, and She was a fickle goddess. She might listen, She might hear, but She would do as She pleased. Like the card games with my sisters, unless I held the strongest card, I could never be sure to win. Masira would always have that card. Why did I let myself forget it?
Enormous regret crushed me, and I collapsed onto the ground where Saalim had fallen, clawing at the earth to find some part of him that proved to me that he was not gone. I found his vessel, and when I saw that it was empty, I sobbed.
I looked down at my clothes, the same clothes I had worn when I saw Ibrahim. They were unchanged. My fingernails were the same, my black hair still long. I looked up to my village, also unchanged. Still a massive huddle of tents with a white palace at its center.
Saalim was gone, and I was still an ahira. I would never be able to find him. I would never see him again. And I would be sent to Omar to live the rest of my life as his whore.
I scooped the sand where he had fallen into his empty vessel, apologizing to him through my cries for my foolishness, that I had done wrong, that I had misjudged everything. I clung to the golden manacles that lay unmoving on the ground, still hot from his skin. I pulled it all into my chest as I curled into myself.
When I had no tears left, when I was filled only with dry, aching grief, I rose from the ground, covered in sand. I winced in pain. How long had I lain on the desert floor? My muscles were cramped, my shoulders tired, my skin rubbed raw from the sand.
But that was nothing compared to the agony in my chest.
With a small glimmer of hope, it occurred to me that if Saalim was no longer a jinni, perhaps he had returned to his home. Did Madinat Almulihi stand once again? But I could not get there. I would not be able to find him. I had no camel, no direction-telling bawsal, no caravan to take me.
The desert had not changed. There was no new sand beneath my feet, no great rumble that brought forth a kinder desert from beneath the one I knew. Saalim was gone.
Fear began to rise. If time was moving forward, if I was still an ahira, I would soon be missed. I considered the amount of time that had passed. The sun dropped from the high point in the sky. Dusk would arrive soon, and I would be delivered to Ibrahim.
I found the broken soldier toy stowed beside the rock. Staring at the small carvings a knife long ago had made, I touched the planes of his face, the hilt of his sword, holding it like it was the most delicate thing in the world. It was. The hammered gold that had encircled Saalim’s wrists was now cold, and again, I felt the visceral ache of grief. The pain all lovers dread—the mourning pang of a forever goodbye.
If Masira would not allow it, then I would find my freedom another way. I would not return home. I would not return to my father. I would either find somewhere to live uncaged or let Eiqab turn me to dust.
Holding everything that remained of Saalim to my chest, I took several measured steps toward the emptiness that waited on the other side of the trees. I could run. I could be free.
Then, I saw smoke from the depths of the desert. It startled me back to reality, and I stared at it. A narrow, billowing cloud rose up from beside a dune. Then, a blur of black emerged, the dust it kicked up rising like a specter.
Someone on horseback, I realized. Probably a runner, as they were the few who used horses. My heart raced as my gaze flashed from the approaching runner back to my village. Runners always approached the oasis, and Nassar always came out to meet them. I could not linger. I had to move. I glanced once more at the empty horizon behind me—did I walk into its yawning jaws? Let it take me forever?
No. This life deserved one more try. I would not leave it yet. I would hide in the village. Firoz would help. If another caravan approached, I would escape with them. I didn’t care what the cost was, I would find a way to pay it, and I would take Firoz with me. Tavi, if she’d come.
I sprinted back to my home.
The gold manacles, toy soldier, and sand-filled vessel were pressed securely against my chest as I sprinted back to the tents. They chimed together in a percussion that matched my footsteps and quick breaths.
When I came upon the edge of tents, several guards ran out to me, shouting. “What are you doing? How did you get out here?” One barked, baffled by my bright ahira clothes and lack of coverings.
“A runner comes!” I yelled, pointing to the horizon. I ran between the guards. They made little attempt to stop me, the approaching runner of far greater interest.
I tore through the village. The few people outside stared at me with mouths agape.
Firoz was not in his shop tent, so I ran to his home. I did not care about propriety anymore.
“Firoz!” I called outside his home. “Firoz!”
His mother hustled out, flustered and obviously annoyed. Her eyes widened when she saw me. An ahira with tear-stained cheeks, clutching treasure and screaming for her son was not a sight she expected.
Firoz fell out of the home behind her. “Emel!?” He cried, equally surprised by my state. “What’s wrong?”
I broke down again. “I had the jinni, Firoz. I had him! And I could have freed him but I chose to free myself instead, and it didn’t work.” I sobbed, proffering the jinni’s things as if it explained everything. “And I’m going to be sent away. A runner is coming—another caravan is near. Nassar won’t let them in, so we will need to go out to meet them. Ready yourself! We will run away together.”
His mother’s face whipped between her son and I, alarm keeping her silent.
Firoz placed his hands on my shoulders. “Slow down, Emel. Explain it all again.”
“I did everything wrong.” I again showed him what was in my hands. “And I lost him.”
Turning back to his mother, as he felt my shivering, he said, “Mama, can you get her something to cover herself?” She obeyed wordlessly and returned with a worn abaya before she retreated back into her home. Firoz took my things from me so I could dress.
“Be careful!” I said as he cradled them. I didn’t care that I sounded crazier than Rafal.
Firoz was mesmerized by the vessel—the flowers and moons that were carved into its metal bands. “There was a jinni?” He asked. “He was in here? You knew him?” His eyes grew wide with disbelief.
As I pulled the abaya over my shoulders, I began to explain. But I was interrupted by the clamor of tolling bells.
The warning bells.
Firoz and I looked at each other, and I took Saalim’s things from him again.
“Not a caravan then,” Firoz whispered.
“The Dalmur?” I asked, daring to hope. Maybe they’d rallied after all, decided not to wait on the girl from the palace, and come to find the jinni. I could make myself known to them, tell them I’d already freed him! They could take me with them back to Madinat Almulihi.
Firoz’s brow creased in concern. “I haven’t heard of any such plans.”
“I have to get home,” I said. “I have to find Tavi.”
“Emel!” Firoz called at my back as I fled the tent.
I stopped and looked back to him, chest heaving.
“If you’ve a chance to leave,” he said as he ran to me. “Come find me. Take Rashid and me with you.”
“I won’t leave you,” I promised.
Tearing through the village, I wove between the people who had stepped out of their homes to locate the source of the alarm. My frantic sprint through the lanes only heightened their panic. Some rushed into their homes, desperately closing the fabric of their tent in a hopeless attempt to protect themselves from whatever was coming. I remembered Saalim’s story of the day Almulihi fell to attackers, of a people whose king had not adequately readied them to defend themselves.
The king died, and the city was destroyed.
I ran faster.
Entering the palace was too easy, under the circumstances. I tugged up my abaya so they saw my ahira clothes and told them I’d no time to answer questions. The guards were far too concerned at the prospect of war to care about a king’s disobedient daughter. When I arrived at the tent I shared with my sisters, there were no guards out front. I slowed my steps. My thoughts raced through the wording of my wish again. Had Masira taken my sisters from me when I wished for freedom from the Salt King? Or did not even the King’s daughters matter when there was a threat? Wary, I peeled the fabric apart and stepped into the room.
It was empty, but my sisters’ mats were strewn about in a familiar way. I exhaled. They still existed, they just weren’t here. I ran to my mat, lifting it from the ground. I found the tile, necklace, and flower folded inside the cloth beside the rolled map. But where was the salt? I frantically searched for the sack the jinni had given me. I tore into the ground as the salt suddenly became pivotal to my believing the jinni had ever existed. I flung sand behind me. No, no, no. I could not lose him again.
Finally, my fingers snagged on camel’s wool.
With quivering hands, I pulled the sack from the sand. Salt was still piled within. I turned it over, dumping most of the salt into the sand—useless to me if there was no caravan to pay for my escape. I kept a little, just in case. I stuffed my tokens of Saalim inside, then slung it over my shoulders with a leather cord.
“Job well done,” an age-hardened voice spoke into the tent. The bells clanged loudly around us.
I gasped and turned, wiping my hands on my clothes.
The healer stood just inside the tent, white robes bright in the crimson room.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, backing away.
“I’ve been waiting for you. I sensed what you did. Felt it right here.” He hit his chest with his palm.
I turned my hands up and out beside me. “I didn’t do anything. Nothing turned out right.”
“It took you a while, yes. It is why they felt they needed to intervene, although they failed as I warned they would. Far more deaths than I wanted. So many innocents lost.” He took mincing steps toward me. “Child, if only you knew how many letters we’ve written about you and the jinni! How long we’ve hoped for you to understand. We wondered if we should show you the path, tell you what you needed to know. But Isra said you were too stubborn, that you must learn it on your own.”
Isra? My mother? She knew this entire time?
He continued, “If we told you how to act, she said you’d do otherwise. Isra is a smart woman, Masira carry her soul.”
I staggered back.
He nodded, a toothless grin spreading on his face, his eyes trained on my chest. On my mark. “Child, you were splendid!” He beamed. “You freed him!”
“But I didn’t wish for his freedom. I failed.” A cry ripped through me. “And now he’s gone.”
“Masira sees intentions. She saw yours, smart girl. She will deliver us back into the hands of Wahir, Eiqab be damned!” The healer chuckled to himself. His milky eyes danced. He clapped his hands together and laughed louder. “Good girl! Good girl!” he bellowed into the tent, his inked face and arms causing him to appear as a shadow in the white robes that swung around him.
“I don’t understand,” I said through clenched teeth.
The healer’s laughter stopped, and his face softened as if he finally comprehended my bewilderment. He came closer, and leaned toward me. “Perhaps, if you look at your map, it will all make sense.” He began to walk away, then stopped. “And once you do, I suggest you find the King. Your king,” he said, laughing again as he left my tent, leaving me alone.
Kneeling onto the ground, I carefully pulled out my map and unrolled it.
I gasped.
It was a still a map of the salt trade, still a map of the desert with all of the settlements I knew. It still had my hand, the ink I’d placed.
But the lines were different, the routes were changed.
Because now, they did not lead to my settlement. They were different, as if turned by invisible hands. They all arced north, to a place that had no cliffs barring its entrance.
They led to a glistening city that sat at the edge of the sea, the words Madinat Almulihi written beside it.
He was home. Now, finally, I laughed, too, rolling my map and stuffing it away. “He’s home.” I said aloud, and left the tent.
The healer still stood in the lane, his unseeing eyes turned toward the sky, his arms held up in joy. I ran past him, shouting about Saalim’s return home. Through the din of the bells, I could hear him behind me.
“You did it!” He cried. “Now we are free!”
As I rushed toward the heart of the palace, the servants’ shouts broke through my glee. “A challenger to the throne! The King has been challenged!”
I ran like I raced the wind.