Noam followed his friend around the room, greeting what was left of his citizens as Azize, not at all subtly, trailed the new woman in blue and gold. Noam wanted to tease him about it, tell him to go speak to her, but Noam hadn’t a leg to stand on with that advice. After all, his own eyes had been trailing another woman, and he’d yet to approach her. His excuse was that he’d sworn to Azize that he would help him through this evening.
“No one has your ease with people,” Azize had insisted earlier, after yanking his friend aside when his father announced that there would be a ball that night. “I need you with me, when things grow awkward and people want to know how long I am home or if I littered the world with bastard children.”
Noam had laughed, though both the word and the concept annoyed him. Men who simply picked up and left women and children behind so they could have their own adventures had always been a sore spot of his.
“Brother, I don’t know any of these people. How on earth will I know how to distract them?”
“You always know.” Azize bit out, half frustration half shaking fear. Why had they come here when Azize was so far from ready? “Please. I need your word.”
Noam smiled softly. “I am at your disposal, brother. If nothing else, I can always make a fool of myself.”
The conversation had grown a bit awkward now, but Azize wasn’t noticing, too busy watching the flitting bird of a woman go from one group of Azize’s friends to the next and captivate them all.
“So...” Noam interjected, into the fifteen-second pause since this young lady informed Azize, with wide, uncomfortable eyes, that she was nearly engaged to another man. Really, did they think Azize was beating down doors to get a wife? “Felicitations! Who is this lucky man?”
The girl looked awkwardly from her parents to Azize, and finally to Noam. “His name is Kafil, he was brother of Zuberi, now he runs the port in his stead.”
Zuberi. Noam’s eyes shot briefly away to the man’s eldest daughter, who was stiffly attempting to converse with Daniel. This girl looked younger than Hadhi; how old was the man she would marry? And why did Noam find himself suddenly nearly obsessively interested in information about that family?
“How wonderful,” Noam said, glancing sidelong at his friend. Azize nodded as though he were paying attention to the conversation when anyone could tell he was not. “If it is not too...invasive, would you tell me, how did this, Zuberi, die? I have heard him mentioned several times tonight, but nothing specific is ever said.”
“Oh.” The girl brightened, but tried not to appear as though that were the case as she leaned in to whisper. “He was waylaid on the south road. It must have been many people, as he was a great warrior and hunter. Many have tried to kill him before. The king suspects sorcery, perhaps from Reethurn.” She glanced around furtively. “Or the new leader of the Fazaat, a solitary tribe to the south. Zuberi had killed their leader.”
“That is only a rumor,” the girl’s mother said, looking around uncomfortably. “He is said to also have been meeting with the Bor at the same time.”
The girl shook her head. “The new leader of the Fazaat is a witch. And if it was not a group that slayed him, it would have to be one with power.”
“Why would this, Zuberi, kill their prior leader?” Noam asked.
“They are not aligned with Maltuba,” the girl said flatly, raising her head in a manner that seemed far older and wiser than he would first have attributed to her. “The king had made peaceful overtures for them to join our nation, and they refused. Zuberi had killed for less. I suppose all we know for certain is that he was found on the south road, ripped open with animals devouring his remains, and none but his family mourning the event”
“Sade,” her mother hissed, though she too had been enjoying the ghoulish tale. The entire family before him began to bend, and Noam knew at once why the woman had chastised her daughter. He felt the heavy presence behind him and turned at a bow.
“Your Majesty,” Noam greeted Azize’s father.
Finally something other than that woman could capture Azize’s attention; he jerked around and nodded at his father.
“It is nearly time for dinner to be called, and Sade is not an appropriate dinner partner for you,” the king said with a soft, friendly voice. He winked at the girl. “Why she is practically married already.”
Everyone laughed and played light, but there was a tension among them all that made the hairs on Noam’s arm stand up.
“As she was just telling us,” Azize said, displaying the fact that he had heard at least half of what was said around him. “I, however, am not here to court anyone, Father. I was merely greeting my nation, as tradition dictates.”
“Good, good.” The king laughed. “I don’t want you to frighten the wits out of poor Sade.”
They all laughed again.
“You,” the king waved at Noam, he knew his name perfectly well, but he had taken an instant dislike to him and was making a point of letting Noam know it. “Do not be so shy. You’ve not left my son’s side once. Are Maltuban’s so frightening to you?”
“Your nation and your people are all things welcoming, Your Majesty.” Noam said with the sort of calm polished friendliness Azize had come to rely on him for in their travels. The prince of Maltuba was not always welcome in the lands he most wanted to see because of King Enzi’s reputation, and Noam did have a way of easing strained relationships for him. “I simply have been enjoying the chance to know them all through your son’s introductions.”
“Hmm. In Maltuba, men are raised to face the world alone.” The king said, still with a bright, teasing smile, but the comments true target felt the strike.
Azize stiffened. “If you will excuse us, Father, honored guests. There are a few more families I need to greet before dinner.”
They bowed and parted ways from the king, but Noam could feel his eyes on his back as they walked.
“Why did you ask about Zuberi?” Azize asked. Noam could hear the tension and anger still in him from the brush with his father. The fear. He looked ready to bolt back to the ship.
Noam shrugged. “Tales of blood and death tend to be decent distractions from men staring off at other women. Come on, brother, let’s just go and greet her.”
Azize laughed and shook his head. “Not yet. She’s bound either to be someone entirely inappropriate or someone my father sent, and anyway...we aren’t here for me to find a woman.”
Noam said nothing more on the subject and followed his friend as they moved to another family, this one a little closer to the object of Noam’s interest. Hadhi. Many people had tried to kill her father. Was that why she was so...withdrawn? It was hard to be happy knowing everyone around you hated someone you loved.
Asha noticed a man among the foreigners, whose eyes followed her everywhere. He was dressed more like the people of Maltuba, but she didn’t recognize him. She had thought he might be the prince for a moment, but dismissed that. He was not wearing the honorary sash with stripes of pattern from all five tribes, for one thing. And she remembered Azize as a thin boy with a head too big for his body and a gaunt little face. This man had a nice face, sweet and engaged, with her at least. She enjoyed having him follow her. When she moved, he moved. He’d abandoned three groups of people already to be near to her. He’d been with Hadhi and Jauhar when Asha entered. But he never approached Asha. She toyed with the idea of walking right up to him, but...it was too fun being pursued. Asha cast him a coy look and flagged down the nearest foreigner she could find.
Wasting no time with greetings, she dove right in with questions, desperate to avoid the yawning pain in her chest after that encounter with Sabra. “Tell me the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done.” She demanded.
“I...” the man fumbled, taken aback. He was a bit older than most of the prince’s traveling companions, perhaps as old as forty. “I suppose fighting in the battle of Wyvern, hundreds of men died.”
“That is a terrible shame. But...what did it feel like?” Asha prompted, her voice vibrating with restrained glee. She wasn’t happy that men had died. Who would be? That was awful. But she needed to feel something other than this longing. She needed words, any words to pull her out of her world and into another. Was there no one who could do that?
“Terrifying. And exhilarating,” the man admitted with a slight shrug. “It was...hot, and heavy. All around, men were dying, falling, crying out, but as long as you were still on your feet, you were still alive. And I...kept my feet. Every time someone else fell, and I stood, I felt stronger.” Asha leaned in as he spoke, felt his intensity calling out to the hungriness inside her. Oh, he could carry her away.
“Until it was over,” he said flatly. “I’d thought it all a grand adventure too. Then the battle was over, and the heaviness I felt wasn’t from the exhaustion of fighting or the loss of energy. It was...their lives. The ground was scattered with dead and dying men. Carrion birds were circling above us and my skin was damp with the blood and sweat of other men. I had to hear them die.”
Asha reached out, latched onto the man, offering him comfort as he continued to speak. “Their breaths fast, or so slow you could barely hear it, but on their last ones...you could always tell their last breaths. How their chests collapsed as their souls escaped their broken forms. The birds kept swooping with those last breaths as if they were devouring the souls as they floated into the sky.” He shook his head. “I survived the battle, and until it was over, I had no idea how a terrible fate that was.”
Asha shook her head, and a few stay tears spayed free, imagining Baba all alone on the road, stabbed and left for dead with carrion animals devouring his body and birds capturing his soul. She lifted this stranger’s hand to her lips and infused the kiss with all the comfort she could.
“Please forgive my foolish tongue. I always thirst for adventure, but I forget they are not always just the stories I build in my mind.”
“No, no. I am sorry.” The man shook his head. “I knew that was not what you meant. But...”
“But your truth would not be silenced,” Asha suggested, and the man nodded. “Well, you found the right ears to tell. For I shall carry those men with me now, as you do.”
He smiled softly and lifted Asha’s hand to his lips to kiss the back of it. “I find it hard to see why Azize resisted his home so long.”
“Ha.” Asha scoffed; she remembered the runaway prince; he was an idiot. “He never recognized the beauty before him. A desire to see the world is the last thing I would fault anyone for, but failing to see the beauty here is a crime. But come, forget the runaway prince, and now your sad truth is spoken, tell me your most exciting adventure, the one that brings you the greatest joy.”
“I would love to, my dear, but I believe I need a moment. Please allow my friend Mikhail to entertain you,” he waved over another foreigner, “and I shall speak to you again later.”
Asha beamed at the new man; he was younger and brighter of face. In fact, he was quite lovely to look on. He would be perfect if he had any stories to tell.