Asha had made it through most of the foreigners and she was beginning to feel she’d made the wrong wish. Some had stories worth the hearing, but none fed her. When the stories were done, she was left starving again. How was she to prepare herself for the hibernation that was her life if she couldn’t even consume enough wonder to be full for more than a minute. Was there no one like her in the whole world? Was there no one who understood that a story couldn’t just be told, it needed to be experienced. A body needed to sing from excitement that was too far away to grasp. Breath needed to be stolen by threats that could never harm you. Pulses needed to race, muscles needed to coil, you needed to shout!—just because the moment called for it. You needed to be overcome by laughter that tumbled through you like thunder.
“I haven’t spoken with you yet.” Asha grabbed the wrist of a man as he was set to pass her. She should probably let him go; he was headed towards Sabra and the rest of Asha’s family. But Asha needed to be fed. She could feel her stalker. He was pretending to talk to another man. Asha eyed him for a moment as she pulled this man nearer.
“You have not spoken with me yet,” the man whose arm she claimed agreed with a smile. “And who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”
“My name is unimportant, but my questions are vital. Tell me, what was the most beautiful, most unique, most...exotic place you visited in your travels?”
“Well.” He hesitated, possibly thinking. “All of the different lands had their own charms. There is a nation, at the opposite end of the world, so frozen it seems nothing can live there, but people do. It is astonishing.”
“What about it astonished you?”
“The resilience. In my home nation, we are quiet people. We have mild summers and cold winters, but our winters are not very long, and we are prepared for them by months of cultivating the land and storing up for the winters ahead.”
“You were awed by the fact that they remain alive?” Asha asked, annoyed. “What were their buildings like? What did they worship? Was there magic? Did you not travel to any of the islands near Great Island, where fairies roam freely, or to Mount Willcut where the elves dwell?”
The man looked briefly offended by her tone, but he did not leave, and he smiled as he responded. “We visited the isle of Feather, where the temple of the nymphs once stood.”
The Temple of the Nymphs! Asha held her breath in anticipation of the story. Wouldn’t it be delightful if they’d met the same nymph, worlds apart?
“But we saw no fairies there. The temple is a ruin now. It is quite lovely in fact, the trees and flowers have overtaken the walls.”
“You are a terrible storyteller; where is the wonder, the intrigue?” Asha demanded impatiently. The man laughed loud and bright. “Did you get any sense of the beings who once lived there? Why do you think they abandoned it?” Asha pressed fervently, feeling the desperation building under her skin. He’d seemed amused at first, but by the time Asha finished her passionate speech, her companion took a step away.
He fumbled for words, but behind him, Asha’s stalker was finally made bold enough to step forward.
“Surely they saw how lovely it is as a ruin and left it so on purpose. Perhaps it was never a great building at all.” The young man stepped forward and spoke over the other.
The man Asha had been speaking to gave his compatriot a look like he might want to reconsider talking to Asha.
“It’s a mirage, brother,” he muttered quietly.
But her stalker paid him no heed. He might not have even heard him.
Asha grinned, basking in the undivided attention and the desire to please her falling off the man before her. The other man shook his head and slowly backed away, leaving Asha and her pursuer alone.
“The light as it falls through the trees creates such patterns on the ground, and on the remains of the walls, it is artistry.” Her pursuer spoke passionately. “And when the wind stirs through the grasses, the leaves jingle, and the flowers release sweet fragrances, and the bugs sing! If they wished a temple to celebrate all that is wonderful and unique in Feather they have achieved that, without a ceiling or any hand guiding the growth into a particular path.”
Mmmm. Asha sighed internally. Yes, this was the food she’d been after. A like mind, an equally curious and hungry explorer.
“How long were you there?”
“We stayed only a few days. I wanted to find fairies, but none emerged while we were there.”
“Ohh, scared of you, do you think?” Asha teased.
He laughed. “I doubt it. I imagine we simply weren’t exciting enough to wake their notice. Or they liked to observe us in secret. Do you ever wonder about that?” He asked, then eagerly spoke right over himself to explain his question. “Do you think fairies and other magical beings find us...exotic and magical in a different way? Or do you think they see us as lesser creatures like animals?”
Asha giggled. “Ohhh, I think magical creatures see our value.” She said coyly, thinking of Zawadi and the gift she’d given Asha for this one night. “I think they want to know and understand us as much as we do them. I think there are sprites and nymphs and elves out in the night right now, wondering what happens in Maltuba.”
The man scoffed, looking around the room in distaste. “They ought not to waste that journey.”
“How can you say that? There is nowhere in the world but here where the moon touches the ground. There is nowhere as uniquely situated. We live between the claws of the jungle and the teeth of the desert. Nowhere else in the world are their bugs who can make gold. Or deserts that lead the way to the next life.”
The man smiled wide and disbelieving. “If Maltuba is so wonderful, why have you spent the whole evening asking about every place but here?”
“I live here, I do not need to know it better. Maltuba is a jewel in the crown of the world. I simply want to know all of the jewels. One can love a thing, but...be interested in loving others as well. Why limit myself?”
“Why indeed,” he agreed, and Asha saw a spark in his eyes. She couldn’t tell for certain if he was agreeing just to remain near her. Or if he truly agreed. But she also wasn’t sure she cared.
“Would...you care to dance with me?”
Asha tilted her head down slightly, looking at him through her lashes coyly. “I suppose I might be tempted if you will tell me about the land where they dance that last twirling piece.”
Her pursuer smiled wide. “It would be my pleasure. You’ve never seen a thing like it! It is called Gods Parted, and there, they worship mermaids.”
Noam watched Azize and the whirlwind of a girl for a moment. She seemed frantic, abuzz with something unnatural. She was funny, and bold, and utterly demanding, and had he not already been captivated by her opposite, Noam might have enjoyed talking and dancing with this woman. But she had no patience. That sort of energy burned so bright it obscured everything around it, until it burned out, and you took in the wreckage.
Noam wasn’t sure Azize was ready for that sort of woman. Every woman he’d taken to in his travels was...well, like most of the other women here tonight, hanging on his every word, willing to entertain him. The woman Azize was with now would demand that he entertain her. She might be good for him, or her impatience combined with Azize’s shyness might make Azize even more hesitant.
When Azize led the girl towards the dancers, Noam decided to leave his friend to it and go satisfy his own curiosity and speak to Hadhi without Azize along to make her nervous. He wondered what her smiles looked like when her mother wasn’t pinching them onto her cheeks. But before he made it across the room, he noticed Mikhail leading Hadhi out to dance. Hadhi didn’t look very happy about it, nor did Mikhail, but Sabra was all but cheering. Noam smiled; he liked that woman. Noam considered crossing to ask Sabra to dance, but he noticed a younger girl he’d met earlier, sitting in the corner bobbing her head along to the music.
Noam walked over and bowed gallantly as men did to pretty young ladies in his hometown.
“Hello,” she greeted him cheerfully. Before Noam could ask her to remind him of her name, she leaned up in a conspiratorial fashion. “Did Azize teach all his friends Maltuban, because I have heard no less than three of his friends exclaim in our language?”
Noam chuckled. He had a feeling this girl with her crutches was unused to being asked to dance because she showed no signs of any such expectations, and even disinterested women usually knew what a man wanted when he bowed before them.
“If by exclaimed, you mean spewed foul epithets, then yes, Azize taught us that. But I confess he taught us little else.”
She giggled. “I don’t know any curses in Fairy; do you think perhaps they have none?”
“Oh, they have some. They just conceal them from foreigners, so we will think them higher beings.”
“And so they can curse right to our faces without us knowing.” She grinned pertly.
“A worthwhile reason to keep them secret,” Noam agreed gamely. “Would you, do me the honor of a dance, though, to my shame I have forgotten your name?”
She looked utterly shocked for a moment and didn’t speak. Then she blinked several times and laughed, but this one was forced unlike the others he’d been treated to. “My name is Arya, but I would only trod on you with my crutches. You should ask someone else.”
“If you prefer not to dance I would enjoy a bit of conversation at your side. But if you dance with me, and I think you will do quite well with the cozy, it is essentially a slow walk forward and a slow walk back, but should you crunch one of my toes I promise to curse for you in Fairy.”
She grinned big and bright and held out her hand. “What girl could resist such an offer? But now I may have to stomp your toes by design.”
Noam chuckled. He quite enjoyed Azize’s people, for the most part. Such open friendliness and welcome were not universal, as surely Azize had seen. Despite their playful exchange, the girl was very careful of her steps as Noam led her to the back of the dancers. Noam tried his best to set her at ease.
“Now I know I am a stranger, but if you allow me to put my arm about your waist, and you grip my left arm with your own, as the other ladies are doing, I will hold your second crutch here should you need it, but you can lean into me for balance.”
“I should have asked before I let you lead me out here, are you familiar with this dance? Will you tread on my toes?” She asked quite seriously.
Noam chuckled. “I am quite familiar with it. It is a wedding parade dance from my nation and can take a full fifteen minutes. An odd choice to bring here if you ask me.” Noam said as he led her forward. As he’d said, it was nothing more than a slow walk forward to a stilted beat. Very stiff and formal compared to most of the dances he’d heard played so far, from all over the world. “We men are only allowed this near to women at weddings in my nation,” Noam said to amuse her.
The girl looked up playfully. “No wonder you were so shy with me.” She looked away, and Noam thought she was focusing back on the steps, but her gaze drifted forward to where Azize and his partner were leaning into one another and whispering.
Noam watched them too and realized he was being a bit hard on the dance of his own home. They looked very intimate together as if there were none but them in the room. After his travels, Noam looked on the nation of his birth as too stifling, but it had its beauties like anywhere. Although some people didn’t appear to appreciate the intimacy of the dance. Hadhi looked stiffer with Mik, than Arya on her crutches was with Noam.
Noam wondered what it would feel like to slide his arm around Hadhi’s waist, and press her into his side. Would the world disappear? Would she stop smiling and go back to being the quiet whirlpool who dragged his attention away from one of the most vibrant displays he’d ever witnessed? Would she soften against him, forgetting her nerves as they moved together? He wished suddenly that he’d made it to her before Mik.
“Do you think she is a fairy?” Arya asked, startling Noam. “With her rich clothes and her bright, captivating light. I know I have never seen her before. She just draws one in like magic.”
“Hm?” Noam followed Arya’s gaze to the mystery woman and tilted his head aside. “Well, she certainly thinks she’s a higher being.”
Arya laughed loud and mocking. “Aww, were you hurt when she wanted better stories? You poor calf.”
Noam smiled broadly at this giggly girl who gave one the false impression of being childish. She overheard plenty, and she had a sharp wit that she was using to defend a perfect stranger who’d been the talk of the ball while this girl sat in corners. She was no child. This was a woman who knew her own worth. He liked the woman of Maltuba, bold bright, and supportive of one another. He’d seen it earlier with Sabra before he’d even met her, when she tried to champion Hadhi through an uncomfortable conversation. And even Hadhi had grown brighter and found her tongue when defending her sister. These women were something special.
“She was very mean,” Noam said, trying to make his voice sound tearful.
They laughed together. And she told him all sorts of gossip in exchange for curse words in languages her parents would not know. Shiraz would have gotten along with such a girl. He truly enjoyed himself with her, but a tiny part of his mind kept wandering to the stiff-backed girl three rows ahead of them. Longing to hold her in his arms for this dance from his home that he’d never much appreciated before today.
Asha was captivated, but no longer just by his stories; it was his excitement in them that fed her now. As they danced, he told stories of one nation after another, one adventure after another. They laughed and they spoke and Asha gorged herself on his adventures. But the more she knew, the more she needed to know, and not just of the world.
“Were you never satisfied? Did you never find a land and say to yourself, here is where I am meant to be?” Asha asked hungrily during their second dance. Her pulse raced and she pressed herself closer to him. There was an intimacy to these dances that she quite liked. In Maltuba, there were courtship dances. Your eyes would be locked with your partner, you might sway towards them and pull away, or reach out and be pulled back by other dancers, there was always a push and a pull, always a distance separating you as your bodies found the rhythm of your partner. It was all anticipation, build, the pounding drum beat growing louder and stronger with every sway. But this...you were in your partner’s arms from the moment the dance began. This could create intimacy where none existed. This wasn’t about build and anticipation, this was about creating a world of only two, even when surrounded by a thousand eyes.
And they were surrounded by a thousand eyes. Every eye in the ball was on them. Asha had meant it to be so, but she wondered vaguely why no one was watching the king or his son. Asha scanned the crowd for a scrawny, sickly young man of about her age. As Azize had surely returned home the same timid reed he’d left. He was probably the man Hadhi had spoken with at dinner. Mzaa Jauhar could certainly see it arranged, just like she could force Asha to work all day and take all the camels to keep Asha away. Clearly Jauhar meant to make the most of this opportunity, so that man must be Azize. Not that it mattered, Azize had sent Hadhi off in an angry pout.
“I never found a place where I belonged.” Her dance partner said, at last, drawing her eyes back to him, and only him. He’d invested such meaning in the word, and Asha tingled from the loveliness of it. He meant her. He felt like he belonged with her.
Something delightfully bright and ticklish tripped along beneath her skin, making her shoulder roll and her hand tighten on his. This was what she’d been missing. She almost opened her mouth to demand his name and give him hers. To make this...real. But she heard the bell clanging the hour and knew she had only one left before the magic left her, and she was the rag girl she’d been at the beginning of the evening. She would go back to the hut she’d lived in since Baba died and be loved by no one. The woman in front of him would be gone.
What if he only wanted her as she was? What if the magic coating her skin and sizzling inside her was as tempting to him as it was to her and he just didn’t know it?
She needed to store his words up. She needed to store up these experiences. She had an hour left and she wasn’t about to fill it with reality.
“No, me neither.” Asha released a little laugh.
He smiled softly. “Where do you most want to go?”
Asha thought long and hard, then grinning looked into his eyes. “Everywhere.” He chuckled, but she kept right on talking. “I want to climb the highest mountain, swim in the clearest lake. I want to meet fairies and dragons and mermaids. I want to find out what they worship and how they spend their days and what inspires them. I want to feel the frozen wastelands and taste the ash as it drifts off a volcano. I want to live. Everywhere, every minute. I want adventure, even if it costs my whole heart to have it.”
“Your whole heart?” The man seemed shocked, possibly appalled.
“Oh, yes! I would give anything to travel as you did and see the world.” She leaned in close to whisper as they moved around the room. “And the price would have to be high. I love it too much for it to be anything less. Baba always said if I loved and wanted something with my whole heart, I must be prepared to give my entire heart to have it—for only a moment.”
The man gave a small chuckle, watching her incredulously as if he found that not to be very good advice. Asha supposed to the untrained listener it might sound like Baba was cautioning against setting your hopes too high, least they be dashed. But it just wasn’t so. Baba wanted the world for Asha. He’d promised the world to her. And tonight, he had delivered, sending her a magical being with a gift, on the exact night when half the world was crammed into the capitol palace.
Baba’s advice wasn’t a warning. It was a promise that if she wanted something with all her heart, she could have it. She just...had to be sure it was worth her whole heart.
“What would you give your whole heart for?” She challenged, her being burning with intensity. This man had trailed her all night, first with his eyes, then with his being, missing out on every other part of the ball, barely marking it when others spoke to him, not eating a single bite. Surely he was feeling at least an inkling of the sort of desire Asha spoke of, the sort of desire that consumed everything in its path. Surely this man understood. It was why no land had called out to him. No mystery held him to one place. He was as hungry as her. As hungry as Ether devouring every soul that marched through her sands. Surely he would tell her so.
Asha waited, though she began to grow hungry again, though she began to wonder if he would ever open his mouth and prove to her that they truly did understand each other the way she felt they did.
“To be completely my own man,” he blurted out at last. “To never be forced to answer to my father or anything but my own desire.”
“Exactly!” Asha’s hands tightened on his, and her eyes raced over him excitedly. She stood on her toes, and whispered in his ear what she felt like shouting: “adventure. It must cost your whole heart, or you’ll never know it was worth it.”
They smiled into each other’s eyes, and for a moment, it seemed the whole of Maltuba vanished. There were only the two of them.