Hadhi walked down the silent halls of the palace, away from the ballroom. She had spent enough time here when caring for Queen Imara to know where she was going, but she had never been in the room that had so fascinated Asha. When Hadhi heard the whistle of strange birds and the low mewls and yawns of other animals, she glanced around to see if anyone was watching and slipped into the menagerie.
She could not get comfortable. Her stomach roiled with unease and her mind darted from one subject to the next, one sister to the next. One unlikely future to the next.
Asha had seen the menagerie several times now, so Hadhi should not feel bad, but it felt a bit like betraying her sister. She knew how much Asha had wanted to see this place. She just could not help her. Asha had been such a bright, trusting child. It was too dangerous.
Hadhi walked slowly through the room. It was fairly dark, the sun was setting outside, and the lamps had yet to be lit. Monkeys were curled up around the trunks of small trees asleep, and at the far end of the room, a cheetah on a chain was up and prowling the length of his tether. She shuddered to see that great creature chained so. It reminded her of Queen Imara. Of the scars at her ankles from where she had been chained for the first years of her marriage to King Enzi.
Her scars had never fully healed, but they were so much easier to conceal from the world with jeweled cuffs. What so many thought were beautiful gifts to adorn a queen, were more cruel reminders that she was never free, as Imara had known and eventually Hadhi too, when she cared for her. No part of Imara’s body was her own once Enzi claimed her. Even its wounds.
Hadhi shook off the thoughts. She had to; all of her muscles were coiling with fear and disgust. So she focused on the animals; several remained awake and were tensing up as she wandered among them. They sensed a killer in their midst. Hadhi stopped before an unfamiliar animal, Was this Asha’s foreign beast?
Its pelt was a fluffy, dirty white color, and at first glance, it looked harmless. Then Hadhi saw its head. Thick round horns protruded from it, all but daring one to get closer and take those horns in the gut. It tensed, staring Hadhi down and pawing at the ground with its hard hooves. Hadhi stayed well back and observed this strange creature.
“Have you never seen a sheep before?”
Hadhi spun around and caught her breath. Noam. He walked towards her, smiling gently.
“They are perfectly safe.”
“You have seen them before?” Hadhi asked, really just to say something.
Noam passed right by her and knelt on the ground before the animal, running a hand gently along its back. The sheep allowed it, relaxing in Noam’s touch. He was so gentle.
“My family raises these exotic creatures.” Noam laughed. Hadhi noticed he held onto one of the horns as he pet it and wondered if he was not quite as confident as he seemed.
“Did you leave home because of your father?” Hadhi asked softly. As Noam focused on calming the animal.
“I was thinking about that today. Why I left. There was a part of me, there still is perhaps, that wanted his love. But he didn’t know how to give it; I was too painful a reminder. We were a very small community. Everyone knew everything, about everyone.”
He said nothing more for a long while. Hadhi started to move closer to him, but the animal tensed. Noam laughed. But Hadhi felt the animal’s recognition. Noam was safe, but Hadhi was a killer. This creature knew the difference. Why did Noam not see it?
“They knew he did not love you the same as your siblings?” Hadhi asked, stepping back. Before she made it very far, though he was not looking, Noam reached back and caught her hand. They both froze a moment as a charge danced between them. Noam drew her nearer.
“Crouch down slowly. All of these animals,” Noam glanced around. “They are used to more space; they think you’re here to hurt them.”
Hadhi followed Noam’s instructions. She let him take her hand and run it down the sheep’s back. It was the oddest thing; its coat was fluffy and coarse at once, it scratched softly against the inside of her palm, but she barely felt it, barely breathed. Noam’s hand guided hers and she was curled up in that feeling.
Hadhi could feel him thinking through his words though he remained quiet. She liked that he was quiet with her. He always seemed to be entertaining other people, but he was quiet with her because he knew...she would wait. She wanted all of his words.
“They knew I was not my father’s son,” Noam said at last. “My mother had strayed from her marriage. My father had as well, but that my mother had was the only thing that concerned our neighbors.”
“I am sorry,” Hadhi said softly. A corner of her mind wandered over that oath the vaashta made her recite. Why were things sins for women that were not for men? It had always concerned her, but she never felt there was anything to be done about it. There should be something to be done. “What your parents did was not your doing. They should have...held you...proudly They should have loved you!"
Noam faced her fully for the first time since entering the room, wearing a soft smile.
“You sound like you want to charge into the world and make everyone love me,” his voice laughed, but his eyes looked nearly sad.
Hadhi shrugged a little. “They should.”
Noam’s eyes crinkled and his hand around her’s tightened briefly. There was such intensity in his grip, she felt it throughout her body, as though they were wrapped together in a powerful embrace. He was quiet for several long moments, embracing her with his eyes and his hand.
“Some of them did,” he said, at last, his voice low and a little hoarse. “Certainly people my age. And when they didn’t, Shiraz would loop her arm through mine and Ethan would step up on my side, and we would face the world together. And...that was enough. I knew they loved me, and my mother adored me, and sometimes even my father cared for me. But more than anything, knowing my siblings loved me was what made me strongest.”
Hadhi swallowed the burning sadness in her throat and tried to simply smile at Noam and hear him, not relate his words back to her own life and feel the less for them.
“I am glad. "You should be loved.”
Noam’s lip lifted at the corner a moment before he went on with his story. “I left because I wanted to find a place where it was okay that I was my mother’s child and not my father’s. I left because I wanted to see if the rest of the world was full of small people unable to see beyond what they expected. All of my siblings left.”
“Even your sister? Or do you mean...to marry?” Hadhi asked in shock. Women did not tend to go off alone in Jaccada. They didn’t start their own lives, make their own ways. She knew it was allowed in some tribes, but not the way it sounded when he said it. Women of the Bor might live without men, but it was in a community of other women. They all cared for the children together, worked together, ate together. But going off on ones own, that was...radical.
“Shiraz left alone. All she took was her staff, a bag of men’s clothing,” Noam smirked sideways. “A wool fleece, a bit of gold and seven books. She said she was going to find the singing hills written about in the book of Anolani. Ethan joined an expedition...seeking witches. We each wanted different things from the world. But most of all, none of us could live among people who had shunned and condemned the mother we loved. I was the last to leave. I kept waiting to be accepted, I think. When I left,” he laughed. “It was because Azize’s ship had come to my home. They had lost several men and were looking for more hands. I heard them talking about a prince who’d left home to see the world, and I felt this...overpowering certainty that I needed to do the same. So I took a job working in the ship’s kitchen, serving the prince, but very quickly I became Azize’s friend.”
Hadhi smiled. There was so much in his story she wanted to know more about: the book his sister spoke of. Why anyone would want to seek out witches? What happened in the time Noam spent alone with his father? So much, but she smiled for the things that were clear to her. She could easily see him charming his way from servant to best friend of a prince. He was so much more open than other people. He would help anyone. Look at him, trying to help her win a prince, though he knew next to nothing about her. And though, in some moments, he seemed to want her for himself.
But perhaps she had made that up. He had not said a thing about their kiss. Perhaps taking her hand outside was only meant to be friendly. Perhaps this stirring need Hadhi felt to be near him was one-sided.
It did not seem to matter to her desire, whether or not he wanted her; she wanted to be with him either way. She wanted to open her mouth and speak her desire. She wanted to curl up in his touch and pretend the world was beautiful and safe. She wanted to be who she was in the quiet moments alone with him. No matter what.
Hadhi opened her mouth to ask about his travels, to exist a while longer in his beautiful world. But sweat dripped down her back, and her own reality shuddered through her. Hadhi shivered, remembering Vaasht Oba reaching for her hair. This styling is a most effective way of concealing those scars. And it would suit the links of the queen well.
Hadhi hated wearing her hair like this, combed out to its most voluminous expanse, with a crown of chain pressing down the front, so the sides pushed forward around her cheeks. It was a striking style. Mzaa knew her art well. But it was so hot, and it felt dishonest trying to hide her scars. She wished she could wear braids like Nuru or wear it up off her neck in a scarf like Sabra. Or shave it off altogether and show off her scars to the world, at least then people could look at them outright, rather than feeling they had a right to touch her, to see her ugliness.
She was so different from Noam. He had been sad and rejected, but he still managed to be such a beautiful being. What she would not give to keep him near her forever, and hope that eventually, his beauty fell on her and brushed away her ugliness.
As the sweat dripped down her back, Hadhi envisioned her future. A more realistic future. Wearing her hair so forever. Hiding her scars as best she could so as not to shame her royal husband, doing everything she could to earn the approval of those around her. She saw herself lying to the world and hating every moment.
Then she felt Noam’s hand lifting hers slowly from the sheep and just... holding it, and Hadhi...envisioned herself sneaking into this room in the dark, with her hair wrapped up in a scarf for sleep, cool for the first time all day. She would sit on the bench under the trio of colored glass panels and shut her eyes. Waiting. Noam would slip out of the shadows and come to her. He would tell her about his home or take up her hand. Kiss it. She could feel the imagined kiss dancing across her skin so softly it was lighter than a breeze. He would kiss his way up her arm, pull her to him. And she could hide in the dark with her secret love and be the beautiful being he made of her.
As long as it was a secret.
Being with Noam, touching him, feeling this power, seemed to be all she could think about today. Her mind bending around trying to find her ways to have it all. If she married Azize, she could give her family the care she owed them. Make her mother happy. Give her sisters more freedom, and keep Lin with Sabra. Noam could stay in the palace with his friend, but secretly, with her. Hadhi would be lying, which she hated, but at least this lie would be sweet.
Noam was helping her already; surely she could convince him to stay. She could be happy in stolen moments with the gentlest man in the world. And curl up in his touch like a tamer creature than she had ever been allowed to be. It would not be perfect, but it might be enough.
Noam was watching her, still crouched. He was slowly raising her hand towards his lips, like he was seeing the vision with her, like he was offering to give her exactly that. He was so...willing to bend for others. But he deserved more.
Hadhi drew her hand away and shifted back.
“Hadhi?” He asked softly. “Are you alright?” He began to rise, looking confused and contrite. “I won’t hurt you.”
Hadhi smiled, nearly laughed. She was not a gentle creature in need of his protection. She would be the one who did the hurting. She would destroy him.
He was too beautiful a creature to be touched by someone like her.
“I’m sorry—g“
“Hadhi, are you in here?” Nuru’s hesitant voice interrupted Hadhi’s attempted confession.
Hadhi cast Noam one last look and crossed quickly for the door of the menagerie. She felt the cheetah and the jackals perking up as she ran, sensing a hunt to be had. But they could no more escape their tethers than Hadhi could escape the ugly within. They were all predators, and they had no business with gentle creatures.