Yndris had spurred her horse toward one of the remaining two soldiers.
“Ihsan!” Nayyan yelled.
He spun and raised his knife, knowing it would do little against a mounted warrior. Indeed, the last Mirean cavalryman looked ready to cut him down, but before he could Nayyan gave a trilling ululation, “Lai, lai, lai!” and charged toward him.
The soldier spun his horse around and met her first blow with his shield. The horse’s rump bashed Ihsan, and he stumbled away. He heard the rider make a clicking sound with his tongue. A moment later, the horse kicked backward, toward Ihsan. One hoof struck. It was only a glancing blow, thanks the gods, but Ihsan still went flying.
His head struck the ground hard. Through the sudden ringing in his ears came the ring of clashing steel, cries of pain, orders shouted in Mirean, and the roar of the rioters’ unfolding fury. He blinked and managed to lift his head, but lay back down when searing pain flared along the right side of his chest. Probing tenderly, he guessed at least two ribs were broken.
Nayyan was suddenly there, helping him to his feet. Stars formed in his vision. He nearly blacked out. But with slow, careful movements he was able to tread toward the riderless horse. He stopped beside it and stared up at the saddle.
“That’s an awfully long way for a man with broken ribs,” he managed.
“A bit of pain or your life, Ihsan. You choose.”
He smiled ruefully. “A bit of pain . . .” With Nayyan helping, he got one foot in the stirrup. Then, with a long, pain-filled grunt, he was finally, blessedly, up and sitting in the saddle. The pain was so bad his vision dimmed.
Nayyan passed the reins to him. “Follow us, but keep your distance until we have Ibrahim safely away.”
Ihsan nodded as Nayyan mounted behind Yndris. Soon they and the other two Maidens were riding hard for the foot of the garrison stairs, where Ibrahim was being led toward a waiting horse.
Ihsan had never felt more useless. His broken ribs prevented his joining them in battle. And as far as his power was concerned, swallowing was painful; using a command to help Nayyan was out of the question.
Thankfully he was accompanied by four of the best swordswomen in the desert. Nayyan, Yndris, and the other two Blade Maidens made quick work of the Mirean cavalrymen. Five fell in moments to the swings of their ebon blades; the remaining three retreated, relinquishing their queen’s prize.
Ibrahim had watched the clash unfold around him with growing horror, but as Nayyan and Ihsan approached, his looked turned to one of awe. “You’re King Ihsan,” he said, then slid his gaze to Nayyan, “and you’re his queen.”
“I am my own queen,” she replied, and led Ibrahim toward the waiting horses.
“Of course.” The manacles on Ibrahim’s wrists clanked as he touched his fingers to his forehead in apology. “I only meant to ask why you, of all people, would come for me.”
“We need answers to a few important questions,” Ihsan managed, though the pain it brought on, to both his ribs and his throat, was terrible.
“Questions I’ll gladly answer”—he held his wrists out—“so long as you can rid me of these.”
“Soon enough.” Nayyan mounted the nearest horse, a chestnut roan, and held one arm down to Ibrahim.
Ibrahim swung up behind her and fortunately asked no more questions. Ihsan couldn’t have managed a reply anyway. They headed south, away from the fighting. Soon the sounds of battle were behind them, and they lost themselves in the streets of Sharakhai.
Chapter 22
Çeda blinked, recovering from the vision the acacia had granted her.
The cool stillness of King Yusam’s palace was replaced by a warm wind. The stone ceiling and walls of the vault dissolved into a blue sky and the tall, dark peaks surrounding the valley below Mount Arasal. Ahead of her stood the acacia, the tree grown from the very seed her mother had stolen from King Yusam’s palace.
As the acacia’s branches swayed in the wind, sunlight shone through the leaves in dreamlike bursts. It was so entrancing it took her several long breaths before she realized the sun was high overhead. The savory scents of roasting meat drew her attention beyond their circle to the cooking pit, where a boy with a hopelessly dusty fez was turning a spitted lamb and tending to a dozen yogurt-marinated chickens—one part of the midday meal’s preparations.
By the gods, hours had passed since she’d fallen under the vision’s spell.
On hearing a deep exhalation beside her, Çeda turned to find Emre sitting in the same place as when they’d begun. He was staring at the glass chimes hanging from the tree. Without looking at her, he said, “You saw Ahya?”
Çeda nodded, then took in the others, who, while awake, seemed just as dreamy as Emre. “Everyone saw it? My mother stealing the seed from Yusam?”
A round of nods.
“But why would the acacia grant you that vision, child?” asked Leorah in her croak of a voice. “What does it mean?”
In truth, Çeda had hoped Leorah might know. She’d been one of the wisest in the thirteenth tribe, one of the wisest in all the desert. And she’d known Ahya well, known much of what she’d gone to Sharakhai to do, but over the past year her memory had declined sharply.
Çeda stared at the amethyst ring on Leorah’s right hand. Within its facets was the soul of Devorah, Leorah’s twin sister. At nightfall, the two traded places, Devorah using their body for much of the night. Then, at dawn, the two would trade again. In recent years, Devorah had been the sharper of the two—perhaps she’d have some idea.
For the time being, Çeda could only shrug. “I don’t know what it means.”
Neither, it turned out, did anyone else.
Frail Lemi had a pensive look on his ruggedly handsome face. “Before the ritual, you did ask your mother to be with you.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maybe the tree abided.”
It was possible, she supposed, but in the moments before the vision had swept over her, she’d been focused on Emre’s past, not her mother’s.
Before she could formulate a reply, Shaikh Zaghran strode into their circle, his wife, Tanzi, by his side. “Well?” he asked.
He’d said it gruffly though not unkindly. But what could Çeda say? She had nothing to give him. Nothing at all. And worse, she didn’t know if she ever would. “I need more time.”
“I have very little time to give you.”
“Please, if we could have a few days—”
Zaghran raised one hand, forestalling her. “May we speak alone, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala?”
Çeda nodded, then motioned for the others to take their leave. As they left in a group toward the tables filling with food, Zaghran pointed Tanzi toward the Tulogal tents beyond the pavilion. If Çeda was surprised, Tanzi looked like she’d been struck.
“Whatever you have to say,” she said in an affronted tone, “I should hear as well!”
But Zaghran would not be persuaded. All but ignoring his wife, he guided Çeda along a path that ran around the lake. Tanzi looked as if she were ready to follow. She even took a step toward them, but then stopped and watched in brooding silence.
“I knew your grandfather, Ishaq,” Zaghran said when they were out of earshot. “I knew Macide as well. They were forthright men. Hard at times, but you always knew where you stood with them. I agreed to join the Alliance because of them, and now another stands in their place, a man who will always choose the sword before the quill.”
“That’s precisely why you should abandon his cause.”
When their path came alongside a stand of cattails, Zaghran stopped and faced Çeda. His hands were clasped before him. He looked bound, resolute. “The talks in this morning’s council have progressed. No vote has yet been taken on Hamid’s proposal to sail on Sharakhai, but I tell you this, it will not go as you hope”—he glanced back at the acacia, which swayed in the afternoon breeze—�
��unless you can prove his deception.”
“Then help me convince them.”
Zaghran shrugged. “I wasn’t there. And neither were you for most of it. Don’t think that fact is lost on anyone. Many are worried you’re planning to manufacture a vision that will prove your and Emre’s innocence and falsely condemn Hamid. Given your inability to command the acacia after hours of trying, even some of your allies will start to wonder.”
“Then why did you vouch for me?”
“Let’s be clear, Çedamihn. I didn’t vouch for you. I voted to give you the opportunity to prove yourself.”
“But if even you don’t believe me—”
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.” A look of careful consideration came over him. “Would you like to know what the tree showed me?” He didn’t bothering waiting for Çeda’s response. “It showed Rasime sailing west. It showed her meeting with my wife. It showed Rasime’s offer. ‘Convince your husband to join us,’ she said to Tanzi, ‘and the first of Sharakhai’s plunder goes to Tulogal.’ I saw Tanzi accept. I saw Hamid’s smug smile when Rasime returned east with the news.”
Zaghran’s gaze shifted to the acacia, then to Tanzi, who was standing still as a statue in the exact place where Zaghran had left her.
“As those visions faded, I recalled how much has changed over the past months, how subtly my wife has manipulated me. I am not, nor was I ever, an admirer of the Sharakhani Kings, but I never thought to debase myself as they did. I never thought to employ their cruel methods. But Tanzi knows me well. She plucked me like a harp, striking just the right notes. She reminded me of every transgression, large and small, that our tribe suffered under the Kings’ rule. And I grew angry from it, angry enough that I was willing to join Hamid’s cause.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Çeda asked.
“To make something clear to you: as this dawned on me, I grew embarrassed, not only from my wife’s manipulations but because others recognized I could be manipulated in such a way. It was a painful set of facts to face, yet never once did I doubt that the tree had shown me the truth.” Zaghran paused, letting the words sink in. “No mere words are going to convince the shaikhs of Hamid’s guilt, but get the acacia to show it to them and you’ll have what you want.”
“I understand,” Çeda said, “but I need more time.”
Zaghran considered while, somewhere on the slopes above, a rock hawk cried.
“I’ll see if I can gain you the morning. After that, we’ll likely hold a vote on Hamid’s proposal. If that vote is taken and we agree to sail west to make war, it will be too late. No one will wait for your proof once the decision is made.”
With that he walked away. Curiously, as he passed beneath the acacia’s broad limbs, the wind settled for a moment, and the tree went perfectly still.
“Please, give me what I need,” Çeda whispered to it.
As if in answer, the wind kicked up, stronger than before, making the tree sway so much it looked tortured and helpless in the gale.
Çeda ate lamb and flatbread with the others, but every bite she took felt like time wasted. She wolfed it down in moments, then pressed the others to do the same. When it was done, they all returned to the acacia and settled themselves.
For a long while, Zaghran’s words weighed on her. Show them the truth and you’ll have what you want, he’d said. It added so much pressure she was having trouble finding the right mindset.
The only thing that calmed her was the memory of her mother. It was truly a gift, seeing her again. It led to more pleasant memories. Meals shared. Stories told. The few times her mother had embraced her and made her feel loved.
Soon, she was swept away by the acacia again.
* * *
The vision began with sunset over Sharakhai, with Ahya weaving her way along the streets of Roseridge toward the small, one-roomed home she shared with her daughter, Çeda. She’d just come from Yusam’s palace. The acacia seed was in the small leather bag at her side. She was so aware of its presence it felt as if everyone she passed was watching her, and that if they stared at her long enough, they would learn of her wrongdoing.
So blinding was her paranoia she didn’t at first recognize the old woman with the shawl walking toward her. It was Old Yanca, a neighborhood woman who watched Çeda from time to time. Ahya had left Çeda with her that very morning, but now Çeda was nowhere to be seen.
Yanca’s shoulders curled inward as she shuffled closer. “It’s Çeda,” she said, wringing her hands, “she’s gone.”
Ahya shook her head, confused. “Gone where?”
Yanca waved back the way she’d come. “I fell asleep in my rocking chair. When I woke, she wasn’t there.”
Ahya rolled her eyes. “That child will be the death of me.”
“I—” Yanca’s wrinkled face pinched, prune-like in her embarrassment. “I think I heard her whispering with someone at the window. It’s only, I haven’t slept well lately. It’s my ankles—”
Ahya was already moving past her. “It was Emre. It must have been.”
“I thought about going to find her myself, but my ankles, you see.”
But Ahya was hardly listening. “I swear by Bakhi’s bright hammer I’m going to tan his hide so badly the boys in the bazaar could make a saddle from it.”
They checked Yanca’s home and found it empty. Çeda was no doubt off with her little flock of gutter wrens, probably running a scam cooked up by Tariq, or worse, the dead-eyed one, Hamid.
She was just ready to leave and head to her own home when Yanca caught her sleeve. “The whispering . . . They said something about the western harbor and a dare.”
Just then a distant wail fell over the city, sending a terrible chill down Ahya’s spine.
“Oh gods, not now.”
She’d been so high on winning the acacia seed, a treasure she’d been seeking for the last decade, she’d all but forgotten it was Beht Zha’ir, the night the asirim stole into Sharakhai to take tribute. Some nights they came early, some they came late, and their numbers varied greatly, depending on how long it had been since they’d last feasted and how many King Sukru had marked with his cursed whip. Whatever the number, when the full moons rose, those who felt the call would lift themselves from the blooming fields and descend on the city in packs.
“Yanca, I have to go.”
As Ahya fled out the door and down the stairs, Yanca called after her, “Can I help you look?”
Ahya didn’t answer. She flew along the street to her home, praying she was wrong, praying she’d find Çeda there, praying this was all nothing but a terrible scare.
Over the last several months, rumors had been flying through the west end. Youths, mostly part of gangs, were daring one another to stay out on Beht Zha’ir to tempt fate—in essence, daring the asirim to take them. Ahya suspected it had started with some fool who’d been caught out on the holy night, survived, and claimed he’d stared death in the face. The young being the young, others had risen to the unspoken challenge and done the same. Now it was an outright epidemic. Surviving Beht Zha’ir outdoors had become a badge of honor. It was like thumbing their nose at the Kings and all their power. They were practically begging King Sukru to make an example of them.
As Ahya feared, Çeda wasn’t home.
After throwing off the fine clothes she’d worn to King Yusam’s palace, she put on her battle dress and turban and pulled the veil across her face. She buckled on her sword belt and climbed out the back window, the one that looked onto a narrow chute between the three poorly built dwellings. Knowing Çeda and her friends would almost certainly have gone to the western harbor, she climbed up and headed in that direction.
She made her way over the blocky and blessedly empty landscape of rooftops of the neighborhood known as the Red Crescent. She’d not gone far when a terrible keening rose up. Other wails rose up as
if in consolation. Fear not, sister, those haunting calls said, for soon we feast on the blood of the promised.
Like their number, the path the asirim took into the city was like a roll of the bones. Ahya could already tell Çeda had rolled very, very poorly—a horde was approaching from the west. They’d reach the harbor in minutes.
By the time Ahya reached the quays, the sun had set and the twin moons had risen. There was light yet in the west, but it wouldn’t be long before it failed entirely. Ahead, the harbor was a bay of sorts, with long, crescent-shaped quays running along its inner edge. Its outer edge was defined by a scattering of rocks that jutted from the sand. Word was, to complete their dare, the foolish youngsters were to hide behind the stones for at least an hour when the asirim began to wail. Few lasted that long, they were so afraid of being out in the open while the asirim prowled.
Ahya scanned the quays, the many docks, and the harbor itself for signs of Çeda or her gutter wren friends. Seeing nothing but the silhouettes of ships and empty sand, she sprinted to the end of the quays and leapt down to the rocky soil. She’d no sooner landed than she spotted two forms hunkered along the wharfs.
Lo and behold, it was Emre and Hamid.
“Where’s Çeda?” Ahya asked them.
Emre was the first to answer. It seemed to take some courage for him to stand and point to the sea of black rocks beyond the mouth of the harbor. “Out there.”
She grabbed him by his kaftan and shook him hard. “Where?”
“I don’t know!” His voice was small and pitiful. “We split up like you’re supposed to!”
She shoved him so hard he stumbled and fell. “You’re not supposed to be out here at all!” She loomed over them both. “Get to the nearest ship and take shelter.” When they remained, she drew her shamshir. “Now!”
They scrambled up to the quay and ran, though with the surfeit of sense the gods saw fit to give them, Ahya guessed they’d circle back when they thought she was gone. She couldn’t worry about them, though. She had to find her daughter.
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