She felt desperately for where he intended to go, but it was simply too brief. In a blink he was standing to her left, several paces away. She’d just begun to shift toward him when a scouring of sand lifted from the dune. It gusted, blowing around her as it reached for Beşir.
Beşir loosed his arrow. Çeda was too late in bringing her buckler around, but Mavra’s wind was strong enough to blow the arrow off target just enough that it only pierced the boiled strips of leather over her ribs.
Beşir already had another arrow nocked. The air was so thick with sand Çeda could barely see him. She saw enough, though. He was drawing his bow back when she heard an almighty grunt from somewhere behind her. To her left something long and ungainly flew through the air.
The bough of an adichara, Çeda realized. End over end it flew, the thickest part striking Beşir across the head just as he loosed his arrow.
Çeda twisted her body to one side while bringing River’s Daughter up and around in a tight arc. She felt the arrow’s path. Felt her blade slice it neatly in two. Saw the two ends spin up and into the night.
Then she sprinted for King Beşir.
He was on the ground, prone. Head lolling as he stared toward the sky, a great bleeding gash along the left side of his face from his forehead, across one eye, and down his cheek. Çeda brought her sword up as he blinked, mouth yawning wide. He caught her eye as the sword swung down toward his neck.
And she felt it.
His shift.
“No!” Çeda cried as River’s Daughter came down against the sand.
She stared at the spot, feeling desperately for where he might have reappeared. But she felt nothing.
Beşir was gone.
Chapter 4
EVENTIDE’S GRAND HALL was bedecked for a wedding. A thousand had come to witness the marriage of King Kiral, the King of Kings, to Queen Meryam of Qaimir. Waterfalls of flowers clung to the pillars, lacing the air with scents of rose and lilac and blooming desert sage. High above, the palace bells tolled, while the long purple carpet leading from the entrance to the foot of the dais divided the hall perfectly in two. To either side of the carpet were padded benches, now nearly full with lords and ladies and their children, their chatter filling the lulls between the bright peals of the palace bells.
As the last were led to their benches, King Ihsan sat himself in the gallery with the other Kings. It was a senselessly grand affair, a puppet show meant to appease the highborn in Sharakhai. Things can’t be so bad, the ostentatiousness said, if the Kings would take time for a wedding such as this!
Despite the expense, Ihsan couldn’t deny that the sleight of hand was necessary—the highborn did need appeasing—but it galled him that Queen Meryam had somehow inveigled her way into Kiral’s life, and that Kiral was too blind to see he was being played. Appeasement or not, they hardly needed another mouth sitting at the high table, asking to be fed.
“Perhaps you should be grateful,” Nayyan had whispered to him last night in bed.
Ihsan had gaped at her. “Grateful? To that cadaver? That ghul in queen’s raiment?”
“She isn’t so bad.”
“No? Have you not heard the rumors, that it was no ehrekh that consumed her father, but Meryam herself? They say she dined on his heart over an open fire before returning to Sharakhai to cry her story to anyone who would listen.”
Nayyan had made a face. “You believe that?”
He’d shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, my good King, but there are two fleets sailing for our city. Sharakhai is in dire need of allies, and Meryam has offered us much.”
He’d looked at her warily, playfully. “She’s got to you too, hasn’t she?”
Nayyan slapped his shoulder. “Let Meryam play at being King. It’s a long way to the end of this war. If she makes it to the other side, she’ll prove no more difficult to be rid of than the other Kings.”
“No more difficult . . .” Ihsan pulled her against him and spoke to the ceiling. “Just you wait and see. Nothing good will come of this union, and Meryam will be difficult as ringworm to get rid of.”
Of those gathered in Eventide’s hall, the royalty of Tauriyat and Goldenhill and Blackfire Gate were the most numerous. Several hundred haled from Qaimir. And with Kundhun receiving more and more favor from Sharakhai, their numbers had swelled; their imposing figures and colorful clothing mixed with the more staid garb of Qaimir.
King Beşir, sitting to Ihsan’s left, adjusted his seat and said, “Bloody gods, the desert will crumble before this comes to an end.”
Beşir had said it more to himself than anyone else, but Ihsan leaned in and spoke to the dour King anyway. “Best to watch your tongue these days.”
Beşir turned his long face toward Ihsan, but not before glancing at the other four Kings, who sat to Ihsan’s right. “This is my bloody city. If anyone needs to watch their tongues”—he waved angrily to the crowd, especially toward the back, where most of the lesser guests from Qaimir and Kundhun were sitting—“it’s them.”
Ihsan smiled. “It was but a jest, my good King.”
Beşir stared at King Azad, who was watching their exchange with mild amusement. “Has no one told you?” Beşir turned his sober look on Ihsan, then weighed him as carefully as he might the gold in the city’s coffers. “The time for foolery has passed.”
“What unfortunate news,” Ihsan said back. “You’ll be sure to let me know when smiles no longer lead to the gallows.”
King Azad, who was Nayyan in the guise of her father, snickered. She liked Beşir as much as Ihsan did, which was to say not at all. Beşir, meanwhile, scoffed dismissively, then turned his attention back to the crowd, pretending Ihsan didn’t exist. Beşir had been in a foul mood since losing Çedamihn out in the desert two days before. It wasn’t merely that he’d failed, but that he’d been forced go in the first place. He’d long since lost himself in pursuits of his own design and was becoming increasingly vexed that the weight of a King’s mantle had been laid across his shoulders once more.
Ihsan realized King Husamettín was staring at him. Ruggedly handsome and dressed impeccably, he towered over Sukru and Cahil at the end of the gallery seats. As the pealing of the bells came to a sudden end, Ihsan nodded to him. Husamettín nodded back.
The event was finally on them. King Kiral and Queen Meryam stepped through an archway built into one side of the hall. Kiral was bedecked in raiment of gold and rust with accents of ivory. Queen Meryam wore a dress that poured like a river of rubies down her undernourished frame. She wore no veil, as many in Qaimir might, but walked with her face unmasked, as was the custom in the desert.
They heard words from Yerinde’s high priest, a small rabbit of a man who, it was said, had the ear of the goddess herself. The King and queen spoke vows to their right hands which, instead of sand, gripped handfuls of shells delivered from the Austral Sea. As they released their grips, the shells pattered against the rich purple carpet with a sound like distant drums. A child near the front dove and grabbed some before she was snatched up and pressed back into her seat by her red-faced mother. The crowd laughed.
The mixing of customs continued with songs from both countries, desert cymbals that Kiral and Meryam crashed together, the tying of their wrists to one another, not with a cord of leather but with an old, beaten necklace, a thing Meryam had had since she was a child, apparently. When it was done, the couple and their guests adjourned to a nearby hall.
Many of the guests, ready to enjoy the relatively cool day, took drinks on the adjoining patio which overlooked the eastern desert and King’s Harbor. It was a strange choice, Ihsan thought. Kiral curated his imagery carefully—projecting strength, always—and yet the vast majority of the royal navy had sailed north to meet the threat of the Mirean fleet, leaving King’s Harbor practically empty. The city looked defenseless.<
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No one seemed to mind, though. They ate. They drank. Ihsan spoke to several Qaimiri nobleman, needling them for information about Meryam. They refused to share anything of import, and Ihsan let it go. He’d gained much in recent months, particularly with King Zeheb, the King of Whispers—now called the Burbling King, the Mad Bull of Sharakhai, or even the Lord of Muttered Ravings—and he wouldn’t see it all undone because he’d allowed his impatience to get the better of him by using his powers where others, Meryam in particular, might sense it.
Ihsan returned to the hall to find the high priest throwing rose petals into the air, showering Meryam and Kiral. As he watched, a shiver ran through the crowd. Smiles and laughs turned to deep frowns and worry. It swept through the rest of the room like a wave. Ihsan felt it too, a shift in his gut not unlike the feeling one gets when a loved one is in immediate danger. The guests were looking at one another as if they might have an explanation for their strange and sudden discomfort. Somewhere, a child cried, and a susurrus of conversation rose.
When a shout of surprise came from the opposite end of the hall, all eyes turned. Spilling forth from an archway leading to a verdant garden was a host of dark, fluttering shapes, a cloud of moths with black, iridescent wings that reminded Ihsan of a moonless, star-filled sky.
The moths billowed outward, causing fright as they neared the crowd of Sharakhani lords and ladies. People shied from them. Some ran. Darkening the portico beyond the arch was a tall figure, taller than any man or woman inside the building, including the towering Kundhuni, including Kings Kiral and Husamettín. It was the goddess, Yerinde, beautiful and fearsome in the same breath. She was naked save for the black moths, which covered her thighs, her sex, her stomach, her breasts. With each step the goddess took, some of the moths lifted, exposing her, but Yerinde seemed not to care. She strode across the room, not toward Kiral and Meryam, as might be expected, but toward the tables set aside for Ihsan and the other Kings.
Unlike the last times Ihsan had seen her, Yerinde’s black hair was unbound. It fell across her shoulders and down her back and chest in lazy curls, making her look like a wild woman, a goddess newly fashioned by the hand of the elder gods.
Husamettín led the way across the gold-veined floor. Ihsan and Beşir followed, with Sukru, Cahil, and Azad coming last. Kiral joined them as they neared the goddess. Meryam wisely stayed back, but she watched this exchange with dark, glittering eyes. Always hungry for more, Queen Meryam of Qaimir.
As one, the Kings genuflected. The crowd of onlookers did the same. A command slipped into Ihsan’s mind like sunlight through gauze:
Rise, Yerinde said.
The Kings rose, while all others, including Meryam, remained on bended knee. Yerinde turned her gaze to Kiral. She stared at him as if he’d offended her and was trying to determine what, after the proper weighing of his offense, should be done with him. Kiral stared back much as he always did, with a supreme confidence that would rankle even the most gracious man or woman.
Going against that very nature, Kiral opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. The pockmarked landscape of his cheeks rolled as the muscles of his jaw worked. He swallowed once. Twice. His mouth opened again, but no words came out.
Ihsan couldn’t decide whether it was Kiral’s own uncertainty that stayed him or some command from Yerinde. Whatever the case, Yerinde turned away from Kiral—away from the King of Kings!—and laid her eyes upon Husamettín instead. Ihsan could not imagine a greater insult for the man who thought himself above all others, yet here he was, overlooked by a creature infinitely more powerful than he, as if she likened him to the black moths fluttering about her frame.
Weeks have passed since we spoke below this mountain, Yerinde said to Husamettín. Her lips were pressed tightly, unmoving as she spoke. Words were exchanged. Vows were made.
“The goddess speaks the truth,” Husamettín replied in a loud, clear voice.
Name thy promise.
For the first time, the emotionless edifice of Husamettín’s face cracked. He glanced back at the lords and ladies huddling like a herd of oryx. Finally he said, “To bring you the head of Nalamae, the one who has wronged us.”
Just so, replied Yerinde. Around her, the moths turned darker, their wings becoming black as an endless void, like the eyes of the lord of all things. For a moment they seemed to draw all color from the room. But now I wonder, where is my prize? What have the Kings of Sharakhai, so graced these many years, so showered with favor, done to deserve it?
Husamettín bowed his head, though while doing so shifted his right hand to the hilt of his god-given weapon, Night’s Kiss. It was an unconscious act, surely, but one that courted ruin.
“We have searched the desert far and wide,” he said. “We have sent ships to gather word. We have worked with our soothsayers. Our seer, King Yusam, is dead, but we have scoured his journals for any signs that might lead to her. We have searched for the home of the desert witch, Saliah, whom we believe was her last incarnation before she realized her true heritage. We have yet to find it, but in the meanwhile we’ve searched for those who visited her there, and questioned some, but none knew her whereabouts, or how we might lure her from hiding. We have searched a thousand paths and more, but none have so far delivered news of her whereabouts.”
At this, Yerinde stared down, her face a mask of dispassion. As Husamettín spoke, the moths had flown up and about, leaving her utterly naked. They spread outward, fluttering, flying, flitting to and fro, expanding like a flower in bloom until they’d surrounded the Kings and Yerinde, cutting them off from the rest of the crowd, cutting them off from Meryam as well.
The frightened sounds of the crowd abated as if they’d all been turned to statues. Kiral seemed confused. He blinked as if he’d suddenly found himself in an entirely new place.
Yerinde pulled herself to her full height. Her black hair lifted, flowing on an unseen wind. Tribute was demanded of the Kings of Sharakhai. You will set Nalamae’s head before me.
Husamettín bowed low and spoke in a firm yet reasonable tone. “We will, though surely the goddess will admit that Nalamae is gifted at remaining hidden.”
Ihsan had known none of this—not of Yerinde’s prior visit, nor her strange request, nor the efforts of the other Kings to fulfill it. Based on the reactions of several other Kings, however, he saw that they’d been privy to it and had decided, for whatever reason, not to share it with him. Husamettín had known, of course. So had Cahil and Sukru. Perhaps Kiral as well, though the man was acting so strangely it was difficult to say for certain.
This was a strange thing to be faced with. The gods had asked for so very little over the years, after all. It was common knowledge amongst the Kings that Nalamae had deigned not to join her siblings on the night of Beht Ihman. It was also common knowledge that Nalamae had been hunted and killed many times by her brothers and sisters. Why then does Yerinde need us to perform this service? And why now?
He had few enough answers, but one thing was certain: this was not an opportunity to be passed up. “If we might ask a small boon of the goddess,” he said, “a way for us to gain her scent. Had we but that, we could easily do the rest.”
Yerinde blinked languidly and turned her violet eyes to Ihsan. As in the past, his insides melted. His mouth began to water. It was a feeling akin to love, but so much more dangerous. She seemed to be weighing him. He felt it in his bones. Felt it in the pit of his stomach. Felt it in the way his cock suddenly swelled, feelings of passion and fright and simple confusion over what he ought to be feeling warring inside him.
She was quicker to assess him than Kiral, and seemed to come to a more favorable resolution, for as she stared at him, she smiled. At first he thought it might be for his benefit, an act, but he could see some few of the moths turning blue, an effect that looked like the flames of an arcane bonfire lifting toward a midnight sky.
What wouldst t
hou request of me?
“Forgive me,” Ihsan said, “but it seems to me that if one wants to draw the hare from hiding, one doesn’t go blundering about its warren. One lures it. Only then can it be shot through with an arrow.”
A lure . . .
Ihsan nodded.
Yerinde’s eyes flared. For a moment his feelings became markedly stronger. His cock strained against his trousers. Pleasure mixed with pain mixed with worry. He wasn’t even sure Yerinde was aware of the effect she was having on him. Whatever the case, he refused to flinch from it.
A moment later, the feelings subsided. A lure I might grant thee, Yerinde said, but how to measure thine earnestness. Wouldst thou slay the goddess were she standing before thee now?
Ihsan wasn’t sure what to say—this was a strange request, one that could shake the foundations of the desert. Before he could say anything, though, Beşir raised his low, sonorous voice.
“Of course we would.”
Yerinde turned to him, stared into his piercing eyes. Wouldst thou?
The few blue moths shifted black, and Beşir cowered but then seemed embarrassed to have done so. The look on his face hardened.
“Of course,” he said again, practically spitting the words.
Kill one thou lovest?
“I have little love for the goddess.”
It wouldst be different, I promise, were she standing before thee now. She was the last, the one closest to thy mortal hearts. The love long buried within thee, Beşir Adem’ava al Okan, wouldst spring forth. Of this thou must have no doubt.
“My aim would not flinch, goddess. Have no fear of that.”
And yet I do!
The cloud of moths churned around them, their movements wild, almost angry. The goddess waved toward the crowd standing beyond the wall of black moths. An archway was made, and a lone moth flew out. Nearly everyone cowered from it, but there was one, a young woman who’d seen no more than twenty summers, who stood transfixed. Beşir’s daughter, Kara, one of the very few children he’d sired in recent generations. He doted on her, in his own, overly protective way, preparing her, most said, for the role of vizira when she grew older. The moth’s wings changed as it flew toward her; they were now a perfect match to Yerinde’s violet eyes. When it reached her, the moth landed lightly upon her forehead. Its wings flapped lazily, and the woman’s eyes blinked in time, as if the two were now one.
Beneath the Twisted Trees Page 5