The asir lifted its sword to block Lemi’s blow, but the spear, its cutting edge honed by the gods themselves, sheared clean through the pitted steel blade. Only when Lemi’s massive leg kicked the asir backward did Emre realize that the asir’s arm had been cleaved. Blood spurted from the stump, coating the sand in glistening black, and still the asir fought on, managing to grasp Frail Lemi’s breastplate with one arm, pull itself close, and bite through the chainmail hauberk and into his shoulder.
The old man in the mask clapped and danced. Frail Lemi, meanwhile, released a surprised, reflexive sort of bellow that echoed the terror in his eyes. He was deathly afraid of the asirim, which made Emre wonder why he’d attacked one.
Lemi pushed the asir away, clubbed it with the spear’s weighted end, then raised Umber high. The asir scrabbled away, but not nearly fast enough. Frail Lemi brought Umber down hard, skewering the asir, pinning it to the sand. The asir grasped the wooden haft, tried to pull itself along it to reach Frail Lemi. But its strength soon gave out. Black blood oozed from its chest, the stump of its arm, and a dozen other wounds. A dusting of sand fell across its stilling form until it lay its head back and stared sightlessly at the bitter blue sky.
The clapping and dancing of the old man subsided. His gripped hands shivered as if he were caught in the throes of ecstasy. The nobles, meanwhile, recovered themselves, though it was clear from their stiff movements and furtive glances toward the blooming fields that they were shaken. They’d badly underestimated the strength of the asirim.
King Emir, meanwhile, looked from the dead asir, to Frail Lemi, and finally to Emre. His demeanor was no longer one of a lord standing before three beggars, but of begrudging gratitude. “I’ll send my herald on the morrow. We can discuss our common ground then.”
The last thing Emre wanted to do was thank him. Still, he was about to do so—the words were right there on his lips—when King Emir took Haddad’s hand and led her from the platform. To remain silent was an insult, but the king didn’t so much as glance Emre’s way as he left. It was peculiar, his sudden familiarity with Haddad, and at odds with the sort of air he seemed to want to project: one of self-reliance and emotional detachment. He’d been scared by the asir, Emre realized, but more than this, he’d gone to Haddad for comfort.
Emre watched as King Emir led Haddad up the gangplank to his capital ship. As he reached the deck, he suddenly turned and pulled Haddad toward him. She followed the motion willingly, as a lover might, as a wife might: with a smile on her face and her body leaning into his. They kissed, an ardent thing, the sort Emre had felt on his own lips many times as they lay in her bed on Calamity’s Reign.
The two of them broke and strode away, but not before Haddad sent a brief look down toward Emre. Was it regret he saw in her eyes? Defiance? Embarrassment? He couldn’t say, and then she was gone, lost to the angle of the ship’s high deck.
Chapter 30
ÇEDA WAS SITTING IN THE CAPTAIN’S cabin when Melis knocked on the door.
“Come,” she said.
Melis entered, her veil down, a sullen expression on her face.
Çeda took in her dress, which was caked with sand. “Brush yourself off, Maiden.”
Melis looked like she’d been struck by a hammer. She stepped back outside and shook the sand off, a thing any Maiden would have done without thinking before being called to visit with the captain of a navy ship.
“Does this meet with your approval?” she asked as she stepped back inside.
It didn’t, but Çeda let it go. “Take a seat,” she said, motioning to the chair across the desk from her. Only after Melis had taken it and settled herself did Çeda go on. “We’re set to return to Sharakhai.”
“You think I’m unaware?”
“That’s just it. I think you’re focusing on it too much.”
Melis didn’t disagree.
“Sümeya and I have been talking. When we return, we’d like to try to recruit one more to our cause. To understand the lay of the land in Sharakhai. To help us find and free Sehid-Alaz.”
“You want Kameyl,” Melis said, practically spitting the name out, “and you want me to help you.”
“Yes—”
“She’d never join you.”
“Join us you mean.”
Again Melis was silent.
“This is what we need to speak about. I know the asirim have surprised you. I know much has changed for you, in some ways more for you than for Sümeya. But your attitude, your insubordination, cannot go on. You are either committed to our cause or you are not.”
“I’ll not become a member of your tribe, so you can get that idea out of your head right now.”
“This isn’t about the tribe. This is about your doubts. Your fears for your family and Sharakhai. I see them eating away at you. One day they’ll make you flinch, or doubt once too often. I see how the Shieldwives distance themselves from you.”
“I was a Blade Maiden. How else would you expect them to act?”
“If it were simply that, they would treat Sümeya the same way. And they don’t.”
She waited for Melis to say something, anything, to defend herself. When she didn’t, Çeda went on. “You can leave, Melis. You don’t have to come with us to the city. You never did. You can take the skiff and go wherever you will.”
For the first time, Melis showed a bit of the despondence that Çeda knew had been hiding beneath her anger. “I have nothing to return to.”
“I know Sharakhai will be difficult for you.”
But Melis was shaking her head. “I’m not talking about a place. There’s nothing left to me. Nothing except—”
“What?”
“When you and I first met, we spoke of a meeting I had with King Yusam. Do you remember?”
A chill swept through Çeda’s entire body. They’d been scrubbing part of the House of Maidens free of soot after an attack by the Moonless Host. Melis had confided three of Yusam’s predictions about her—and that two of them had already come true. The third, Çeda realized, the one that hadn’t yet come true, was the root of all Melis’s troubles.
“He said you would stand beside a queen,” Çeda said.
“And that I would protect her above all things,” Melis added.
They’d puzzled over that word, queen, wondering if it had somehow meant Queen Alansal of Mirea. Now things had changed in Qaimir, perhaps the vision had referred to Queen Meryam. But the way Melis was looking at Çeda made it clear she thought—or feared—there was a third possibility.
“It cannot be you,” she said flatly.
She thought that Çeda had somehow fulfilled the third vision. And that had broken everything she thought she knew.
“I’m no queen,” Çeda said.
“I thought perhaps a King would die, that his daughter would take his place. That I would serve her faithfully until I was ready to give up my blade.”
“I’m no queen.”
“You know his visions can’t be taken literally,” Melis said.
Çeda knew firsthand how Yusam’s visions often needed deeper reflection to truly understand. And it made her think about all she’d been through, what she’d done with the help of others, and all she still meant to do. She felt a surge of naked ambition coming from Night’s Kiss, which was propped in the corner behind her. She thought it was the sword’s own desires, but realized a moment later it was merely acting as a mirror, feeding off her own emotions.
Part of her, the young woman who’d hidden herself in Sharakhai and worked from the shadows to bring down the Kings, recoiled at the notion of leading a movement—I’m no leader—but another part of her had already accepted the truth. I’m ambitious. What of it? The situation demands it. And with the Shieldwives and the asirim following her, what was she if not a leader?
Queen or not, one of the unfortunate truths about being
a leader was that it gave you no special insights. Such was the case with Melis. Çeda still had no idea how to lure her back into the fold.
“The Kings have earned their fall,” she finally said. She felt like an ox trampling over a flower bed.
“The Kings may have, but you know the histories. The tribes would have killed everyone in the House of Kings whether they were innocent or not. Those in Goldenhill and the Hanging Gardens would be next.”
“I’m not convinced of that,” Çeda said, “but even if you’re right, that’s all the more reason to reach out to the people now. To tell them the true story of the thirteenth tribe.”
Melis threw her hands up in the air. “That would only open old wounds! And even if we somehow convinced the tribes to forgive the Kings of all their transgressions, the people of the west end will not. They’re close to rioting already. If they see a house ready to fall, they’ll storm the gates of Tauriyat and do the work of Malasan and Mirea for them. Everything I’ve come to love will be destroyed.”
“But that’s just it, Melis. It was all built on lies.”
“I know that!” Melis stood, her face red with rage, and drew her shamshir so quickly the ebon steel blurred, a brief shadow in the air between them.
Çeda shivered in surprise, ready to reach for Night’s Kiss, but Melis wasn’t aiming for her. She brought the blade down against the desk, striking with enough force to cut through the top, the drawer beneath, and halfway into the next.
The cabin door flew open, and Sümeya stood in the doorway, her sword drawn. Çeda raised her hand and shook her head as Melis unleashed the last of her pent-up rage with a second, screaming, two-handed chop. She stood there, breathing hard, refusing to look at either Çeda or Sümeya, her former commander. Then she threw down her sword, as if with that one act she could leave it all behind, and stalked from the room.
Sümeya seemed uncharacteristically unsure of herself, of what to do. She’d been battling her own demons. “Do you want me to talk to her?”
Çeda shook her head. “I will.” She picked up Melis’s sword and went in search of her, finally finding her in the bilge, sitting in the darkness on the ballast stones, cross-legged, facing away from Çeda. Çeda left the hatch open, allowing some small amount of light to filter in from above.
“Change was always coming to the desert, Melis.”
“I know.”
“We can help heal it once and for all.”
“I know that too.”
“So lay the past aside. Lay your former hopes for Sharakhai aside with it and look to the future. By the strength of your blade, by your wits, by your courage, we can forge it anew. Let that be the light that guides you, not the darkness of your disappointment.”
Melis was silent for a time. She shifted on the stones, turning to face Çeda as the ship rocked beneath them. Her eyes were lost to the darkness, but Çeda could tell she was looking at her sword. When Çeda held it out to her, Melis accepted it. She held it in both hands, pinching it with her thumbs at the balance point, then lifted it to her forehead as if she were making a promise to the god of war. What sort of promise it might have been, Çeda had no idea. With accustomed ease Melis drove the sword home into her scabbard.
“Rezzan,” she said.
“Rezzan?”
“Rezzan is Kameyl’s nephew. His crossing day comes in eight days and Kameyl wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Çeda sat there, stunned. Melis was offering them a way to reach Kameyl away from the House of Kings. With it came a realization.
“You didn’t tell us about it because you’ve been afraid she’d join us.” If any woman exemplified what it meant to be a Blade Maiden, it was Kameyl, and if she was convinced by Çeda’s story, it would destroy what little hope Melis had of her life returning to normal.
“I know her brother’s estate passably well,” Melis said, “but we’ll want to watch it for a day or two before the celebration.”
Çeda leaned forward and kissed the crown of Melis’s head, and the two of them left the bilge together.
Late that night they anchored and licked their wounds after the sudden battle with the Malasani ships. Miraculously, no Shieldwives had been killed. Only one of the asirim had died, Natise, who’d taken a fatal blow to the head. The rest had escaped with wounds that would heal, including one who had been engulfed in fire pot flames but had miraculously survived.
Çeda lay in her bed in the captain’s cabin, a room she shared with both Imadra and Jenise. The two of them were in the galley with the others, probably drinking araq and singing songs that would be considered bawdy in even the rowdiest shisha dens in Sharakhai. It was the sort of thing women shared only with one another, and Çeda loved them for it.
Part of her wanted to join them—she would put her catalog of such songs to the test against any of the other women—but something about her talk with Melis had put her in a solitary mood. She enjoyed listening, though. Her Shieldwives were becoming a tight-knit group, and it made her proud.
Some time later the cabin door opened. Çeda thought it was Jenise, who often ended her night before the rest, but it wasn’t. It was Sümeya.
“Yes?” Çeda asked.
The silence yawned between them, reminding Çeda of another meeting between the two of them alone while distant songs were sung.
“Come in,” Çeda said. Sümeya did, closing the door behind her, and the roaring claps and laughter were muffled.
The space across from Çeda had two bunks. Sümeya sat on the lower, her hands in her lap.
The last time Çeda had been alone with Sümeya like this, she’d feared for her life. Sümeya had confessed feelings for her. They’d shared their bodies with one another in the desert. Çeda had felt something for Sümeya too, but she’d also used Sümeya to uncover secrets of the Kings. She felt bad about it, but she knew she would do the same all over again. The truth had been too important. It still was.
Moonlight shone through the nearby porthole, bathing Sümeya in spun silver. Her knees were only a short distance from Çeda’s left hand.
Çeda didn’t know whether Sümeya was here to to confess something in anger, put a spark to their unkindled love, or for some other purpose. She wasn’t sure which she preferred, either, so instead of opening her fool mouth and ruining it, she remained silent, waiting for Sümeya to speak.
“Thank you for talking to Melis.” Sümeya’s voice was husky, but not, Çeda thought, from wine or araq. “She needed it.”
“We both did,” replied Çeda. “I’d been avoiding it for too long.”
“Yes.” Sümeya paused. “There are probably a few things we’ve been avoiding as well.”
Çeda swallowed. “Yes.”
“In the desert, on the way to Ishmantep—”
“Sümeya, I’m sorry.” Her voice kept catching like a skirt being snagged by thorns. “I didn’t want to learn of the Kings that way.”
Sümeya laughed. “You didn’t?”
Çeda, glad for the darkness, felt her cheeks go red. “I didn’t want to use you like that.”
Sümeya shrugged. “I would have done the same in your place.”
Feeling her heart leap, Çeda reached out and touched Sümeya’s knee. “No. I didn’t want to use you. You understand?”
Sümeya’s hand reached out, trailed softly over the back of her hand. The sensation traveled all the way up her arm and settled at the nape of her neck. “I understand.”
“Sümeya, I don’t know—” She tried to pull her hand away, but Sümeya took it and refused to let go.
“Sümeya—”
“Çeda, Leorah was right. You need to know when to shut your mouth.” She shifted to Çeda’s bunk and leaned in, stopping only when the two of them were breath to breath. Çeda felt the warmth rolling off her, smelled the scent of her unbound hair.
The distance
closed. Sümeya’s lips pressed warmly against hers.
Just as it had in the desert, Çeda’s heart lifted to be with Sümeya, to have their skin touch, but there were things that needed saying, things she couldn’t let go. “It’s just, things are changing so quickly.”
Sümeya placed kisses along her neck, the pleasure of each adding to the next until Çeda’s eyes fluttered closed of their own accord and she was raking her fingers through Sümeya’s hair. Çeda felt Sümeya’s hot breath against her ear as she spoke. “And what does that have to do with this?”
Çeda breathed, holding herself back, forcing herself to think clearly lest she or Sümeya get hurt. “Melis was so angry. Part of her wants the world back the way it was.”
“And you think I do too. Is that it?”
“Don’t you? Don’t you still love Nayyan?”
“The sands shift, Çeda.” When Sümeya stood and slipped out of her dress, the moonlight revealed dozens of scars along her shoulders and chest, her arms and legs. “Shall we ignore it when it does?” She stood there naked, proud, vulnerable, and wanting. “Should we be swept beneath the dunes?”
In answer, Çeda pulled her light blanket aside and, when Sümeya slipped beneath it, swept it over both of them. The ship was still warm from the day, but the light sheen of sweat on Sümeya’s skin was cool. They lay side by side. Sümeya’s hand slipped along Çeda’s hip, ran down her thigh. Unlike when they’d lain on the sand, Sümeya was taking her time, yet it made the flame of her passion seem all the brighter. She knew where this was headed and was in no rush to get there.
The sheer confidence in the way she leaned in, the way she withheld her touch, sent a host of butterflies fluttering in Çeda’s chest. In those moments, Çeda’s doubts were dispelled; replaced with a desire for Sümeya’s touch that ran the full length of Çeda’s body. When Çeda moved toward her, however, she found Sümeya pulling back, and when Çeda tried again, Sümeya retreated farther, this time with a smile. When Çeda grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her in for a deep kiss, however, Sümeya returned it with the same passion.
Beneath the Twisted Trees Page 31