“How can you call them innocent? One of them killed a dozen men in a blink. It nearly killed Emir!”
“The asirim were defending themselves. Defending their home, which your king was burning.”
“If you think they should be left alone as the army moves into Sharakhai—”
“That’s exactly what I think. The asirim are at the beck and call of the Kings, but some have weakened over time or become dormant after taking tributes in the city—”
“Drinking the blood of the innocent, you mean.”
“Because they’re forced to, Haddad. They’re compelled.”
“Aren’t they holy warriors? Who gave their lives to protect Sharakhai?”
The chair creaked as Emre leaned forward. “You were there when the wights were summoned from Mesut’s bracelet. You saw how they fought the Kings. You saw Kerim as well. Those were my people, and so are those who lie trapped beneath the adichara.”
Haddad sneered. “You don’t know who your people are. You told me yourself.”
He pointed beyond the ship, toward the blooming fields. “Haddad, you may justify it however you like, but those are people out there, and they’ve suffered enough. Most of the asirim have already been summoned by the Kings. Do you know who’s left? Those weakened by time, or grief, or by the wounds they’ve sustained in slavery to the Kings.”
“You call what happened yesterday weakened?”
“Or those addled by time. Or too lost in their grief. My point is that you’re killing innocents.”
“It’s war, Emre.”
Now it was Emre’s turn to sneer. “You would hide behind that as an excuse for murder?”
She paused, lost in thought or worry or both. When she spoke, it was with a softness that was so rare Emre knew she was convinced. “He won’t stop simply because I ask him to.”
“Then don’t simply ask. Make him see that burning the adichara isn’t worth it. Make him see that they’ll remain there if they’re left alone.”
“They’re dangerous, Emre. The Kings could still use them against us.”
“If that were true, the Kings would already have done so, or would have sent them against the Mirean fleet.” Haddad was unsure of herself, so before she could say anything more, Emre went on. “Leaving the asirim alone would mean much to Macide in our coming talks.”
It wasn’t much of a bargaining chip—by now King Emir knew how weak the thirteenth tribe was—but he also knew that Macide, its shaikh, held sway in the desert. Dayan had been convinced to join them. At least five tribes had banded together, and that number was only likely to grow. The alliance might soon account all thirteen tribes among its members, or a good many of them in any case, and Macide would be chief among them for having begun the process. Making friends with him now could pay dividends for generations.
Haddad stood and opened the door. “I’ll try, Emre.”
He stood and was about to head for the passageway but paused when it seemed Haddad was about to speak. She opened her mouth several times, but then seemed to settle her internal debate with a sharp nod. “He’ll listen to reason.”
He was almost certain that wasn’t what she was originally going to say, but let it pass without comment. Her sudden change of mood reminded him of another thing that had been bothering him. “Who is the priest to you?”
“The priest?”
“The one in the golden mask. Shonokh?”
She blinked several times. Her cheeks flushed, a girl caught with her hand in the candy jar. “He’s the high priest of Tamtamiin.”
Of course, Emre thought. He remembered at last the passages Çeda had read to him about the god from her illuminated book. Tamtamiin was both male and female, the god of a thousand hearts, a protector who’d given birth to the bounty in the fields and forests of Malasan; and mercurial, a goddess tame as a summer glade, angry as a wounded wolf, fickle as the autumn winds.
“He seemed smitten with you,” Emre said, recalling how he’d tugged at her sleeve and whispered to her on Emir’s wooden platform.
She shrugged. “He always has been, since I was a child.”
“Perhaps he could help you to convince your king. Are the ways of Tamtamiin not the ways of peace, after all?”
At this, some of the fire in Haddad’s eyes returned. “I hardly need you to teach me the tenets of my faith, Emre.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” he said, and left Calamity’s Reign under the sour gaze of her first mate.
Chapter 37
THE EARLY EVENING AIR was warm as Çeda climbed onto deck from the Red Bride’s hold. Nearby, Jenise and another Shieldwife had bows at the ready, arrows nocked. “Is all ready?”
Jenise nodded, at which point Çeda whistled the signal for advance and walked down the gangplank to the sand. Night’s Kiss hung from her belt rather than River’s Daughter. The sword seemed eager for the scene it knew was about to play out, which was about as perfect a response as Çeda could have hoped for.
The sky was a vast well of azure blue that gave way to a host of purples and pinks in the west. Tulathan, suspended above the eastern horizon like a watchful eye, was nearly full. Not the best of omens, Çeda thought, but she and Mavra had agreed that dusk would be best. It was when the asirim’s minds were most active.
Fanned out in a circle ahead of Çeda were the other five Shieldwives, each wearing their sand-colored dresses, each with shamshirs and bucklers at the ready. Çeda nodded to them, then turned to find Husamettín emerging from the hold, his hands tied behind his back. The same rope was looped around his neck, the slipknot ready to cinch should he begin to struggle.
Melis followed closely behind the King, one hand gripping the rope around his neck, the other her drawn shamshir. She pushed Husamettín down along the gangplank, then brought him to a halt before Çeda with a sharp tug on the rope.
Husamettín took in the women around him, his face a wreckage of cuts and bruises, then stared at Çeda, waiting with the sort of calm that came with centuries of walking the earth. “Is my other daughter afraid to face me?”
“By the time we’re done,” Çeda said, ignoring his comment, “I will have two things from you: first, how best to approach Sehid-Alaz’s cell through your palace, and second, whether Sehid-Alaz’s condition is truly irreversible. I would rather you gave us this information of your own free will. I meant what I said. It isn’t too late for you to help save Sharakhai. Give me this, Husamettín, and erase some of the stain on your honor.”
Husamettín’s dark eyes peered into hers. “If that’s truly what you wish”—his words were slurred, evidence of the broken jaw, courtesy of Çeda’s boot—“then you’re wasting your time.”
“‘It is the smallest of men who clings to lies in hope that they might save him.’ Isn’t that what the Al’Ambra says? All you’ve stood for has been a lie, Husamettín. Correct it. Correct it before you pass beyond these shores, and give life to those you’ve wronged.”
Çeda thought she’d miscalculated his willingness to speak. She felt certain he’d decided against it, choosing instead to let them torture him. But she needed him to speak. Everything depended on it. She was ready to threaten him when his nostrils flared and he regarded her with a new intensity.
“They have life.” The shadows of dusk played strangely against the muscles along his neck. His eyes were reddened and watering, a small glimpse into the pain his broken jaw was giving him. “They have purpose. Given to them by the gods themselves.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“You wish to quote verses?” His eyes were fiery, his expression intense. It was the most emotion she’d ever seen from him. “‘Let not your heart blind you to what you know is right. Let not a thousand die when one brave soul might take their place.’”
He would have her believe that the asirim had acted as heroes, saving Sharakhai when
the tribes had banded against it. Despite herself, despite knowing the stakes of this conversation, Çeda felt her emotions ready to boil over. Draw me, came a voice. Let me taste his blood. She quelled the sword’s urges immediately. She’d come to know its moods, and that to give in to her emotions made it all the more difficult to think clearly. With a deep inhalation, she calmed herself. “You would stand before me and say the asirim acted bravely?”
“Our cause was just!” Husamettín swallowed hard, an act that took long moments to recover from. “If the gods came to me today and promised they would save Sharakhai from her aggressors, I would do it all again.”
“You would give up your brothers and sisters again?”
“The city was ready to perish! You claim compassion drives you, yet you ignore the fact that everyone in Sharakhai would have died. Suad, the Scourge of Sharakhai, master of all twelve tribes—”
“Thirteen,” Çeda said.
Husamettín’s eyes burned at her. “You claim to know so much. But you don’t know what it was like. Suad killed everyone—everyone!—in every caravanserai on his way to Sharakhai. None were left to flee. Mothers, daughters, sons. The old, the sick, the infirm. They were all put to the sword, their bodies defiled in mass burnings. I saw them with my own eyes. He would have taken the city and killed everyone, including your precious tribe!”
“You admit it, then, that against their will you gave the thirteenth tribe to the gods?”
“They became heroes!”
“No!” Çeda stabbed one finger at him as she spoke. “They were lambs, sacrificed on an altar of your making!”
“They saved countless others!” Husamettín was shouting now, but he halted when he heard a hollow wooden thump behind him. He turned and saw, beneath the ship, the lower hatch swinging free. Through the opening dropped an impressive woman in a dress of blue and bronze.
It was Kameyl.
As she strode forward, dumbstruck, Sümeya dropped from the ship just behind her. Kameyl stepped over the starboard ski, her eyes fixed on Husamettín. The Shieldwives parted for her with a reverence that surprised Çeda. Kameyl bore no weapon. She was in the same dress she’d worn on her brother’s estate. And yet she looked more powerful than any woman here.
After Kameyl had woken, it had taken a full day for her to agree to this one meeting with Husamettín where she would conceal herself from him and listen, and make her judgments from there. Husamettín turned halfway toward her, taking her in with no small amount of confusion. He looked to Çeda, then back to Kameyl, and understanding dawned on him: Kameyl had been listening the entire time, and now one of his most ardent supporters knew the truth.
His face turned angry and red. Kameyl, meanwhile, met Husamettín’s eyes and spoke two words—they were simple, but felt like a punch to the throat.
“You lied.”
Husamettín had that look of righteousness about him, as if he thought himself a brother to the desert gods, an equal.
“All of you lied,” Kameyl went on, “about all of it.”
“We didn’t lie, Kameyl Beşir’ava. The asirim are our holy avengers.”
Kameyl shook her head and chose her own quote from the Al’Ambra. “Thou shalt not suffer your neighbor to keep a man against his will.”
Husamettín’s brow creased. “And who do you think the wise women were quoting when they first penned the Al’Ambra! It was the desert gods themselves, the very same gods who laid the burden upon the asirim!”
Kameyl, nearly of a height with Husamettín, looked over his shoulder to Sümeya. Holding out her hand, she said, “Give me your knife.” Sümeya looked to Çeda, but the moment she did, Kameyl shouted at the top of her lungs, “Give it to me!”
When Çeda nodded, Sümeya took her kenshar from its sheath, flipped it in one easy motion and handed it to Kameyl.
Kameyl snatched it and grabbed Husamettín’s pepper gray hair with her free hand. She wrenched his neck back, then lifted the knife and brought it toward his forehead. When Husamettín resisted, she slipped her arm around his neck and flipped him over her hip and down to the sand so violently that a whoosh of breath escaped his lungs. She followed his movements effortlessly, straddling him while retaining her grip on his hair.
He strained mightily at his bonds, but the rope around his neck was already tight and his own movements were only making it worse. Kameyl ignored his struggles, his reddening face and the bulging veins in his neck. Using the tip of the kenshar, she began to carve lines into the oily skin of his forehead. An arc. A line. Three bloody points.
Husamettín’s face was a study in pain and anger and rage-filled impotence. But Kameyl would not be denied. She continued to carve his skin until she had completed the symbol. The ancient sign for deceiver. It was a shameful sign in the desert. Only the sins of rape and murder ranked higher.
By the time she was done, blood was pouring down Husamettín’s face. She rolled off him and pulled him up by his hair, allowing all to see what she’d done. After wiping the bloody tip of the knife on his surcoat, she handed it back to Sümeya, then turned to face Çeda.
“Call them,” she said. “I know where to find Sehid-Alaz, but you’ll need your own answers when it comes to lifting the curse the King has placed on him.”
Çeda looked beyond the circle of Shieldwives. “Come, Mavra. It’s time.”
A dozen paces distant, the sand churned. Shapes lifted. Ungainly Mavra came first, then tall Sedef and limber Amile and all the rest. The Shieldwives backed away as the asirim approached Husamettín. Most stopped a few paces away, surrounding the King in a rough circle as Kameyl, Çeda, Sümeya, and Melis gave them room. Mavra, however, continued until she stood just before him.
For the first time, Husamettín seemed afraid. Truly afraid. An unseen battle was being waging between him and the asirim. He was trying to command them to attack Çeda and the others, and they were resisting.
“Halt.” The blood running down his face made him look like a speaker for the dead, a mouth for those who’d already reached the farther fields. “Halt!”
The skin of his face, stained crimson, began to quiver as he struggled to reassert his power over them. But he couldn’t. Their bonds had been reforged. The old ones still existed, but the ritual they’d completed with the Shieldwives eclipsed them. Helping them was the fact that the women they’d bonded with stood just behind them, lending them support, which prevented Husamettín from inveigling his way into their minds as he’d done with so many asirim.
Mavra stood before Husamettín. She reached up and took his head in both hands. He tried to resist, but Mavra’s grip was undeniable. She called upon her centuries of anger, her sorrow, and drew Husamettín’s head inexorably toward her. Then she licked the wound Kameyl had lain upon his brow.
Husamettín’s head arched back, as did Mavra’s, her movements a twin to his. A rush of anger and regret and blood thirst swept over Çeda and the Shieldwives like a malediction. The asirim wailed, and Çeda had the urge to moan along with them, but this ritual was for them alone, so she and the Shieldwives remained silent. The asirim craned their necks, their bodies contorted—movements brought on by their bottomless sorrow and the bitter exultation that accompanied the very notion of taking, after all these years, something, anything, from the Kings.
The closest thing in Çeda’s experience was the last time she’d held her mother’s hands in Dardzada’s apothecary. It had been in those moments before Ahya pulled free and slapped Çeda for disobeying her. The memory was a mix of misery and fear and pain and a desperate sort of love, and yet Çeda cherished it for the simple fact that it was the last time they’d touched.
Husamettín bared his bloody teeth. His breath rushed harshly through the gaps, sending red spittle spraying over the blackened skin of Mavra’s face. His struggles had weakened, but Mavra still held him tight. Çeda could feel her digging deep, heedless of the pai
n she caused, heedless of the state she might leave him in. She wanted only one thing, an answer to the riddle Çeda had set for her: How could they free Sehid-Alaz once they found him?
The moments stretched. The sun set. Tulathan, indifferent to the pain of the King she’d sworn to protect, trekked across the sky.
Please, Çeda prayed, let her find a way.
When Mavra finally released Husamettín, he collapsed to the sand and lay there, unmoving. Each noisy breath lifted small clouds of dust and sand before his lips. He sounded like an old man weeping in bed, trying to hide his shame from his wife.
Mavra limped toward Çeda, looking as though she bore the weight of the desert upon her broad shoulders, and spoke in a reedy whisper. “It’s time for you to go to Sharakhai, daughter of Ahyanesh.”
Çeda hardly dared to speak. “You’ve found a way?”
“I’ve found a way. Free Sehid-Alaz, and together we will lift his curse.”
Chapter 38
ON A PLAIN OF DARKEST GLASS lies Ramahd Amansir. Silver Tulathan and golden Rhia are coins affixed to a velvet sky. Scree blows across the brittle ground with a sound like a fine Mirean wind chime. There comes a distant sound, rhythmic, pounding. It drums up memories of a terrible beast with jaundiced eyes, but when Ramahd stands and draws his sword he sees but a frail feminine form striding toward him.
“You cannot hide forever, Ramahd.”
“I don’t need to, Meryam.”
“Oh?” She stops some ten paces distant and unfurls a whip with two barbed tips. “And why is that?”
“Do you suppose the news of your betrayal will remain hidden from the Kings forever?”
“Forever?” Her smile widens, grim beneath the light of the twin moons. “No, Ramahd. Not forever.”
With that her arm snaps forward. Ramahd is ready, however, and cuts the whip. Its two severed ends fly through the air like snakes, but the whip mends itself. The braided leather regrows, this time with three heads. She uses it to strike again. Ramahd slices the whip over and over, and each time it divides and regrows its length.
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