Freedom's Slave

by Heather Demetrios

  When Noqril stood at the bottom of the dune, Zanari’s eyes moved toward the farthest corner of the camp, where a small tent stood on its own, a lamp in the shape of a red star swinging from the pole in front of its flap, which was open. Finally, she thought. Finally.

  Noqril hurried toward the tent, and when he reached its entrance, she took a ragged breath, suddenly nervous. What if Phara had moved on, given up on her? It’d been a year. What if they were just too different—Zanari, temperamental as the wind, Phara as calm as a still lake. A soft humming came from inside and she could hear the sounds of someone moving about in an unhurried late-night routine.

  You just crossed through a portal and fought a battle to get here, she thought. If she doesn’t love you for that, then there’s nothing else you can do.

  Noqril ducked inside. The tent had been re-created so that it looked just as Zanari remembered it. Warm candlelight, the scent of herbs hanging out to dry, a slight medicinal tang. Thick rugs, two beds: one for Phara, another for patients. The humming stopped and the room began to spin and darken around the edges. There was a soft gasp and the thud of something falling to the floor. Then Zanari saw her: golden Shaitan eyes wide, a wooden bowl of sage at her feet, the leaves scattered on the rug. Her dark hair lay over her shoulders, longer now. The white healer’s robes she always wore outlined the soft swell of her breasts, the gentle hourglass of her hips. Phara was the most beautiful thing Zanari had ever seen.

  Before Zanari could get a word out, Phara was across the room. She stood beside her, tears streaming down her face. Every fear that she’d made the wrong decision swept out of Zanari as Phara grabbed her hand and the healer’s chiaan collided with her own. That was all she needed. She smiled.

  “Hey,” Zanari whispered.

  The darkness on the edges of her vision took over and the last thing she saw was Phara’s lips, saying her name.

  Zanari woke to the sounds of early morning in the Dhoma camp: the clank of pots and pans for breakfast, the laughter of children, morning greetings as jinn passed the healer’s tent.

  She was lying on her stomach, her cheek against a pillow that smelled of lavender and sage. The pain in her back had all but disappeared, the agonizing burn now a cool tingle.

  She heard a soft rattle and her eyes traveled to the other side of the tent, where Phara, her back turned, was brewing a pot of tea.

  “Good morning,” Zanari whispered.

  Phara whirled around and a smile broke over her face as she rushed across the room and knelt beside Zanari’s bed. The sight of her was too much: Zanari’s eyes pooled over and Phara reached out, wiping her tears away with the back of her finger, then leaned closer, so close their lips were nearly touching. She smelled just as she always had: roses, the desert—whatever starlight smelled like. How many times had Zanari tried to conjure that scent on lonely nights in Arjinna? She’d been so scared of forgetting it.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” Phara said, the words tumbling out of her. “If you need me to go back with you, I will. I swear it. The moment you went into the Eye, I realized how stupid I’d been and I screamed your name, but you’d all evanesced at once and I was . . . standing in the middle of the desert. You were gone, just . . . gone.”

  Zanari shifted into a sitting position and pressed her lips against Phara’s because she couldn’t wait even a second longer. They were warm and soft and sweet.

  “I’m staying,” Zanari whispered. “Here. With you.” She reached out and ran her hand through Phara’s lustrous black hair, down her neck, stopping at the top button of her rohifsa’s dress. As soon as her back was healed, Zanari would take that dress off and pull Phara into the bed and they wouldn’t get out for days and days and days. “I’m not going anywhere you’re not,” she said.

  The change that came over Phara’s face was instantaneous—startled joy, like a child seeing Arjinna’s aurora for the first time. It felt as though a flock of birds had scattered and taken flight inside Zanari’s chest, soaring.

  “You won’t miss your home too much?” Phara asked, voice trembling.

  Zanari’s jade eyes met Phara’s golden ones. “How can I miss my home when I’m here already?”

  Nalia didn’t know how long she’d been following the phoenix through the Eye, but it’d been a long time. Every now and then she’d call out to Raif, hoping he would come back, hoping he would rescue her this time. But he never did.

  The nectar of the heart plant burned through her, a scorching river that turned the universe inside out, stars below, sea above. Despite her longing for Raif, she was somehow filled with a sense of well-being, cradled in the palm of a god’s hand. Her spirit flew outside her body, dancing, leaping beyond the borders of self, connected to the source of chiaan, her very essence infused with the breath of the universe, all time and space flowing through her; she was infinite.

  Bright lights that undulated like a storm-tossed sea suddenly appeared before her, thrown into the Eye like confetti. Rainbow prisms shot out of the dead earth. Sweet delirium. She began to spin, faster and faster, a whirling dervish, her arms outstretched, welcoming the shower of light. This was different. Not her usual day in the Eye.

  A road appeared, the gray floor of the Eye dissolving, those awful clouds of hopelessness blowing away, revealing the underneath: a soft, tissue-like substance, flesh of the worlds, raw and pulsing. The white phoenix settled on her shoulder, a delicate weight despite her size, and together they floated down the road, wingless flight. The phoenix’s light surrounded Nalia, as though she were in the center of a crystal that shimmered, a torch.

  The phoenix sang the old songs, her trill manna from the gods. They traveled for days and days, not stopping to rest for long periods of time, as they usually did. Though Nalia was still wrapped in the warm arms of the heart plant, the phoenix placed more leaves on her tongue. Nalia could feel the evil on the other side of the Eye more strongly with each passing day: Arjinna, crying out to her, a wordless call that settled deep inside her, a burning heaviness that grew and grew.

  Home, she would say to the phoenix.

  Not yet. This reply would always be in the form of a song, sometimes familiar, sometimes not.

  Nalia began to grow feverish: something was changing—she could feel the shift in their journey. She was hot, then cold, and once her heart stopped altogether. Sometimes there was music—old serf tunes played by an invisible musician.

  Sometimes Nalia sang along. Three widows weeping all the night, three widows lost their hearts. Three widows mourn the suns that died, their once and only loves.

  She thought she saw Arjinna’s three moons and she ran, gray dust kicking up all around her, Nalia’s hands reaching out and up, only to see them suddenly disappear. She stared in the direction they’d gone, her heart cracking and breaking because Raif Raif Raif.

  “Raif,” she said out loud, the sound of her voice strange—faint and shattered.

  For so long Nalia had stopped when the phoenix stopped, and when the bird rested, she rested. She’d lost all sense of time.

  After several days or months or years, she didn’t know, the dead empresses of Arjinna joined her on the road, a silent caravan of souls.

  One by one they approached her from the darkness, the Amethyst Crown gleaming on each of their heads, shimmering diadems that helped light the way. Each regarded Nalia as silently as the phoenix. Nalia recognized them from her years of study, engravings in the stone of the palace come to life.

  Then: a beam of light that shot up so high Nalia couldn’t see where it ended. Faint at first, then brighter. Far away, high on a blackened hill, a tree hovered above the earth, suspended in midair, white light pooling beneath and above it. Its branches twisted and curved like thick vines, and each of its many leaves hung like golden fruit.

  Tree of life, tree of wisdom, tree of untold power, sang the phoenix.

  “B’alai Lote,” Nalia breathed. The Great Lote, yet another legend come to life.

  Despite th
e incredible things she’d seen and done, this was perhaps the most impossible of them all. The old stories spoke of a lote tree with leaves made of pure gold, a tree that gave those who found it wisdom. It held the secret of existence in its very branches, and its sap was capable of healing all ailments. She had seen it countless times, but only as a symbol: its likeness was carved into the wall behind the Ghan Aisouri throne.

  Nalia followed the phoenix, and when she settled beneath the branches on a patch of soft, black sand, Nalia did the same. The tree glowed all around her, emitting a constant, almost indiscernible sigh. Nalia rested her palm against its smooth bark. It was warm, and beneath it, she could feel the unmistakable pulse of a beating heart.

  As each empress approached her, Nalia sat, cross-legged, a silent initiate in the mysteries of power. One by one the empresses placed an index finger against the space between her eyes—the third eye. Each time, she felt a tingling, burning sensation and then she would fall deep into whatever memory the spirit before her wished to pass down to Arjinna’s next empress.

  Eila, the first Aisouri empress, looks out over a wide plain in the Djan Valley, her eyes full of violet fire. Dark smoke rises up from the Qaf Mountains. Below, the castes fight one another, brutal tribal conflicts over grains of wheat and bits of rock.

  “We are the only ones who can stop this,” Eila says to the Aisouri. “Why else would we be given such vast power? It is the will of the gods that we bring peace to this land. We are their daughters.” She turned to the violet-eyed soldiers behind her. “It is time to take our inheritance.”

  Hazal stands before the Ifrit shirza, a jade dagger in her hand. The throne gleams behind her, the Amethyst Crown glitters on her head. “Trespass on our land again and I will not be so kind.”

  She slits the throat of the woman beside the shirza, and he howls with grief as his rohifsa’s blood spills across the marble floor.

  Gisaem stands before a young Aisouri. Nalia would recognize the girl anywhere. “Antharoe, you must get that ring. Hide it where it will never be found.”

  Luxel, weeping over the body of a beaten serf. “This must stop,” she says to the gryphon beside her.

  “It is the only way to control them, My Empress.”

  They came, fifteen in all, young and old, all radiating an ancient, deadly power. The memories of their rule flowed through Nalia, filling her with grief and revulsion, awe and terror. The past lay before her, a living thing. Malleable.

  The last empress knelt before Nalia and took her hands in her own. Nalia gasped when she saw her face. Antharoe did not speak, though her eyes were fixed on Nalia’s. She leaned forward, kissing each of Nalia’s palms, then twined her fingers through Nalia’s so that their palms pressed against one another. Antharoe’s chiaan pulsed through her, a power so vast that Nalia was certain she wouldn’t survive the exchange. Her Aisouri tattoos began to glow and as they did Antharoe leaned forward, her lips touching Nalia’s, filling her with breath. And Nalia understood: this was a coronation, a passing of the torch.

  “It was never supposed to be me!” she cried. “I was the only one to survive. I wasn’t chosen, I’m not worthy.”

  Who would have ruled if the Ghan Aisouri had not been slaughtered that night over three summers ago?

  No matter: one by one the empresses fell to their knees and bowed their heads. Before Nalia could say another word, they disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the faint scent of amber.

  The phoenix rose into the air, hovering. Nalia stood.

  “What?” she yelled. “What do you want from me?”

  Wisdom favors the humble, she sang. Wisdom favors the brave.

  Nalia stared at the lote tree, helpless. The phoenix drew closer; then her beak darted toward Nalia’s wrist. Nalia cried out as a sharp pain shot up her arm and blood dripped from her wrist onto the tree’s roots. The lote shivered, a conscious creature that beckoned her closer as a sudden gust of wind pushed her from behind.

  Her forehead fell against one of the tree’s thick roots that dangled toward the sand. Darkness overtook Nalia, but this sleep was an awakening. She could feel herself growing, expanding, stretching beyond all limits of existence. Suddenly she was the tree, roots pushing deep into the center of the worlds, floating upon a river of light. As Nalia peered into the clear waters of the river’s undulating waves, she saw her life, droplets of water in a fast-moving current: the past, the present, the future all roiling together, Arjinna hanging in the balance. The Three Widows, each one full and blazing. A wall of water stretching over the land. Shadows and death and an end if she was not its beginning. An obsidian palace and rivers of fire. Ash and blood. She saw herself planting a seed with Raif by her side. The seed became a tree, its roots extending in all directions, traveling deep under Arjinna. Nalia felt the burn of a new set of shackles encircling her wrists, the weight of a crown on her head.

  Daughter of the gods, awake.

  She bolted upright with a gasp. Suspended in the air above her was a single golden seed. Nalia reached out and plucked it from the air. It glowed on her palm, pulsing with life. She studied it for a long moment. As she went to secure the lote tree’s gift in the small pouch at her waist, she paused, staring at the transformation she had undergone while under the lote’s spell. Gone were her bloodied rags that smelled of evil filth. Nalia now wore the purple sawala of the Aisouri, palace clothing made of gossamer sea silk.

  She looked up. The phoenix sat on a branch of the tree, waiting. Nalia frowned, the dream still inside her, more than memory. She bent her forehead to the tree in thanks, and its chiaan flowed into her, gifting Nalia with its wisdom. She once again saw herself planting the seed, feeling the rush of chiaan and the weight of the crown on her head, the bite of shackles as they braceleted her wrists.

  The tree.

  The crown.

  The shackles.

  What did it mean? Then she felt a tug, so like Malek’s summons that it was uncanny.

  Arjinna.

  Arjinna.

  Arjinna.

  Nalia rested her hand on her stomach. The tug became stronger, like an excited child pulling her hand. It was impossible, unbelievable. But soon there was no doubt.

  Arjinna was summoning her.

  28

  SHIRIN STOOD ON A THIN LEDGE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF the Qaf range, her hair blowing behind her in the gust of sulphuric wind that howled past. To the west lay the prison compound that held the Dhoma and countless other innocent jinn. In a matter of minutes, Shirin would be evanescing to its stone gate. Her chiaan skittered through her, ready for the rush of a fight.

  The clouds covering the moons finally drifted away and Shirin stared at the sky, open-mouthed. Each of the Three Widows was full, like overripe fruit that dangled from invisible branches.

  “Holy gods and monsters,” she breathed.

  The Godsnight. An ancient prophecy no one ever thought would come true was somehow unfolding tonight, of all nights. Shirin wasn’t sure if it was perfect timing or the end of all time. She’d grown up with the stories of how someday the gods would return to Arjinna, their messenger the Widows themselves. Not in all of jinn history had the three been full on the same night, so there was no mistaking the sign.

  A shiver crawled over Shirin’s skin. Had Calar brought this upon them with her abominations? The Sadranishta made it clear that whatever the gods had in store for them was going to be bad. The jinn holy book did tend to exaggerate, but even a tamer version of “destruction leads to life anew” didn’t bode well for any of them. The prophecy had come from a seer over a hundred thousand years ago. The Godsnight, according to the seer, would be a night of magic unlike any the realm had ever seen, disaster and potential wrought from the phenomenon of all three moons being full at the same time. But the holy book hadn’t been written by the gods, it’d been written by jinn, so who knew what was actually going to happen? Perhaps the whole thing was just a pajai taking artistic license. The temple priests weren’t known for their lite
ral interpretations of the universe. Then again, plagues will tear the land asunder was another part of the prophecy that, if not true, was unnecessarily overdramatic. If the seer who’d seen the Godsnight in a vision all those centuries ago had interpreted his vision correctly, then the realm—and everyone in it—was screwed.

  The tavrai were always superstitious before a battle—this did them no favors. Shirin needed her soldiers to be focused, to be swords themselves. She was always telling them not to overthink, to stay out of their heads and in their bodies, aware of every breath, every muscle’s movement, how they held their scimitars, how they replenished their chiaan. But all the training in the worlds wasn’t going to make her soldiers suddenly forget the gods might be smiting them at any moment.

  She scanned the scene below. The Brass Army waited in the shadows on the Ithkar side—just over a thousand jinn, all that was left after a year of living among Calar’s shadows. Behind her, on the Arjinnan side, stood another thousand jinn—tavrai and any other jinni who could stand on two legs and wanted to fight.

  To the east, she could just make out the spires of the Cauldron in the moons’ bloody, sulphur-tinged light. Raif was a fool for thinking Arjinna could be one big happy jinn family. The Ifrit weren’t suddenly going to become just and good because Calar was gone. They’d spent centuries killing the Djan, the Marid. And they hated the Shaitan just as much as Shirin did. Raif kept saying that this—tonight—would be the last battle of the war. But Shirin knew better. It would be the last battle of this war. The next war would start tomorrow, when the Ifrit decided they still wanted to be in power.

  But who would Raif be if not an idealist?

  Raif. How many times had she prayed to the gods to take away her love? Though he’d certainly warmed up to her, even allowed, in recent months, the few times she’d dared to be affectionate, she knew he was far from giving her his heart. But she didn’t need his whole heart, much as she wanted it. Shirin wished she had the guts to tell Raif that even if he could only ever give her a tiny fraction of the love he felt for his Aisouri, that would be enough. He would never get over Nalia, she knew that. She’d be insane to think otherwise. But Nalia was gone and Shirin was here. She held on to the memory of what had happened last month—briefly perfect and endlessly painful and something that still gave her hope, even when it shouldn’t.