by Nafiza Azad
Bhavya sits apart from the rest of the gathered people, her face frozen in a benign expression. She talks to no one, and no one dares to talk to her. She wishes she could rage like a hurricane and tear down this gathering composed of mockery and deceit. She would much rather be in her room. The scolding her mother gave her still stings, and she would much rather lick her wounds in peace. But not attending the tea is unheard of. She is the rajkumari of Qirat, and her latest infraction—daring to express an active interest in the Emir—has still not been forgiven or forgotten. Bhavya tries to unclench her hands, which have bunched up the skirt of her ghagra choli, but it’s no use. She can feel people looking at her, whispering about her. Someone laughs, and Bhavya tenses even more. Were they in on the prank Ruchika played on her? Get the princess to humiliate herself as the first phase of a grand plan. The second phase would be luring the lovesick princess to a party with promises to see the object of her affections. Only he wasn’t even invited to the party. Was it fun for them to witness her groveling? Did they laugh at her reaction when she found out about their prank?
Even the social currency afforded her as a sister to the maharajah failed to save her from their malice. She doesn’t matter now that the youngest of her three—two—brothers has finally returned home. He spent the past six months in parts traveling Qirat and spending time on the estates of their many affluent relatives.
Bhavya knows that Aaruv is the Rajmata’s favorite son. Just as she knows that Aarush is the maharajah only because he is the older than Aaruv by two years. Sometimes Bhavya wonders what her life would be like if their oldest brother, Sandeep, was still here. She had adored him. Now he is gone, and she cannot speak about him. None of them can. So he exists in all their silences.
Bhavya looks over at her family, sitting in the center of the gathering. The maharajah is joking with his brother while his wife and the Rajmata look on. Even Jayanti Bua has a smile on her usually dour face. Aaruv is fair-faced and golden-tongued. Bhavya wishes he had stayed away forever.
As if responding to her thoughts, Aaruv looks over at Bhavya and raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t you smile, kaddu? Aren’t you happy your favorite brother has returned? You look even uglier with that sour expression on your face.”
The women titter. Bhavya’s fingernails dig into her palm, the pain letting her maintain her composure. She has learned not to react to Aaruv. He made her childhood hell with the nicknames to mock her plump figure. He made sure she knew at every turn that she is not physically beautiful and, as she grew older, desirable.
“My favorite brother is dead,” Bhavya replies with a sweet smile and is satisfied, briefly, by the abrupt silence that falls on the gathering.
“Bhavya!” Jayanti Bua, as usual, chastises her.
“What did I say that is so wrong, Bua? Why is mentioning Sandeep so wrong? Why do you act as though even his name is forbidden?” Bhavya says hotly, not caring that she is the subject of several displeased looks.
“You are right,” Aarush says gently, successfully defusing the situation.
“I know I am,” Bhavya mutters, deflating. Her elder brother always, always, does this. Agrees with her, trying to correct things but making them worse. She cannot even be angry at him because he means well.
Taking the maharajah’s cue, the rest of the courtiers return to their pleasant conversations. Bhavya deliberately doesn’t look her mother’s way; she doesn’t need to. She can feel her mother’s glare. Instead she looks at Aaruv, who is perusing her with an inexplicable expression on his face.
“What?” Bhavya snaps, very close to her breaking point.
Aaruv is spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of Sanchit Goundar, his wife, daughter, and niece. The man apologizes for his tardiness, citing a collision between two carts on the road as the cause for it. Bhavya keeps her face turned away, refusing to give Ruchika even the dignity of her attention.
The Goundars greet the royal family, and civility forces Bhavya to accord them the minimum respect. She does so but with extreme ill grace.
“Rajkumari Bhavya, your attention, please.”
Bhavya raises her eyebrows at the girl who approaches her. Maya, Sanchit Goundar’s niece, to whose house Bhavya was lured with false expectation. “What is it?”
“You admired the cosmetics I wore at the Deepavali party,” Maya says, and Bhavya flinches. “I brought a selection of some freshly made items for your pleasure.”
Bhavya is interested in spite of herself. Plus, Maya has just offered her an escape from the disgustingly saccharine atmosphere pervading the gathering. She looks at Ruchika, who is hanging on to every word Aaruv is saying with a besotted look on her face.
“You may call Ruchika to accompany us,” Bhavya says grandly, getting to her feet. She makes her excuses and walks to the mahal, leaving the girls to follow.
The call of the desert grows stronger every hour, and when the clock strikes four in the afternoon, Fatima Ghazala decides to stop resisting. After praying Asr in the women’s section at Jama Masjid, she makes her way to the northern city gates. The flow of traffic is steady, and Fatima Ghazala is able to slip out of the city without being stopped by anyone, Ifrit or human. Her oud is a pleasant weight on her shoulder, and her grief is an uncomfortable burden on her heart. Finally outside, without the walls of the city hemming her in, Fatima Ghazala takes a deep breath. Freedom has a smell to it, a taste.
Turning off from the road used by the caravans and other travelers, Fatima Ghazala walks into the desert, thinking, at this moment, of nothing but the sand, the sky, and herself. She has always felt like the desert sings of loss, always loss, and if she stands quietly with her eyes closed, it will grieve her too. At this moment, she needs its consolation. She lost her baba. Now she has lost her sister and the place she called home.
Fatima Ghazala walks for about thirty minutes before choosing a dune at random. She climbs to the top and sits down cross-legged on the ground. She pulls her oud off her shoulder and holds it close for a moment; its weathered exterior feels like home. The only one she has left now. She caresses the strings before playing a taqsim. Her grief translates into the music, and the wind carries the notes away.
Zulfikar is on his way to see Fatima Ghazala when a sense of impending danger rocks him. His mouth grows dry, his hands grow cold, and he almost loses control of his horse. It takes him a moment to realize that the fear he feels is not his own. The fear travels to him through the bond he forged with Fatima Ghazala. Though he concentrates on the bond, Zulfikar cannot see or tell what the cause of this fear is. But he can feel her fire tugging at him. Zulfikar changes direction and rides toward the northern gates. Whether he will reach her in time is a question Zulfikar doesn’t want to answer.
Fatima Ghazala becomes conscious of the Djinn only when she pauses to give her fingers a reprieve. There are three of them, and with symmetrical faces, black hair, and spotless white caftans, they are exceptionally beautiful. But the pupils of their eyes have flooded the white, so their beauty has the taste of a lie and the scent of the monstrous.
Fatima Ghazala slowly gets to her feet as fear, smoky and intrusive, threatens to swallow her. Right behind her fear, however, is defiance. Fatima was terrified of the Shayateen. Fatima Ghazala is not. She is wary, but she refuses to cower before them.
The three Shayateen move to surround her, and one of them, his human form a slender youth, speaks. “Come with us.”
“No.” The answer is far simpler than the question. More absolute too.
“Then die.”
Not today, I don’t think so.” Fatima Ghazala lowers herself into a defensive stance even as she wonders where her confidence stems from. It feels new, but at the same time, it feels as if it has always been a part of her. Just like it feels she has always been Fatima Ghazala whether she knew it or not.
“You cannot win,” the Shaitan, apparently the spokesperson of the three, says.
Fatima Ghazala ignores him. She marks the positions of th
e Shayateen around her and notes their vulnerabilities. Ever since she woke up that day in the ruins, her body has felt like a new landscape she has to learn to traverse. Not on the outside but on the inside. Her strength aside, Fatima Ghazala is aware of a new sleekness to her body, a capacity to wield violence. Fatima Ghazala takes a breath to center herself, and then she moves. Quickly and precisely, she combines the martial arts of southern kalaripayattu Fatima learned along with the skill that seems to be in her fire. Her hands become weapons, connecting with nerves and pressure points until two of the three Shayateen fall. The third one stands in front of her, his sword drawn.
Fatima Ghazala stares at the Shaitan, and all of a sudden, she hears a scream. Her heart lurches, and she clenches her hands before she realizes that it is the past trying to make a claim on her. She doesn’t move her eyes from the monster. Her vision grows cloudy, and once again, she sees a golden word shaping smokeless fire. This time, though, the golden word is corroded black. She cannot read the name as it is in a language she has never come across before. Fatima Ghazala hears the Shayateen approach, but her vision refuses to clear. In desperation, she reaches out and touches the corroded word in the Shaitan’s chest. The Shaitan screams, an unexpectedly shrill sound. Fatima Ghazala is suddenly thrust into the past again, and it takes everything she is to retain her senses. She pulls the name from the Shaitan’s chest. When her vision clears, a column of smokeless fire burns where the Shaitan used to be.
The other two Shayateen, though on their feet now, are frozen. They look from the place their companion used to stand to Fatima Ghazala, as if unable to comprehend what just happened. Fatima Ghazala wonders if they can see the name on the palm of her hand or the column of smokeless fire.
She looks at them and feels her vision begin to cloud again. The Shayateen, perhaps sensing this, flee. Fatima Ghazala, her heart beating furiously, looks at the corroded word in her hand, then at the smokeless fire. Her anger is molten, and she closes her hands around the word. It crumbles, like a leaf giving in to the urges of autumn.
The smokeless fire flares and, in a voice audible only to Fatima Ghazala, shrieks, a sound of terror and surprise. In the next moment, it blinks out of existence.
Fatima Ghazala stares at her hands; the heat that filled her only moments ago is suddenly absent. Instead, she feels a bone-deep sorrow. She took someone’s life, and no matter how much she justifies it, she cannot change this fact. Before she can process this fully, a sound to her left makes her tense again, and she turns, prepared this time.
The Emir stands a distance away from her, breathing hard. His eyes are wide, and his face is flushed. They stare at each other for one charged moment before he takes three steps forward and pulls her into a rough hug. He is shaking. Fatima Ghazala freezes for a moment before she gives in to the embrace and slowly wraps her arms around the Ifrit. Being held by the Emir is … strange but not unpleasant. She smooths her hands down his back and feels him shudder as if the contact hurts him. The embrace lasts only a moment.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, turning away from her. His action is so at odds with the concern in his voice that Fatima Ghazala is nonplussed.
“Do I look hurt?” she asks, and the Emir faces her again. He has an inscrutable expression on his face.
“What happened? Why are you here? What did you do to them?” he asks all at once. He speaks quickly, and his cheeks are tinged with an uncharacteristic pink. Fatima Ghazala wonders if he is embarrassed about embracing her. If the act was going to shame him, why did he do it in the first place?
“The Shayateen attacked me. I thought that was obvious,” she says over her shoulder as she walks to her oud, picking it up. She frowns, examining it for damage. “Initially, they asked me to accompany them somewhere. I refused, and they didn’t like that.”
“How did you defeat them?” the Emir asks next. He sounds cool now. Unaffected.
“Look, I don’t much feel like answering questions at the moment.” Fatima Ghazala abruptly sits down on the sand dune, her back to him. The Emir walks closer, and she senses him hesitating. Then he sits down on the sand next to her, maintaining a proper distance between them. He doesn’t speak, and neither does she, and for a while they sit in silence.
“I am much stronger now than I was before. Physically, I mean. I discovered that today. Are all Ifrit women strong? Are they stronger than Ifrit men?” Fatima Ghazala asks. It occurs to her that she knows very little about the Ifrit.
“The men have greater physical strength, but the women have stronger fires,” Zulfikar replies, but doesn’t offer more information. “Our society is matriarchal.”
“I see,” Fatima Ghazala says. “Can I ask you something?”
The Emir gestures for her to go ahead. She narrows her eyes in thought before asking, “Why did the Ifrit agree to the late maharajah’s terms?” When Zulfikar looks at her, Fatima Ghazala elaborates. “It strikes me as strange, you see? You are arguably the superior of the two species and need not concern yourself with human problems … so why? What do you get out of being here on earth?”
Fatima Ghazala remembers her past self asking Baba the same question once. He hadn’t answered her. Would the Emir be the same? “I don’t know how to explain it in a way that you will understand,” he starts, “but if you’ll humor me, I will try.”
Fatima Ghazala nods.
“We are a people of order. For us, reason and order are akin to worship. I was young when our people first came to earth, a fledgling soldier, so I wasn’t allowed to even entertain ideas of crossing over. You see, human beings exist in a state of chaos. You don’t intentionally create chaos like the Shayateen. You … are chaos. Your short lives, your many relationships, desires, conflicts. For us, bringing peace to your chaos is a reward. It is our nature; we cannot deny it. At least that’s the reason we came to Qirat. The reason we stay is because the desert cities have become our home. The sun has become our sun; its heat has become our heat.”
Fatima Ghazala ponders over his answer for a while. “I see. Can I ask something else?”
“Can I stop you?” the Emir says resignedly.
Fatima Ghazala grins slightly. Then asks anyway, “What happened to me? A week ago, I was Fatima. I didn’t have Djinn fire. Now I’m … what am I? Ifrit? Human? Something in between?” A monster?
Fatima Ghazala feels the Emir’s eyes on her and turns to meet his gaze. He looks at her as if trying to translate her into words of a language he does not yet speak fluently.
“I have only speculations to offer you,” the Emir says softly.
“I will take them,” Fatima Ghazala responds immediately. No one else is offering her any other explanations.
“Names are important to my people. Important in a way they aren’t to humans.” The Emir pauses as if gathering his thoughts. “Our names are the expressions of our best qualities and, on earth, our names are what literally shape us.” Fatima Ghazala remembers the Ifrit soldiers in front of her baba’s bookstore. She remembers their names and how they did exactly what the Emir is saying they do. She nods for the Emir to continue.
“Your name … you already know who Ghazala was.” Fatima Ghazala turns to face the Emir at the past tense, her eyebrows raised in question. “If my speculations are correct, she sacrificed herself while transferring her fire and thus her Name to you.”
“Why would she do that?” A thought occurs to Fatima Ghazala. “Was she my mother?”
“No, you would have had your own fire were you Ifrit,” the Emir answers quickly. “I don’t know what circumstances led her to that decision, but from what I have heard of her, Ghazala was not someone who made rash decisions.”
“If she did as you said, would it affect my blood as well?” Fatima Ghazala remembers the incident eight years ago. “Is Ifrit blood poisonous to the Shayateen?”
“How do you know that?” The Emir is surprised now. Fatima Ghazala hears it in his voice.
“When I was attacked during the massacre, the Shaita
n who touched my blood turned to ash.”
“Did you tell anyone this? Any of the Ifrit, I mean?” the Emir asks, his eyebrows drawing together.
“Of course not. My sister and I didn’t want any attention from the Djinn. Any kind of Djinn.” Fatima Ghazala pulls up the right-hand sleeve of her tunic and shows Zulfikar a pale scar that runs from her elbow to halfway down her arm. The Emir’s lips pull into a straight thin line. “But if I have had Ghazala’s name and fire since I was little, why was I not …” Fatima Ghazala trails off when she suddenly remembers those moments in the dark between sleep and consciousness. In that time right after her baba died. She remembers the golden word; she remembers pushing the name into her chest, right above her heart.
Without realizing it, she reaches over and grabs the Emir’s arm. It is warm under her touch. The Emir looks startled. “I think I Named myself.”
His reaction is more extreme than she anticipated. His face abruptly drains of color. “What do you mean?”
“I remember seeing a golden word; I remember recognizing it as a name. I remember pushing it in this space here!” Fatima Ghazala shows him, tapping the area above her heart. “Can you see my Name?”
“No.” Fatima Ghazala feels her enthusiasm dim at his response. Then the Emir asks, “Can you see mine?”
“Yes.” Fatima Ghazala looks at the name lodged in the Emir’s chest. “Zulfikar: bladed, brimming with heat, clean, and honest. It’s a beautiful name.”
“I see. Tell me, how did you defeat the Shayateen?” the Emir asks. The demand in his tone unsettles Fatima Ghazala.
“I am not bad at physical combat, you know. I think I could have disarmed them all eventually, but”—Fatima Ghazala swallows at the memory of the dead Shaitan—“I pulled the name out of one of the Shayateen. This scared the other two, and they fled. I crushed the Name of the Shaitan. I think that killed him.”