The Candle and the Flame

by Nafiza Azad

  Zulfikar lets himself into the room quietly. Two candles burn on the table by the bed; the rest of the room is dark. He moves to the bed, and there she is, sleeping deeply, with her arms around a pillow. Her hair is unbound; it is the second time Zulfikar has seen it this way, and unable to help himself, he picks up a lock of her hair. She stirs at his touch, and her eyes open. She sits up. Their eyes meet. She smiles at him. Zulfikar surrenders to himself and kisses her. He cups her face with his hands and loses himself to her taste. She touches him cautiously; he feels her fingers skim his face as if scared to touch him properly, so he catches hold of her hand and kisses each finger, assuring her of her right to him.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” he says softly.

  “You don’t have to apologize. I understand that you have a lot to do as the Emir,” she says, her voice colored with sleep. “Have you eaten?”

  Before Zulfikar can reply, a knock sounds on their door: an unwelcome and insistent sound. Zulfikar looks down at Fatima Ghazala’s face, soft in the candlelight, and kisses the tip of her nose before leaving to see who would dare disturb the Emir on his wedding night.

  Mansoor is at the door with an apologetic look on his face. Zulfikar knows before he speaks what the soldier’s words are going to be. He hears him through and closes the door, wishing he could bar it against the world. But alas, he can’t. He returns to his bride to find her waiting for the news with a pensive look on her face.

  “The Raees demands to cross over now. She doesn’t know if she can resist the taint much longer. It’s no longer safe for her to be in Tayneeb. If she loses control, she will lay waste to the city,” Zulfikar says. He hates the thought of asking her to risk herself in this way. But there is no other choice left to him. How can he justify his selfishness when his people, his very world, is at risk? Fatima Ghazala must sense the conflict within him because she lays a hand on his arm.

  “You do not need to feel responsible for any of this, Zulfikar. I gave my word to my baba that I will do what it takes for his story to continue. I would Name the Raees whether you were here or not,” she says. “More importantly, do you think the bond will have affected my fire already?” Fatima Ghazala gets up from the bed and disappears into the dressing room, leaving the door open so they can converse.

  “I don’t know,” Zulfikar says, hating that he doesn’t.

  She is silent; he can feel her thinking. She’s not scared—no, that’s the wrong word. She is resigned. She appears in the doorway of the dressing room, dressed in a long-sleeved purple tunic and matching shalwar, a pale yellow dupatta around her head.

  “This is not something I can walk away from so whether I face it now or a week from now makes little difference. And, if this doesn’t end well, maybe it will make a difference? I don’t know. The point is, we don’t have a choice.” She smiles slightly, and Zulfikar is tempted to flee into the night with her, leaving behind both their responsibilities. She must have read his thoughts because her smile deepens into a grin.

  “Fatima Ghazala, I …” Zulfikar starts to say but trails off. What can he say? How can he reassure her of his love when he isn’t sure of it himself?

  “It is all right. I understand,” she tells him, straightening her shoulders. “Let’s go.”

  No clouds obstruct the night sky, which is crushed full of stars gathered, Fatima Ghazala tells herself, to see her succeed. Or fail. The stars aren’t very particular as long as they get to witness a spectacle. She walks beside Zulfikar silently. They stopped by the kitchen before continuing to the fire pit behind the barracks. Fatima Ghazala indulged in a plate full of leftover wedding mithai. The sugar helps.

  It is almost midnight. Three Ifrit soldiers, including Mansoor, stand on the far side of the fire pit. Their faces, lit by the flames, paint them as the otherworldly beings they are.

  Fatima Ghazala turns to Zulfikar. “I need to do this alone.”

  His lips part to protest, but he stops before speaking. He nods once and moves to stand with the soldiers. Not that the distance between them makes any difference. She can feel his presence through the fire bond. What will happen to Zulfikar, Fatima Ghazala wonders, if she does not make it through this Naming? Widowed on his wedding day. How will death feel? Her palms are slick with salt. If only Firdaus were here, she wouldn’t need to be.

  Without hesitating any longer, Fatima Ghazala sends a quick prayer to the Creator and opens her mind to possibilities and infinities. She is ready when the tickle in her mind announces the Raees’s presence and turns to face the tall column of smokeless fire. Her heart thunders at the sight, and fear almost steals the ground from her feet. Then she feels Zulfikar’s fire tug at hers, and suddenly he is next to her, if not in flesh then in mind. His strength bolsters hers.

  Fatima Ghazala walks closer to the column of fire and plunges both hands into its depths without giving herself time to consider the fallacies of her actions. The heat hits her immediately, and she feels her fire resist, barely, the urge to burn. She tries to coax the pieces of the Raees’s name to her, but they resist too. For a moment, she despairs, but then a sudden and strange knowing, a power both old and new, fills her. Zulfikar’s fire gives hers the strength it was lacking. She commands the pieces of the Name to her, and they, newly biddable, obey.

  The Raees’s Name is in five pieces, and all of these are almost entirely covered by the same slimy black substance that the Shayateen Names Fatima Ghazala saw in the desert were covered with. She grabs one piece, illegible for the taint covering it. In her hands, the blackness changes texture and flakes off. Fatima Ghazala cleans the pieces as much as she can. She works quickly, aware that the heat may consume her before she can finish. The Raees’s memories are complex and fascinating, but Fatima Ghazala cannot afford to linger; she is almost past the point of her endurance. Mostly clean, the pieces read mother, leader, honor, pride, and family. Together, these pieces form the Name Zafirah. Fatima Ghazala takes this Name, rises on her toes, and pushes it into the region of the heart in the column of the smokeless fire. Done, she retreats three steps and becomes aware of the excruciating pain in her burnt and blistered hands. The pain is a relief; it reassures her that she is still alive.

  Someone’s eyes are on her. When she looks up, she sees an Ifrit woman where the column of smokeless fire used to be. The Ifrit woman has a thin face and a glowering expression. Fatima Ghazala is thinking that the Raees would look much better with a smile, when the stars blink out and her world goes dark.

  The walls of Bhavya’s room are a cocoon, keeping her safe from those who have been waiting to cut her down. Bhavya thinks about Ruchika, who must be beside herself with glee at the fool the rajkumari turned out to be. She is curled up on a chair on her balcony, sipping extra-sweet chai and looking out at the view of Southern Noor gleaming in the afternoon sunshine. Her hair hasn’t seen a comb in three days, and she is wearing the same shalwar kameez the second day in a row. All the mirrors in her rooms have been covered with a sheet. Bhavya refuses to look at any reflective surface.

  She leans back in her chair with a sigh and wonders how many other walls exist in her future. Pleading illness, she has stayed in her room since that meeting with Fatima Ghazala, but Bhavya knows she will have to face people eventually. How should she behave when she does? Should she act unaffected or mournful? Does it matter how she behaves? Everyone will laugh at her anyway.

  A knock on the door makes her stiffen. Her maid bustles into her bedroom a moment later to tell her she has a visitor. Bhavya is about to tell her to send whoever it is away, when her maid tells her the identity of her visitor. Bhavya stands up frowning and moves into the attached sitting room to greet Sunaina.

  The cosmetics chemist is standing, ill at ease, in the middle of the room. Bhavya gestures for her to sit and takes a seat opposite her.

  “What is it?” she asks bluntly, in no mood for niceties.

  “Am I being relieved of my position?” Sunaina asks with equal frankness.

  “What m
akes you say that?” Surely the woman doesn’t think Bhavya is so petty that she’ll fire her just because her sister married the Emir.

  “I have heard things …” Sunaina trails off, looking uncomfortable.

  “What things? From whom? Where?” Bhavya leans forward, abruptly furious. Has she already become a laughingstock? Are people laughing at her in the open?

  “From the servants. In the kitchen. In the corridor in front of my room. They talk without worrying about being overheard.” Sunaina hesitates. “They said you are getting married.”

  “What? To whom?” Bhavya demands.

  “Someone named Sundar Singh.” Sunaina meets her eyes. “Is that true?”

  Sundar Singh. The name sounds familiar. Bhavya thinks for a second until a leering face with an abrasive personality attaches itself to the name. One of Aaruv’s friends. Bhavya’s looks at Sunaina in horror.

  “What is it, sahiba?” Sunaina asks gently.

  “They must be arranging my marriage—” Panic steals her breath, and Bhavya gasps. “My bua. My mother.”

  “Calm down,” Sunaina says, moving to sit beside her.

  “How?” Bhavya flails. Sunaina grabs her hands and holds them. “I can’t marry him. I won’t!” Bahvya’s cheeks are wet.

  Bhavya’s maid enters the room, looking apologetic. “The Rajmata is calling for you.”

  Bhavya stills at the maid’s words. She stands up slowly. Surely there is some sort of misunderstanding. Her mother wouldn’t arrange her wedding without talking to her about it. Surely not. She turns to Sunaina. “Will you help me get ready?”

  The woman nods.

  Twenty minutes later, Bhavya makes her way to a meeting room on the third floor of Southern Aftab. From her maid, she learned that the Rajmata summoned the entire family, apart from Aaruv, who has gone hunting with his friends. Her composure is a shaky thing, and every time Bhavya speculates about the reason for the summons, tears threaten. When Bhavya reaches the room, she finds the rest of her family already there. Aarush and Aruna sit on one side on a settee and the Rajmata and Jayanti Bua on the other. She wonders when Jayanti Bua turned into her mother’s closest confidante.

  “Have a seat, Bhavya,” the Rajmata says abruptly. “I have something to say.”

  Bhavya sits beside Aruna and Aarush and trembles.

  “You have been the subject of a lot of gossip these past few days. I have come to realize that I was too lenient with you and excused your infatuation with the Emir as I ought not to have.” The Rajmata pauses, and Bhavya holds her breath. “Rathod Singh of Khair brought a rishta for you. I have decided to accept it. His son’s name is Sundar Singh,” she adds as an afterthought.

  For a second, Bhavya stares at her mother. Then the enormity of her mother’s words slams into her, and she jumps to her feet to scream and protest. But Aruna catches her hand and shakes her head. Bhavya looks at her brother; he nods.

  “Tell me, Amma, is this the same Rathod who begged me for mercy the other day?” Aarush asks more politely than Bhavya would have managed in the same situation. She sits beside Aruna, trying to stay quiet, trying to stay within the boundaries drawn for her.

  “They are a moneyed family. Their lineage is exemplary. Sundar Singh will make a fine husband,” the Rajmata says a bit defensively. Is that all it takes to sell a daughter? Money and lineage?

  “Has it not occurred to you that she may be mistreated, being the sister of the maharajah who cast aspersions on the honor of the patriarch of their family?” Aarush continues in the same polite tone. “Or is she to be a guarantee that their future sins will go unpunished? For surely the maharajah won’t punish his sister’s husband’s family.”

  “I have been assured that they will treat Bhavya like a queen!”

  “And who exactly has been reassuring you?” Aarush looks at his aunt, and the woman pales. “Listen, Amma, I will not marry my sister to the son of a man who moves so blatantly against the raj. I will not foist an unwanted husband on my sister.”

  “She is a rajkumari of Qirat. Marrying who she is told to is her duty!” Her mother says once more what Bhavya has been hearing all her life.

  “What alliances are you making with Rathod that you need to solidify the bond by selling your daughter to him as security?” Aarush asks, and everyone in the room freezes.

  “How dare you?” The Rajmata’s voice is shrill.

  “I am the maharajah, Amma. I dare much,” Aarush says softly.

  “I am your mother!” the Rajmata says, rising to her feet furiously. “I only want what’s good for my children.”

  “So you keep saying, Amma, and yet you continue letting both Bhavya and me down with your refusal to see the true colors of the people you surround yourself with.” Aarush is angrier than Bhavya has ever seen him. “I will say this again for the very last time: I will not condemn my sister to a life of misery. She will not be used as a pawn in any game.” He gets to his feet. “Let’s go, Bhavya. Aruna.” Without another word he walks away. Bhavya follows him, not daring to look back.

  The night brings with it a false sense of peace. Quiet settles in the corners where the lamps have been extinguished. The inhabitants of Southern Aftab, the royalty, and the people who tend to them have all slipped into bed either alone or with a beloved. Everyone, that is, apart from the maharajah, who wishes for nothing more than the warm comfort of his wife in bed. Unfortunately, he has to sit in his well-lit office on the fourth floor and read a report that illustrates, in detail, just how much of a complacent fool he has been. When Janab Jamshid handed him the report hours earlier, his demeanor had been subdued but nothing that indicated the explosive nature of the words in the report.

  Heeding his oldest advisor, Aarush had hired independent investigators to ferret out the identities of those behind the propaganda currently inciting hatred between the Qirati and their Ifrit saviors. The investigators uncovered a conspiracy that Aarush would never have considered possible. He has been a fool, thinking that a fair king would mean a peaceful rule. He has trusted the wrong people, been betrayed in the cruelest ways. Aarush gets up from his desk and burns the report on the silver tray until all that remains of it are ashes. He doesn’t yet know what to do, so he must keep up all appearances of ignorance.

  A step outside his door has him stiffening; his hand goes to his sword. Someone knocks on his door before pushing it open. It is his younger brother. Aarush’s hand doesn’t move from his sword.

  “I have been sent to call for a truce between you and Amma, Bhaiya.” Aaruv leans against the doorframe.

  “What terms does she offer?”

  “You let her go ahead with Bhavya’s wedding and she will forget that you ever tried to go against her,” Aaruv recites.

  “Rejected,” Aarush says tightly. His mother thinks that’s a compromise?

  “Come on, Bhai, do you really want to feud with Amma over Bhavya?” Aaruv’s tone suggests that the idea is preposterous.

  “The fact that you have to ask me this is ridiculous,” Aarush snaps. “Bhavya is my responsibility. Baba and Bhai left her protection to me. I will do my duty even if it means going against the whole world to do it.”

  “She needs to get married. Why not to Sundar?”

  “I didn’t realize Sundar Singh is such a close friend of yours, Aaruv.” Aarush looks at his brother. “A woman does not have to get married, and if she does, she has the right to choose who she wants to spend her life with. I know that some men are in the habit of using women as objects to be traded or as a mode of currency. I am not one of them.” Aarush smiles. “Baba taught me better than that.”

  Aaruv flushes at the veiled insult.

  “I do find it strange,” Aarush continues, “that for all this talk of matrimony, neither Amma nor you has mentioned your upcoming nuptials to Sanchit Goundar’s daughter. I had to find out from the pundit.”

  “I … It’s still being planned,” Aaruv flounders.

  “And is my opinion worth so little that you woul
dn’t ask for it? I am your brother, Aaruv.” The hurt Aarush feels is intense, and a smidgen of it escapes in his words. His brother looks surprised and opens his mouth to say something, but Aarush doesn’t give him a chance. “Do you want to be maharajah, Aaruv?”

  The younger man’s eyes widen. “What are you saying, Bhai?”

  “What would you do differently from me?” Aarush keeps his tone casual.

  His brother frowns. “I would break the deal with the Ifrit and ask them to return Qirat to us. If asking failed, I would go to war and reclaim what is ours.”

  “What guarantee do you have of success? Hm, all right, let’s say you are successful and the Ifrit are defeated, what about the lives lost in the process of reclaiming Qirat? How are you going to answer for them?” Aarush watches his brother frown. “Once the Ifrit protection has been removed, how do you propose to protect Qirat from invasion by the Angrez? Our armies are far less able compared to theirs.”

  His brother swallows, and Aarush feels a surge of satisfaction. “No answers for me? I guess that’s why I am the maharajah and you aren’t.” Aarush gestures to the door in clear dismissal. Aaruv, fairly quivering with anger, turns on his heel and is gone.

  A piercing hunger wakes Fatima Ghazala. She sits up gingerly, conscious of a bone-deep weariness and the now-familiar remnants of the nightmare that are the memories stored in her fire. She is in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. Ah, Zulfikar’s—no, her new room that she just happens to share with the Emir. Her hunger will not be denied, so she tries to get out of bed but her body is unwilling to cooperate. She sits back down when her legs refuse to support her. Her hands are swathed in bandages, and her skin feels scorched like she got entirely too close to an inferno.