He looked quite sickly with the skinniest arms and legs she’d ever seen, crouching beside a heap of boulders nearby. The hair on his head was mere stubble, and his skin was far whiter than even that of Kartek’s allies in the north, so white it was nearly translucent. His only features that didn’t make her wish to recoil in disgust were his eyes. They were a most unusual shade of green. How many people had she ever met with eyes so like jade? Nearly everyone in Hedjet and its surrounding tribes and kingdoms had brown.
“Do you mean it?” he repeated in a soft voice. “That you’ll do anything to get it back?”
The sounds of shouting could be heard again from south of the palace, louder this time.
“Wh . . . where did you come from?” she asked.
“I can get the necklace for you,” he said, straightening from his crouch and taking a hesitant step forward. “I’m a strong swimmer, and I know I could get your jewel.”
“I . . . I need it,” she whispered. With every second she wasted, more soldiers could be dying.
“I will get it for you,” he said, taking another step toward her. “But I need you to keep your promise.”
“What promise?”
“The one you just made to the Maker . . . that you’ll do anything to get it back.”
A wail went up from the direction of the healing tents.
“What do you want?” She tried to recall the last sum she’d heard from the treasury. It hadn’t been Hedjet’s best year in commerce, but surely she could—
“Three things. I need for you to vow to allow me to sleep in your bed and to dine with you every night. And,” he kept his large eyes trained on her face, “I need the promise of your kiss.”
“You mean . . .” Kartek licked her dry lips and gripped the edge of the stone wall to stay upright. “You want me to marry you?”
“Precisely.”
“Marry you?” She was hallucinating. She had to be hallucinating. “I . . . I don’t even know you! I don’t know who you are or where you came from or . . . or even your name!” She gestured at his body. “You look like a northerner but you speak our language.” Her voice began to rise to near hysterics. “Why would I marry you and entrust my people to a stranger? Or myself for that matter?” The mere thought of touching his ghoulish body with its uneven patches of hair and spindly limbs made her shudder. The idea of getting close enough to produce an heir . . . No. She couldn’t even imagine the horror.
The slight spark in his green eyes made her feel as though he could read her thoughts, but he continued in a steady voice. “Because if you do not, you will not get the jewel back, you and your people will suffer, and there will be no chance at healing or peace.” He didn’t blink, didn’t even flinch as he spelled out her people’s fate.
How did he know about the predicament of her people? And how dare he assume he knew best? She had never seen him before, she was sure of that. He couldn’t possibly know what her people needed. Their customs, their aspirations, all the stories of love and hope that she’d heard while healing at the well, he couldn’t know those. He couldn’t fathom them. Heat gathered in her cheeks as she glowered at him. But then Kartek looked back down into the blackness of the well.
Still . . . without the jewel, she could not save her soldiers. She could help a few people, perhaps, but not hundreds. Not the thousands that would need it, should the enchantress attack a town or city. Kartek’s warriors were strong, but they were spread out between smaller villages, the palace, and the capital city. And should the enchantress slaughter her warriors, her people would be defenseless. The entire war might be lost in less than a week. For who knew just what this enchantress could do? After all, she had decimated Gahiji and his men. Gahiji, who had been the fiercest warrior known to the Megal Desert.
And even if Kartek attempted to get the jewel on her own, she would most certainly drown before she ever laid a finger on it in the inky depths of the water.
Another wail went up from the tents to the north, and Kartek nearly shrieked for a guard. Surely Ebo wouldn’t be so far off he wouldn’t hear her. Someone would be sure to hear her. Then they would come jump into the well and fetch her jewel. But once again, Kartek remembered that not one of her people knew how to swim.
“Get it for me.” She swallowed the bile in the back of her throat. “And I will marry you.”
“And how will I know you will keep your word?”
She yanked a ring off her finger and shoved it at him. “This is my signet ring. It hasn’t left my hand since the day my parents died because the alders placed a covenant on it to bind it to me. No force or coercion can remove it but mine.”
He took the ring hesitantly. “So if I get your jewel and—”
“And I deny our agreement, then you can give this to my alders and they will know you speak the truth.”
“And if I fail?”
She took a deep breath. “I suppose it will sink with you.” She would never hear the end of Ahmos’s lectures, but that would be the least of her worries should she lose the jewel.
He nodded and gazed down into the well. “Fair enough.” Then he was gone. A splash echoed up to her from the well’s depths, and Kartek closed her eyes and pleaded with the Maker to let him find it. And to also somehow save her from her awful promise.
She needed a miracle.
The sun remained at the same angle overhead, so she knew it was impossible for much time to have passed while he remained submerged. But it felt like hours. How long could he hold his breath? Could he really swim? Let him live, she prayed. Let him find the jewel and live.
Perhaps she was losing her mind, asking the Maker that he live so that she might be wed to an ugly little stranger who had extorted herself and her kingdom. But really, it couldn’t be so bad to resent the idea of one more death on her hands. For by now she could hear that the caravans had returned, and the songs of mourning had already begun, echoing throughout the desert valley. She should have been there to greet them and immediately set to healing the sickest and the most injured. But instead she was here, agreeing to hand over her kingdom to a complete stranger because she had selfishly sought solitude when her people needed her the most.
Some Jahira she had turned out to be.
A splash sounded from below.
“Do you have it?” she called down.
“Not yet. But I think I know where it fell.”
Kartek gripped the walls until her fingernails ached from scraping against the stones. The air rushed from her chest, leaving her empty and brittle. What had she just done? Her servants. Her people. Her soldiers. Her animals. The other kingdoms and tribes that depended on her oasis. Her future children.
Her own self.
She had just traded them all for a rock.
A gasp echoed up from the well. She leaned over its edge to peer down, just able to make out the shadow of a man emerging from the water. To her great angst, climbing the walls took him even longer than searching the water had. The stones were old and much of the mortar was soft and crumbling, but with each step he climbed he had to stop and carve out yet another grip for his hands.
More important than anything, however, was the glimmer of her jewel hanging from his neck.
Kartek was shaking so hard her knees could barely support her by the time he reached the top. But instead of handing the jewel over immediately, the stranger rolled over the well’s wall and collapsed on the ground, panting so hard she thought he might pass out, his skinny limbs sprawled in odd directions as he gasped for air.
“I promise . . . Princess,” he gasped between breaths. “Our marriage can save your people.”
Kartek frowned. Not only had he called her princess, which hadn’t been her title in over a year, but the manner in which he addressed her was familiar, far less formal than even that which the alders used. Who did this man think he was?
But she didn’t have time to ponder details. For as soon as he slipped the thin gold chain from his neck, she snatched it up and
placed it around her own, inhaling deeply as the power surged from the jewel into her heart and all the way out to her fingertips once more.
She could heal them now.
“I suppose we will—” he began, but she didn’t hear the rest of his words. She was running as fast as she could toward the tents.
5
Promises Beckon
Kartek ran until her lungs ached with each breath. Blindly, she shoved her way past carts, people, and even a few animals, trying to cut through the plaza to reach the main city gates. Unfortunately, however, it was the hour of evening after which the sun had sunk, and people emerged from their homes to sell, buy, and trade in the cool of dusk. No matter how fast or hard she pushed, her progress through the crowded square was agonizingly slow.
As she elbowed her way through the throng, causing cries of surprise and indignation as she did, anger began to fill the void where angst had been moments before. Anger at herself for her reckless, blind, myopic stupidity. Anger at the impudent, assuming, reptilian-looking stranger that would take advantage of her and her people in their time of need. Anger at the enchantress who would attack in the heat of the summer day and force her men to fight until they were felled not only by the sword but also by the heat.
“Jahira!”
She slowed when she heard the familiar voice. “Commander!” she called back. Then she saw him, waving at her from the shade of the palace’s front steps.
“Jahira, we have been looking everywhere for you!” He knelt before her, but she could hear the barely suppressed reproach in his voice.
She deserved far worse. “I apologize. My jewel fell from my neck, and I needed to retrieve it. What news have you?” She began walking toward the city gates, hoping to draw him away from more questions about her disastrous escapade. To her relief, he followed.
“Many have been overcome by the heat. Some should be able to rejoin the fight tomorrow, with your help, of course, but—”
“The battle isn’t over?”
Commander Fadil grimaced. His dark beard glistened with sweat, and as she walked beside him, she could smell the all-too-familiar scent of death.
She hated that smell.
“I cannot tell for sure. One moment we were fighting just as we had been for an hour. The next, she was gone, along with all of her minions. Just vanished into thin air.” As they moved through the city gate, he frowned at the spread of cots beneath the healing tents. Children ran free, getting underfoot despite the healers’ protests and shooing, and animals roamed around the tents’ edges even thicker than the children, probably drawn by the scents of the poultices and herbs the healers were using, as the soldiers tried to chase them off,
“I am not sure how the tribesmen managed to fight for so long without us,” he said, shaking his head. “Her army is quite small, but the heat does not seem to bother them, and they are fierce.” His thick dark brows knit together tightly. “I could not say for sure, but she seems to have at least a dozen under her command.”
Only a dozen? What army only had a dozen soldiers? “Does she attack our warriors herself?” Kartek asked as they neared the first tent. The smell of body odor and blood mingled even stronger in the hot air.
“Not while she controls her own forces, no. She doesn’t seem to be that powerful. But her warriors are enough to deal with on their own.” He stopped several yards from the edge of the tents.
In the short time since she’d been gone, three more tents had been spread out so that all four together created one gigantic covered pavilion that sat between the city’s outer wall and the thousands of tribespeople. Every single cot was either filled or waiting to be filled by one of the many bodies still being unloaded from the caravans. Groaning polluted the air. Women and men, far more than just Nuri and her girls, rushed about between the cots with jars and dippers full of water, but the water seemed to do little for those who cradled wounds.
Kartek frowned. “What kind of enemy were you fighting?”
The commander looked down at her, his eyes wide and his jaw tight. “I’m afraid you will find their injuries are far from normal.”
Heart pounding, Kartek tried to steel herself as she walked to the nearest man, whose cot was already saturated with blood. She held her jewel tightly in one hand as she took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Let me see,” she said in her softest voice.
Instead of allowing her to peel the cloth away from his arm, however, the man let out a shriek. The commander grabbed her by the arms and yanked her back just out of the man’s reach as he swiped at her, fingers raking the air where her face had been a second before.
Kartek screamed. Commander Fadil pushed her behind him as two other soldiers grabbed the man and pressed him back into the cot. He thrashed and growled at them as they pinned him down.
The commander turned back to her. “Can you heal him?”
Kartek’s heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear him. The man who had lain in the cot like a sick child just moments before now seemed to have more in common with a rabid dog than his comrades who struggled to keep him on the cot.
“Jahira?”
“What? Oh. Oh, yes. I will try.” She stepped closer, though it wasn’t without trepidation. With shaking hands, she clutched her jewel in one hand and reached out to him with the other. When her hand neared the bloodied bandages on his arm, he thrust his head toward it, snapping with his teeth. She jumped, but didn’t step back this time. As soon as the commander had control of the shrieking man’s head, she carefully forced herself to peel back the bandage.
Teeth marks, each as long as her thumb, formed a crescent moon on his arm. From one side to the other, the bite mark was as wide as a cantaloupe. She gasped and had to grit her teeth as she reached out to him once more. This time, she made contact with his flesh. In her head, she recounted the words of her mother, as she always did during a healing.
Breathe out. Her mother’s voice came back to her as clearly as the stars on a summer night. Focus on the jewel. One day you won’t need to touch it as you heal, but for now, let it guide you. Remember that the Maker is the one healing. You are only the vessel. Don’t fight it. Don’t force it. Simply let it come.
She felt the tightness in her shoulders begin to unwind as the familiar sensation moved within her. It was smooth, like honey rolling from her heart through her veins and down her fingertips. As she held her hand against the bite she squeezed her eyes shut, but the longer she touched him, the less the man fought.
Only after she felt the last tooth mark close did she open her eyes.
The man had fallen back onto the cot. His face was pale and shone with sweat, and she might have thought him dead except for the life she had just sensed within him. She looked up at Commander Fadil, but his face wasn’t as relieved as she thought it would be. Instead, he was tugging on his black beard and staring at the other cots beyond them.
Scenes like the one she’d just quelled had erupted all over the place. Villagers screamed and ran. Some tried to escape. Others wept as they strained to keep their own warriors from harming themselves or anyone else.
“Have they done this the whole way back?” she whispered.
The commander shook his head. “That was the first.”
“Well,” Kartek did her best to shake her fear and straighten her shoulders. “We had better get to work.”
The rest of the afternoon and far into the night was spent healing. The outbursts continued to grow in number. First it was just from the tribesmen, but then her men began to show it as well. She could only surmise that the timing of the bites had something to do with it. And to make matters worse, a number of the tribesmen, even those who hadn’t been bitten, made it very clear that they wanted nothing to do with her. She wanted very much to tell them the feeling was mutual.
At first, the outbursts of the men bitten by the enchantress’s creatures made Kartek cringe and draw back each time, but eventually she was too tired to react to each little hiss or lunge
. The glares and muttered insults weren’t so frightening either, at least not with Ebo and Commander Fadil at her side.
Strangely enough, she began to find a rhythm in the motions of healing that helped her focus. The constant demand for her attention kept her from dwelling on the awful decision she would have to make when she eventually returned to the palace. Threats uttered by angry strangers were preferable to whatever the green-eyed stranger might want after the wedding vows were said. By the time dark had fallen and lamps were lit around the tent, Kartek was too exhausted to even ponder the strange, alarming meanings of his cryptic requirements of sharing her bed and meals and a kiss.
But at last the loudest cries and groans and grunts and shouts died down. Many who had collapsed from the heat were recovering, and those who had been bitten were back in their right minds and resting, weak but safe.
“Jahira,” Nuri put her hand on Kartek’s shoulder, “you have done much. Leave them to me and my girls now. You will be no good to them tomorrow if you have no sleep.”
Kartek leaned against a tent pole and closed her eyes. Keeping them closed was more than tempting. Her muscles ached and her clothes were drenched with sweat and blood. Staying upright was getting more difficult with each cot she visited, and she wanted nothing more than to let Oni draw her a bath in her chambers so she could bathe then curl up on her sleeping mat.
Until she recalled that tonight her mat wouldn’t belong solely to her anymore.
Perhaps it would be better to remain in the tents and work until she passed out here on the dirt. Her servants would care for her, and she would be considered unfit to make any sweeping decisions for a few more days at least while she recovered. Not even a husband, or a man claiming that right, would be allowed near her while she recovered.
But that would be dishonest. She had made a promise, and even if none of her servants knew, the Maker did.
“Very well.” Kartek pushed herself up and began trudging back toward the palace. She walked slowly, for her entire body ached. But each step was still too fast, for it still inevitably carried her to a fate worse than any she had ever imagined.
The Green-Eyed Prince: A Retelling of The Frog Prince (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Novellas Book 1) Page 4