Meryam laughed darkly. “As you should be, but it’s done now. The fates will see to the rest.”
As the two of them headed side by side toward the King’s galleon, the amulet’s light failed altogether, and their silhouettes played against the wavering light of the distant cook fires. Brama waited until they were far enough away, then he stood and ran for the deeper desert.
Chapter 59
SALSANNA DROPPED to the sand beside Leorah, who lay unmoving after the spectacle of chasing the wyrm from the battlefield. Çeda ran toward them, but slowed her pace as a horn blew. Another followed. Then another. These were their own horns: Tribe Kadri’s, Tribe Khiyanat’s.
Gasps followed. People pointed along the horizon, their faces filled with fear, anger, even grim acceptance, as if they’d expected something like this all along. Çeda came to a standstill and saw what the others had already seen. Ships. Royal galleons. By Tulathan’s bright eyes, there were scores of them headed their way.
The sound of footsteps made her turn. Sümeya was there. Melis as well. Macide and Ishaq, father and son, bloodied and bruised, were beside them, with Frail Lemi and Hamid and, thank the gods, Emre trailing behind.
“Why are they slowing?” Frail Lemi asked.
Indeed, many of the ships were coming to a halt. Their sails hardly billowed in a strangely deadened wind.
Frail Lemi motioned to Leorah. “Did she do it?”
“No, Lemi,” Ishaq replied calmly. “The doldrums come often enough this time of year.”
“That’s true,” Sümeya said, “but chances are it won’t last long. It could lift in the night, or in the morning. When it does, the Kings will attack. Best if you ready all the ships you can and set sail when it does.”
Ishaq took in the devastation, the hundreds moving to help the wounded onto ships. “Look around you. I’d be surprised if half our ships could sail by morning, and of those, some will be hobbled. The Kings have royal galleons and clippers. Half our number would be left to die here, and more would die as the Kings took our ships at their leisure.”
Sümeya’s stare, her very stance, was unforgiving. “Would it not be better if some lived?”
Ishaq looked at her bitterly, as if he’d expected nothing less from a Blade Maiden. He pointed Çeda toward Leorah. “Go. We’ll speak after the sun has set.” And then he walked with Macide toward the shade of a nearby clipper, where many of the wounded were being taken.
After a nod to Sümeya, an indicator that they would speak soon, Çeda rushed to Leorah’s side. Salsanna was sprinkling water from a flask over Leorah’s dress and hijab. Leorah’s breathing was shallow, her skin deathly pale, but there was a contented smile on her lips. She seemed only to be sleeping, but responded neither to gentle shaking nor shouts for her to wake.
Dardzada soon arrived with his ungainly medicinals bag and began rummaging inside it. He moved slowly due to his wounded shoulder but tended to her like a dutiful son, a strange yet welcome thing coming from a man who was so often quarrelsome.
As the sun began to set, Leorah was still unsteady, so they called Frail Lemi to carry her to her yacht. Dardzada took up Nalamae’s staff and went with them, leaving Çeda alone with Salsanna. Part of Çeda wanted join them—she needed to know more about the staff, how Leorah had come to possess it, but she was in no state to talk, and there was more Çeda needed to tend to, in any case.
“Will you walk with me?” Çeda asked Salsanna. “I need to find Zaïde.”
Salsanna nodded, and the two of them fell into step. As their strides carried them over the grasping sand, it was clear that something was on Salsanna’s mind—she knit her brow and avoided Çeda’s gaze—but she remained silent as they headed toward the site of Çeda’s battle with Onur.
“Is it Kerim that troubles you so?” Çeda asked.
They were nearing the place where Zaïde’s body had been laid out with dozens of others. Beyond them, set apart, was Kerim. Still. Lifeless.
“Yes,” Salsanna replied, “but . . .” She looked down and pulled the golden band from her wrist, then handed it to Çeda. “Keep this, won’t you? Hear them. Their call is strong at the moment.”
She accepted the weighty band. “I will, of course, but—”
“I need a bit of time, Çeda.” She motioned to Zaïde. “You have grieving to do. We’ll speak again tonight.”
“Of course, but where are you going?”
“There are those I must speak with.”
She looked like she’d had a revelation of some sort. Çeda wanted to demand who she wanted to speak with, and why, but Salsanna was already running toward the Amaranth. She seemed to have had some sort of revelation but, apparently, the mystery would have to wait.
She’d changed greatly in the weeks Çeda had been gone. She’d been so angry when the two of them had sailed from the old tower in the desert. She’d wanted to fight Çeda. It was foolish but Çeda took the bait, and the zeal with which Salsanna had fought had revealed how deeply her anger went. Yet, as unfortunate as the skirmish had been, it had brought Salsanna and Kerim together. Kerim had changed Salsanna, shown her the truth in a way that words never could. As outwardly angry as she’d been when they met, she was inwardly focused now.
As Salsanna had urged her, Çeda felt for the souls trapped within the bracelet. Salsanna was right—they were active and Çeda could feel their sorrow at the loss of Kerim—but beyond that she felt little change from the weeks she’d worn it after killing Mesut on the Night of Endless Swords.
All around her, many were tending to the wounded, others to the dead. Others worked the ships, repairing them, preparing them to sail should Ishaq send the call to flee. Çeda, meanwhile, slipped the golden band over her wrist and walked along the line of dead. The effects of the petal she’d taken before the battle had worn off, and her wounds were fully awake. They needed tending to, but not yet.
Just as she reached Zaïde’s body, she hear a voice call out behind her. “Do you still think Ishaq was wise to summon your tribe from hiding?”
Çeda turned as Sümeya approached. She stopped, across from Çeda, on the other side of Zaïde’s body. Her face was unreadable. Pity? Contempt? Perhaps both.
“I don’t know,” Çeda replied. “The very notion of being together fills me with joy, but this . . .” Some of the dead had been wrapped in canvas from sails or cloth scavenged from the Black Spear ships, but so many had died that not all could be covered as they deserved. Not yet, in any case. Not until the battle had been decided. “Some will die tonight, and many more tomorrow, perhaps all of us. But Ishaq was right. Had he done nothing, the Kings could have killed us at their ease. Another great purge was coming, one way or another.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She knelt by Zaïde’s side.
Çeda dropped to the sand as well and stared at Zaïde’s slack features, now painted in blood. She looked different, neither at peace nor in pain, a forgotten vessel while her soul walked among the farther fields. “I’m sorry,” Çeda whispered.
“For what?” Sümeya asked.
“I don’t know.” Çeda pulled Zaïde’s cowl over her head, hiding her face and ravaged neck, then took out a thread and needle and began sewing the cowl closed. “She had a difficult life.”
“We all have difficult lives. Our worth is measured by how we rise against adversity.”
“How very trite.”
“Not trite,” Sümeya replied. “True.”
“It isn’t so simple as that.”
“It is precisely that simple. The gods give us choices every day. They give us children when none were looked for. They take our mothers and fathers too soon. They place obstacles before all that we want, or give us our deepest desire only to reveal it was just a mirage. We don’t give up our responsibility to make the right choice because the decisions are harder. It’s precisely the opposite, and the harder the ch
oice, the more our souls are tempered by it.”
Çeda motioned to Zaïde. “Did she choose her father?”
“No, but she was given choices in how to deal with him. She chose not to act every day in the House of Maidens, and she made a choice today when she threw herself against him.”
Çeda stared at her. “And which was the better choice, do you think?”
Sümeya made a face, the one she always made when she thought Çeda was being impertinent. “If you’re asking if I regret her sacrifice, of course I don’t. She saved many. Dozens. Hundreds, perhaps my own life among them. My point is she always had more control than she thought she did, and today she proved it.”
Çeda stared at her body. “She did more than save lives. She gave us an opportunity. If Ihsan’s words are true, that Onur is weakened when he feasts on human flesh . . .”
Sümeya turned her gaze eastward, where Onur’s ships could be seen in the distance. “Is that what you wish now, to attack Onur?”
Seeing Sümeya ready to bow to Çeda’s will felt strange, but Çeda was grateful for it. “It is. But we should ask Ishaq if he thinks it wise first.”
Sümeya stared open-mouthed at Çeda. “Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala, are you prepared to take counsel?”
Çeda tried to hide her growing smile. “I am.”
“By Tulathan’s bright eyes . . .” The two of them fell into step as they walked toward Ishaq’s caravel. Sümeya gave a toothy smile and threw an arm around Çeda’s shoulders. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Well, I thought it best to try it once.”
“Once?”
“Before I die.”
Sümeya laughed grimly, then loudly, and the stress of the battle, the relief of still being alive, so struck Çeda that she laughed right along with her.
* * *
As night fell, a fire was built. Macide was notably absent, but the rest of the tribe’s elders gathered around it to speak. Their scouts had counted seventy-three royal navy ships, and Onur had escaped with thirty-five. An emissary had been sent to request parlay with the Kings, but he’d been shot with a half-dozen arrows upon voicing the request.
The Kings were here to crush the thirteenth tribe. If the Kings could manage to take Onur as well, they would likely do so, though the fact remained that he was one of their own. Had they invited him to join them? Would they work together to obliterate the thirteenth tribe and come to some arrangement afterward? Onur the Feasting King had seemed intent on taking Sharakhai down from outside its walls, but coming so near death could change a man. If the Kings had made an overture, Onur may very well have had a change of heart.
As was to be expected, the mood around the fire was grim. Ishaq always seemed to project strength, but now the decision to summon the thirteenth tribe seemed to be weighing on him. No one believed they could win in a direct assault against the Kings, least of all him.
“We should push on as soon as the wind returns,” Shal’alara said. She had a bloody bandage over one eye.
“We cannot flee,” Hamid replied. “If we do they’ll pick off our ships one by one and have us in the end anyway. But make as though we’re preparing to run, as they’ll expect, and attack at the right moment . . . Then perhaps we have a chance at victory.”
The words sounded foolish to Çeda, and most looked despondent, but not Emre. There was a fire in him that she hadn’t seen in a long while. Not since they were children, not since before his brother, Rafa, was murdered. “We have allies in Onur’s camp,” he said. “We should use them. We must use them, or we’ll be abandoning them to suffer beneath Onur.”
Standing by his side was a stunning Malasani beauty named Haddad, who had joined the council after Emre petitioned Ishaq to allow it. For some unfathomable reason, Ishaq had agreed. She had so far been silent, but she didn’t have to say a word to distract Çeda. She was studying Emre as if she hung on his every word. Çeda ignored her as best she could and addressed the circle.
“Onur is the key,” she said. “If we kill Onur, his warriors will fight for us. Kadri certainly will, likely Masal as well, even if Salmük won’t.”
Emre agreed. “They’ll not sit by as the Kings of Sharakhai come for us. Not after what Onur has done to them. Not if he’s dead.”
The circle parted to make room for Macide. “It will be more complicated than that.” He had two others in tow, men Çeda thought she might never see again, certainly not together, and certainly not here.
The first was Ramahd Amansir, looking thinner than she remembered, more haggard. His eyes scanned the gathering, and then, when they landed on her, he stopped, frozen, as if he regretted finding her here. Or regretted something, in any case.
The other was Brama, the thief she’d recruited to help rid her of the ehrekh, Rümayesh. To Çeda’s great regret, it had gone awry, and had led to the riddle of scars that covered nearly every square inch of his body. When their eyes met, he looked suddenly young again, fragile and fearful, as if his thoughts had returned to that time of imprisonment and torture.
“Hamzakiir is with Onur now,” Macide went on.
The flickering fire made Ishaq seem to waver, as if he were insubstantial. “How do you know?”
“I saw it,” Brama cut in.
“And who are you?” Ishaq shot back.
“His name is Brama Junayd’ava,” Çeda said, “and I trust him to tell me the truth.”
Brama gave her a sharp nod before continuing. “Only a few hours ago, I saw Hamzakiir leave Kiral’s own ship, masked by a spell of the Queen of Qaimir’s making. When he left, he headed east, and later, when King Kiral and Queen Meryam were talking, they spoke of an accord with Onur. Together, they hope to close in on you when the wind rises.”
“My queen has been in league with King Kiral for months,” Ramahd added. “They’re hoping to use Onur to rid themselves of you, and perhaps of Onur, but especially Hamzakiir. Kiral considers him his greatest threat.”
Ishaq took Ramahd in from head to toe. “And why would you betray your queen by coming to us?”
“She tried to have me killed for defying her. She is a mage, like Hamzakiir, but she’s also found a sapphire that contains an ehrekh, a creature Brama and Çedamihn are familiar with.”
All eyes turned to Çeda. She nodded. “Years ago, with Brama’s help, I trapped the ehrekh named Rümayesh in a sapphire. I didn’t know that Meryam now has it.”
“She does,” Ramahd went on. “And the only thing stopping her from using it is another ehrekh, Guhldrathen, to whom she owes a blood debt. To whom I owe a blood debt. Meryam plans to honor it by delivering Hamzakiir to the ehrekh.”
Ramahd was staring at Çeda strangely.
“What is it?” she asked him. “What haven’t you told us?”
“Guhldrathen will come for Hamzakiir,” he said, “but your blood was used to summon it.”
A gasp ran through the gathering. Çeda raised her hand for silence, and slowly their voices settled. “Why would it want me?”
“You remember when Meryam and I were in the desert?” He paused, suddenly fumbling for his words.
“Get on with it.”
He licked his lips. “Hamzakiir left me and Meryam in the desert as a sacrifice to Guhldrathen. He thought it would appease the ehrekh.”
“It took King Aldouan,” she said, recalling how she’d stumbled across his body in the desert, “but spared you both. Why?”
“I pleaded for our lives,” Ramahd said. “I begged for more time to find Hamzakiir, and it demanded your blood.”
The people around the fire faded from Çeda’s consciousness. Only she and Ramahd remained. A thousand things played through her mind. Foremost was the appearance of yet another ehrekh in her life. Rümayesh had been entranced by her. Now Guhldrathen as well.
“Why?” she asked, more to herself than Ramahd.
&
nbsp; “I cannot say,” Ramahd answered. “It seemed fascinated by your tale when we first met. It knew of you even then, and when I stood before it the second time and offered my own blood as payment for our failure, it asked for yours instead.”
“And you agreed.”
Ramahd’s jaw tightened, then he nodded.
“I would hear it from your lips.”
“I was afraid, Çeda.” He could hardly meet her eyes. “I wanted to leave that I might find Hamzakiir and rid us all of Guhldrathen’s curse.”
“Say it . . .”
“I agreed. But I never thought . . . We’d planned to find Hamzakiir.”
“So you said,” Çeda replied evenly. “Did you?”
Ramahd shook his head in shame. “I tried. We’d planned to find him by taking Brama’s stone.”
“Find him, or protect yourselves from Guhldrathen’s wrath,” Çeda said, piecing the puzzle together. “Isn’t that the right of it?”
He nodded. “That was Meryam’s plan, yes. I only wanted to save you.”
The confusion in Çeda was turning to rage. “Stop saying you wanted to protect me! You’re the one who placed me in danger in the first place.” He started to protest, but Çeda spoke over him. “So now, after all you’ve done to protect me, Guhldrathen has been summoned here to partake of the feast Meryam has prepared.”
Ramahd nodded again, and this time, Çeda gave him some credit, he stared her directly in the eye. “Yes. Which is why I’ve come to warn you and to do what I can to prevent it.”
Suddenly the crowd around them swept back into Çeda’s awareness. Emre was charging headlong for Ramahd, who must have been as caught up as Çeda was, because he hardly reacted before Emre’s fist caught him across the jaw. He went down, and then Emre was on top of him, pummeling his face over and over.
Frail Lemi was nearby, shouting with boyish glee, “Get him, Emre! Cut him! Bleed him!”
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