Three Sides of a Heart

by Natalie C. Parker

  “Sahizada,” I said over our clasped hands. Dalir kissed my knuckles, drawing me closer, and with catlike speed tugged free the diaphanous red veil from across my eyes. Always a troublemaker, my brother.

  “Sahiza,” he said, equally formal. “You must meet my new friend, the third son of the Sarian malka, who saved my life not once, but twice, and you must meet him with your eyes uncovered, for he has earned as much. Oh, and you too, Farah,” he added fondly, and my body twin obeyed by uncovering her eyes.

  Dalir turned, sweeping his arm out toward the stranger, and announced for all those gathered, “Here is Enver Kirazade, my newest, dearest friend!”

  Enver bowed but did not cover his eyes with his large hands as would have been polite, especially before me, Safiya za Idris Sahiza, the granddaughter of Idris the Great and the Moon Eater’s Mistress. I let him see my importance, and he proudly met my black eyes with his own. His were a crystalline brown, direct; his lips parted to speak, but he said nothing for a moment too long.

  I made him pay for the hesitation. “I think your friend is unused to the beauty of our city,” I said to Dalir.

  “How could anyone be used to beauty like Your Glory’s?” Farah asked sweetly. Her fingers pressed my wrist in wordless admiration.

  Enver still did not speak. Despite his youth, he wore a short beard framing his jaw and chin, highlighting the rough planes of his face. His brown skin reminded me of fire, not the desert of my people or the obsidian of the Bow.

  Our staring moment was interrupted by Grandfather: “Only the Moon Eater himself,” he said affectionately, in reply to Farah’s question. Then he kissed my cheek and bade me replace my veil before facing the gathered princes for his homecoming speech.

  Our glorious city has belonged to many in the past. Its foundations were built by prisoners and slaves for the first dynasty of Bes and Sarenpet, before the Rise of the Holy Syr, when the desert kings of Farz united under Isra the Great. Isra and the Holy Syr conquered the lands around the White Sea from the northern Syr Saria, west across the dunes to the Land of God, and as far east as Samar and the Singing Desert. Under the Isran Dynasties, the city grew tall and elegant with the sweeping architectural magic of She Who Loves Silence and her shadow god, the Moon Eater.

  Idris zada Ziya, my grandfather, brought his Silent Rebellion to the city and claimed the throne of the king of kings. So the true Sahenate was born, and Ashesan became the Sky Blue City. But it is mine now, and in my heart it is the red of blood.

  —from Seven Hundred Declarations of Safiya the Bloody

  That night, after prolonged feasting and revelry in celebration of the return of the Sahe Sahenam, Farah and I dashed into our shared bedroom, giggling and throwing off scarves. The heavy door closed behind us, iron bar slamming down. It reverberated through the tiles beneath our bare toes, and we danced in drunken pleasure. We were finally alone again!

  I wound our fingers together, spinning us in circles, and Farah asked, “Did you see him eat with only forefinger and thumb?” I fluttered my lashes and replied, “I paid more heed to his eyes than his mouth.”

  “Silly choices you make sometimes.” Farah kissed me. “Mouths tell more.”

  “Blood tells most,” I murmured, turning my cheek imperiously to offer her my pulse.

  Little kisses bit their way down my neck, like spice in sweet cream. Farah slid her hands around my hips and asked, “Will you slice open his neck then?”

  I lifted one of her hands. “The palm is more intimate,” I said against her soft skin.

  “Oh, Safi.” Farah laughed breathlessly, kneeling. She touched her forehead to my belly and sighed longingly.

  “Pretty love,” I whispered, longing too. For I was the Moon Eater’s Mistress, and could have no other. We posed together, silent, wishing, imagining ourselves players on a stage, and somehow that made our heartaches easier to bare.

  You have heard the saying, certainly: first for her, second for him? The oldest serves She Who Loves Silence with a crown and steel will; the second gives all to the Moon Eater, the shadow god who hungers so for the spirit of our goddess he must be satiated with the bodies of her devoted. For such was I born, and became the Moon Eater’s Mistress when I was of age to satisfy him.

  —from Seven Hundred Declarations of Safiya the Bloody

  Late the next morning, the Royal Mask Architect woke us from our nest of pillows and heart-soft sheets. Sunlight streamed through the goddess-eye windows cut like constellations into the white walls of my private chamber. With him came my girls carrying warm cheese-stuffed lamb, coffee, and hot water for washing.

  He was a bony man in the simple blue robi of the Architects, laconic and polite, with the white dots of his station arcing across both cheeks. While we dressed, he turned his back and delivered overnight news of which mirza had drunkenly stumbled down the stairs, which had been caught kissing his cousin’s husband, which had declared a poem to my glorious justice. That had been one of the mirza opposed to my sanctions against rebel families, and his poem was no doubt meant to return him to my good graces.

  I said as much as Farah and I wrapped each other in matching robi, loose and sky blue, tied jackets tight to our ribs and decorated each other’s fingers with rings, wound up our hair under identical white scarves.

  The Architect took his turn to paint blue and black stripes and dots onto our faces to obscure the underlying design of our skulls and make us into mirror twins as defense against assassination. When we left the chamber holding hands, the Satriya guards took us in, not knowing which of us was the Sahiza, so even they could not give it away by body language. Farah had been chosen for this when I came into my blood and body, for her similar stature and shape. We practiced walking alike, skipping in complicated patterns, and playing imitation games to further confound all but those most intimate with us. Though, since Grandfather had been gone and I had become the sole representative of the Sahenate blood in the city, we’d ended our more silly endeavors.

  It was a short walk to the House of the Moon, a dome of midnight-blue tiles centered in the Holy Year Courtyard, where it was my daily duty to wake the Moon Eater with my joy and body. We strode through the thirteen rows of twenty-eight pillars rising toward the bare blue sky, ecstatic flow tingling in the soles of our feet; we were thinking of Dalir’s friend Enver Kirazade, and for me at least, that desire would transfer well to the Moon Eater.

  But waiting for us at the ablution pool at the House’s eastern entrance was the second general of the Sahe Sahenam’s army, Eskandar zada Shahin, younger brother of my grandfather, and the Moon Eater’s Lover before me. It had been he who had instructed me in all the ways he found most successful for waking our shadow god.

  “Uncle.” I greeted him eagerly, clasping his hands across the narrow crescent of the pool. My great-uncle, despite being a military man now, kept his beard unshaven in honor of his former position. He smiled and kissed my knuckles.

  “Your Glory,” he said in his gruff way. “I have missed the Moon Eater these six months and request your blessing to awaken him in your place today.”

  “Of course, Uncle. I feel certain our Moon Eater has missed you, as well. Come.” Though disappointed I’d not have my own time with our lover, I dipped our hands together into the clear water and we touched our eyelids for She Who Loves Silence before entering the House.

  Beneath a low, wide dome, tiled in patterns of the deepest blue ceramics a fire can create, lies a slab of dark granite. The altar holds seventeen massive teeth, fangs as long as my hand and molars ribbed like stone. The teeth are as old as the moon itself, fallen from the Moon Eater’s jaw thousands of years ago. I stopped halfway between the door and the altar, kissed my fingertips, and turned my back as my great-uncle continued on alone.

  I pressed my hands between my breasts as I listened to the quiet sounds of pleasure the former Lover gave to himself and to the Moon Eater. It warmed my skin, and I thought of the moon-wide mouth of the Moon Eater, his teeth as bright
as stars. I thought of Farah’s gentle hands and, unexpectedly, of Enver Kirazade’s solemn eyes. I welcomed the shiver of pleasure in the small of my back, the tingle in my breasts and belly, but the gift of awakening was not for me that morning.

  So I breathed deeply to hold it all in until my uncle finished, welcomed the Moon Eater by his secret name, and joined me. He put a hand on my shoulder. “My thanks, Your Glory,” my great-uncle said.

  The forces of this world are harnessed in four forms: rising, falling, flow, ecstatic. Our Architects perfect their science by the study of these forms, experimenting with their interactions to build all the great structures of our civilization. Patience and passion are required for mastery. I have always struggled to apply these forces to my own life: falling into necessary compromise, rising to meet my own best expectations, flow that cannot be contained, and ecstasy always the intention.

  —from Seven Hundred Declarations of Safiya the Bloody

  In the past six months, while the Sahe Sahenam and his heir were at war, it was I who held the seat of the king of kings, spoke for my family, and cast deciding votes or vetoes. I had little authority to act on my own, but had learned to pull threads quickly, or was perhaps born with the skill.

  I have always loved the grandeur of the Hall of Princes, the dizzying white-and-black striped domes stacked upon one another, up to the pinnacle dome so high it can be seen from all corners of the city. The cross-shaped council table rested low in the center, messily covered in inkwells and parchment, cups of wine or tea or spiced water, surrounded by pillows and rugs in every bold color of the desert. At the western head was the gilded chair of the Sahe Sahenam, where I had knelt every three days for the past six months. That day I returned to my position at the east, across from him, for now I held only my own rank again: Her Glory the Moon Eater’s Mistress.

  As the mirza gathered, Designers from the schools of Architecture used crystal styli to draw lines of falling and ecstatic force to keep sound from traveling in or out of the Hall, and I chatted with my uncle, who sat himself beside me. Farah knelt at my back, collecting notes for me and making certain we had a carafe of hot spice water for ourselves.

  The Sahe Sahenam arrived with the last of the mirza, Dalir beside him, and the stranger Enver Kirazade, too. My grandfather wore an elaborate headscarf with a thin veil to cross his eyes; he cared not for the masking paints my generation favored over veils. Dalir’s head was covered but his face striped with thin lines of gold and black to distort the planes of expression. Enver was bareheaded and ferocious in padded robi that added to his girth as he shadowed Dalir like a bodyguard. My heartbeat picked up at the sight of him, but I gathered myself to stand and greet Grandfather, welcoming him home to his Hall of Princes.

  My speech was cut short by one of those princes raising his voice to complain of my meddling ways to the Sahe Sahenam. Little did he know I’d hoped for the very thing, so I did not seem too arrogant and prideful in bragging to my grandfather of my deeds. Let it seem like humble defense of practical, necessary moves. One can achieve much more when others do not even realize they do your work for you.

  I folded my hands and stood, listening as they described the order I’d given to hunt out the extended families of the three rebels caught sneaking into the palace. They’d used masks of Human Architecture to transform their faces into the three youngest cousins of the Ario family. Though the mirza had wished only to gut and hang the perpetrators and their confederates, I’d had their nephews and nieces, husbands and wives, and parents imprisoned too, and every third one executed by lottery before the mirza knew it had happened.

  They accused me of barbarity; I reminded them of the Silent Rebellion that had gained my own family this very throne.

  They claimed I was too young to be so cold; they insisted the Moon Eater’s Mistress must be passionate and welcoming, not blood-hungry and hard. Their words cut at me, fueling my certainty that I’d been right. They had no idea what the Moon Eater longed for in a lover! None could but for myself and my uncle, the general at my side.

  Even as I held my own against the princes, though younger than all of them, never biting insults back at them or letting my defense turn strident, I loved every livid, bracing moment. My grandfather finally ordered me down, and all the princes too. He agreed with them that I had overstepped my authority, but agreed with me that the mirza should have had this idea on their own, not been taught such efficient methods by a sixteen-year-old girl. Though I could not see his face clearly through his veil, the wizened irritability in his voice turned gentle toward me, and I felt his approval like a fire in my veins.

  The meeting moved on to the needs of the northern army and rumblings from the heathen steppe in the far northeast, as well as integration of a new system of irrigation the Flow Architects had finalized. When the council ended, Dalir caught my eye, and I nodded, silently agreeing to meet in our favorite garden.

  Near skipping with triumph, I led Farah and our contingent of guards through the Little River corridors of the rear palace and into a small flower garden tucked awkwardly between the kitchen domes and high walls of the royal barracks. A pool shaped like an eight-point star held the center, and eight narrow paths of crushed pink salt ran out from it. Between the spokes, pink desert roses and thorny violet sata vines tangled, messy and violent. We’d loved it as children, for the thorns could not hide assassins, and if our Satriya guards stationed themselves right, we felt free of their oppressive presence and could run and dance and play rather loudly without being overheard. I spent many hot afternoons immersed in that star pool.

  I sat on the edge with Farah and played my fingers along the intricate pattern of tiny blue-white-orange tiles. Elaborate golden writing declaimed a prayer to She Who Loves Silence at the bottom of the pool, words glinting through still water. As always, I tapped the surface to disrupt it all. I smiled. Farah sat with her shoulder against my spine, and we waited for Dalir.

  He came quickly, Enver a heavy shadow at his heels, and ordered his men to join mine at the edges of the garden and in strategic places above and around us on the arches and steps. “Safiya!” Dalir exclaimed, seating himself on the droplets of water I’d splashed onto the tiles. “You are a demon.”

  It was difficult to say if he was more impressed or horrified. I shrugged, slipping off my entire headscarf and tossing it across Farah’s lap. Pieces of my hair fell out of their braids and loops. “It was the right move, Dalir.”

  “But some of those killed were children.”

  I lifted my eyes to his, dark like mine, but softer. “You will be Sahe Sahenam when Grandfather dies and must accustom yourself to brutality.”

  His mouth pinched. “I have seen brutality, at war. You cannot imagine the filth and horrors I have seen, and—and done.”

  “I think she can,” said Enver Kirazade, the first words he ever spoke to me.

  He crouched between two bobbing roses. His elbows rested on his knees, hands loose between them, but I was not fooled; he was at the ready, some hidden knives mere inches from those hands, to spring between my brother and danger, perhaps between me and danger as well. He stared at me, and my tongue dried out, my fingers quieted against the pool water.

  Farah laughed suddenly, soft and amazed. “Speechless,” she whispered.

  I scowled, but not at her. At Enver Kirazade, who had made me stare.

  He said, “What gave you your vivid imagination, Your Glory?”

  At that moment my imagination was at work only stripping him of armor, pulling his hair, finding his tongue with my teeth.

  Dalir answered, “Our grandmother’s stories of the Silent Rebellion.”

  “I would like to hear those stories,” Enver said softly, as if he and I were alone together, his words meant for silky pillows. I pressed my hips down against the edge of the pool, which arched the small of my back, making me sit taller, but also more aggressively, and Farah touched the back of my neck, offering me my veil. But I did not want to hide myself
from them.

  I said, “Dalir heard the stories too, exactly as I did, but he did not listen.”

  My brother scoffed, and I whipped toward him. “You forget the way Grandfather infiltrated the palace, you forget the devious methods our family used, the fast, efficient destruction of our enemies, the culling of the opposition in order to take the firmest possible hold, Sahizada. Such methods can be used against us, now that we have taught them. Our grandfather stole a throne, and it is your job to keep it secure.”

  “We won because She was with us.” Dalir touched his eyelids respectfully. “She gave Grandfather Her blessing. So long as She is with us, we are safe from those kinds of rebels.”

  “We are never safe,” I snarled, leaping to my feet. I glanced between my beautiful, peaceful brother, who seemed to have learned hesitation while at war, and his new friend, hulking like a griffin, dangerous and keen. No wonder Dalir’s life had had to be saved not once, but twice!

  I left them there, all three, and instead of going to the barracks to wrestle or run, instead of stomping through the halls in search of relief—displaying my sudden wild mood for all the palace to see—I shut myself into my chambers to pace and plan and wait until it was a new day and I could take my frustrations to my Moon Eater alone.

  She Who Loves Silence is a huntress. Her silence is that of patience and cunning. But too many of our people forget that. My brother did.