With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME about your plan with Emre,” Zaïde said to Çeda as they strode down the hall toward the savaşam.

  “There wasn’t time.”

  “There’s always time. You’re a resourceful girl. I think you could have managed it if you’d a mind to.”

  “It came up suddenly. An opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.”

  “That’s all the more reason to step lightly. You don’t dive into a pit of vipers head first.” She looked up to the corners of the hallway. “Not here.”

  Zaïde wasn’t being unreasonable. What she and Emre were planning was dangerous. But Çeda wasn’t going to change her mind, then or now, so there had been no point in bringing it up with Zaïde. “It won’t happen again.”

  Zaïde stopped, pulling Çeda around by the sleeve until they were face to face. The anger in her, along with her wrinkled, tattooed skin, made her look like one of the desert gods come for vengeance. “Don’t make promises you don’t mean to keep. It makes you look childish and paints me the fool. Do you think me a fool, Çeda?”

  “No, Matron.”

  “And whatever happened with Yndris cannot happen again. If it does, best to kill her and be done with it.” She resumed her pace, her fury showing in the very set of her body, the tight swinging of her arms. “What you did attracts notice. It’s the last thing we need. I’ve worked too carefully for too many years to see it all unravel because you decided to pull on a loose thread, or worse, tear the weave by poking at it in the dark like an infant.”

  Zaïde was acting strangely. She was angry, but there was more to it. “Something’s happened.”

  “Yes, something’s happened. Mesut wishes to speak with you. About what, I cannot say.”

  Gods, Mesut . . . Çeda felt everything she’d done to get here falling apart. I would not wish to see you tossed aside like some distasteful cut of meat, Mesut had told her, but you will be unless you can master the asirim.

  “You said you had the ear of one of the Kings,” Çeda said, her desperation beginning to grow. “Could you not ask for his protection?”

  As they came closer to the savaşam, Zaïde composed herself and whispered, “It is not yet time to play that card. Be careful. Watch your tongue. Gather all the manners you can manage and by the gods use them.” By the time they’d reached the savaşam, Zaïde’s look had transformed into one of calm deference. She slid the door wide, stepped inside, and bowed her head low.

  Çeda entered, expecting King Mesut to be standing there, but instead she found a tall woman with black hair bound in an intricate golden headdress. The woman stood in the center of the padded mat that dominated the room, her hands held easily behind her back as she took Çeda in. She wore a khalat, though it had been fitted to her feminine frame—a Mirean import, this particular cut of clothes, a recent addition to fashion in the palaces of Sharakhai. Her eyes weighing Çeda coldly, the woman waited for Çeda to bow to her, which Çeda did. After the customary breath of deference, Çeda raised her head, as did Zaïde.

  “Çedamihn,” Zaïde said, “this is Verdaen, vizira to King Mesut.”

  “Vizira,” Çeda said, tipping her head again, only long enough for it not to be considered rude.

  Verdaen chose not to return the pleasantry. Instead, she took in the room as if it were the first time she’d set foot in a savaşam. And perhaps it was. She looked as if she’d lop off her own hand before mastering a dozen swings from the tahl selheshal. And she was still wearing her fine sandals on the mat, a grave insult. It grated on Çeda’s nerves, but given the woman’s station, she wasn’t sure whether it had been done with purpose or through simple ignorance.

  Finally Verdaen returned her icy gaze to Çeda. “King Mesut would speak with you,” she said, as simple as that, and then she was striding toward the still-open doorway.

  “Might I ask the reason?” Zaïde’s voice betrayed no sense of worry, but the way her eyes flicked to Çeda did.

  “You may not.”

  “We were set to train, and with Çeda leaving on the morrow, I’d hoped to—”

  “Are you denying your King his request?”

  “Never,” Zaïde stated simply. “Only wondering when she will return.”

  “She returns when she returns.” And with that Verdaen swept from the room, expecting Çeda to follow.

  Çeda said nothing as she followed the vizira from the building to the grand courtyard of the House of Maidens. There, footmen opened a gilded araba for them. Verdaen sat across from Çeda as the araba pulled away. Melis and Kameyl were just stepping out from the shadowed halls of the infirmary. Kameyl hadn’t noticed Çeda, but Melis did. She watched both Çeda and Verdaen with a confused expression. She shrugged her shoulders at Çeda, a silent query, but Çeda could only shrug back.

  They rode beyond the inner walls of the House of Maidens and along King’s Road. Ahead, the road forked, the left fork leading up to the palaces, the right winding around the southern shoulders of Tauriyat to reach the Royal Harbor. To her surprise, the araba took the right fork.

  “The harbor,” Çeda said.

  “The harbor,” Verdaen replied.

  For whatever reason, Çeda could feel the asirim beneath the blooming fields. They were restless, though why, and why now, when Çeda had been summoned to attend a King, she didn’t know. “Is King Yusam aware that I’ve been summoned?”

  Verdaen pulled her gaze away from the cityscape. “Why would he need to be?”

  “I am his Maiden,” Çeda said.

  “You are new yet to the ways of Tauriyat, so let me speak plainly. Mesut needs no excuse to summon you for any reason unless, perhaps, Yusam had expressly forbidden it.” The road curved around a great mound of amber rock, revealing the first of the ship masts and beyond them the towering wall that surrounded King’s Harbor. “Has King Yusam forbade King Mesut from summoning you?”

  “Forgive me, vizira, it’s only that I leave tomorrow to do King Yusam’s bidding in Ishmantep. There is much to do before we depart in the morning.”

  Verdaen gave her a patronizing smile. “I don’t expect this should take long.”

  The harbor opened up before them, the ships of war, great galleys, clippers, and yachts, standing like soldiers at attention beside the piers that raked outward from the curving quay. Above were several palaces, including Eventide, King Kiral’s. They looked like a pack of jackals to Çeda, hungry and smiling, lounging on the rocks.

  As the araba pulled to a halt at the wide circle, the nearby sandsmen stopped and bowed. At a wave from Verdaen, they returned to their work, and soon the footman had opened the door and Verdaen was leading Çeda down along one of the piers. Çeda thought Mesut was waiting aboard one of the ships, but she kept walking past the gangplanks.

  And then Çeda saw him. Out in the harbor, close to the towering doors that led to the desert, a man was moving gracefully through the forms of unarmed combat. Çeda couldn’t see his face, but she recognized Mesut’s lithe figure. Verdaen waved toward the ladder at their feet that led down to the sand. She wore a smug look that, years ago, Çeda would have wanted to slap from her. Now, though, she cared little for Verdaen. There was something afoot, and she wanted desperately to know what it was before Mesut sprung it on her.

  Rather than take the ladder, she somersaulted down from the pier, then strode across the soft, shifting sand. Mesut wore sirwal trousers, but strangely, they were made from simple linen, the sort one might find a boy from the desert wearing. From the waist up he was naked save for his dark purple turban. He was shoeless as well, and was moving with ease and power through one of the oldest combat forms in Sharakhai. Its origins lay not in the tribes of the desert, but in the hills of Mirea, where hidden monasteries housed men and women who dedicated themselves to physical and spiritual oneness. It was an elegant form, and Mesut’s mastery over it was complete. As she neared, she marveled at h
is prowess, at his well-defined form. Sweat, sometimes difficult to come by in the dry desert air, made his bare chest and arms glisten. By all accounts he looked to be Verdaen’s age—forty summers, perhaps—but he was in top physical condition. He was like the flower in the bottle from children’s tales, caught in time, ever blooming.

  On his wrist he wore his golden band with the stone of jet, the same one she’d seen him wear when she was fourteen. Her impression of Mesut had changed much in the years since, but not her impression of that bracelet. It had seemed other-worldly then and it seemed so now.

  When she came close enough she stopped and bowed, electing not to say anything that might interrupt him. He continued through the last moves of the form, legs bent and spread, fists held before him, every muscle taut, and then he relaxed and spread his arms wide, tilted his head back, eyes closed, to take in the sun. Then finally he composed himself and turned to Çeda.

  “My Lord King,” Çeda said.

  From a small pile of folded clothes Mesut retrieved a towel. He ran it along his chest, arms, and the back of his neck, while studying Çeda. He looked completely at peace, which made Çeda wonder just what emotions he was feeling behind those placid brown eyes. The question was no longer if he knew about what Çeda had done, but how much, and what he would now do about it.

  “Word has come that you’re set to leave the city.”

  Çeda breathed deeply, calmed herself as she would before a bout in the pits. “I am, my King.”

  “Something to do with the poor souls taken at the collegia.”

  “We hope that’s true, yes.”

  Mesut nodded. “Well, Yusam does see far.” Finished with the towel, he folded it carefully and placed it back atop his black thawb and white tunic. “I’m glad that we have this chance to speak before you go.”

  “Is it something to do with the voyage to Ishmantep?”

  He waved Çeda to a spot before him, then dropped into a fighting stance. “To a degree, yes, I would say that it does.”

  Çeda removed her sandals, tossing them near Mesut’s carefully laid clothes, then moved to stand before him. They inched toward one another, dropping into a stance that brought Çeda to a place of familiarity, of calm. She felt the nervousness of the ride here melting away as she shifted her feet back and forth, settling herself into her stance, into the proper frame of mind.

  Mesut nodded meaningfully toward their hands. “When we last sparred, I made a request. Do you remember?”

  And just like that, the worry was back, ten times stronger. “You said to exercise control.” This was why Mesut had brought her here. Control. Over the asirim.

  “And have you been?”

  “I have tried, My King, as well as I’ve been able.”

  “Have you truly? Tried, I mean.”

  “I have.”

  “Show me, Maiden.”

  Mesut launched himself forward. Çeda retreated, blocking his opening strikes, sidestepping another and sending two quick punches toward his chest and throat.

  As they traded blows, Çeda felt the grand ring of the blooming fields around Sharakhai. Except this time, there was something wrong. A flower missing a petal. A beetle with one lost limb. She tried to understand it, to sense what it might be, but Mesut was pressing his attack with such ferocity she had no time.

  “Despite the common assumption,” Mesut said as he retreated out of reach, “I cannot hear all the asirim at all times.” He reengaged, connecting with her ribs, while Çeda struck a glancing blow with her palm against his head. He spun away from an overextended punch, sent a hard jab into Çeda’s side, then slipped out of reach once more. “And though rumor says otherwise, I cannot speak to all of them at once. The heroes of Beht Ihman, just like you and me, are at times difficult to control.”

  Heroes, Çeda thought. They were victims, one and all.

  “Any King can call the asirim to heel. As can a properly trained Maiden.” Mesut blocked a flurry of blows from Çeda before snatching her wrist like a striking asp. “What is rare, however”—he twisted her arm up and around, slipping beneath it as he went, forcing Çeda to roll with it or dislocate her shoulder—“is for an asir to reach out to a King. To any King, myself included. Even more rare to reach out to a Maiden.”

  At these words, she felt a growing presence, the same she’d felt when she’d beaten Yndris bloody in the streets, the one that had urged her to kill Yndris. It was urging the same now.

  Kill him, the King of Smiles, the King of Lies. Kill him!

  The anger came on so strong, so quickly, she had little chance of preventing it. She didn’t know how to, and by the time the rage was pumping though her veins, she no longer cared to.

  She knew Mesut had somehow masked the asir’s presence, and perhaps that might have given her a clue to his purpose, but she was too taken by emotion to give it a second thought. She stormed in, sending blow after blow against the King. She blocked his attempts at fending her off, then punched him in the chest, sending him flying. He rolled backward, sand spraying in an arc above him, and reached his feet. “As I suspected,” he said, “it would appear your control is not so complete as you claimed.”

  She could barely hear his words. The rush of blood through her head nearly drowned them out. She could think only of what the Kings had done. To slaughter so many in the desert on the night of Beht Zha’ir, to assign so many others to a fate worse than death. The asirim, the forgotten members of the thirteenth tribe, now scattered like seeds in a ring around the Amber City. For their sake, she pushed beyond her boundaries. In this moment, she wanted nothing more than to twist this King’s neck as she had Jalize’s in the palace of Külaşan. She would drink his blood. She would grind his bones.

  And then suddenly the presence that had been so overbearing simply vanished. Like waking from the worst of dreams, it was there one moment, gone the next. But the memories remained. It left her breathless, coughing, as something inside her shrank and disappeared.

  That was when Mesut snaked in. He slipped an arm around her neck and flipped her over his hip. She struck the sand hard. Part of her—the instincts she’d honed in the pits—told her to fight, but it was a rote response, as distant as the Austral Sea. Whatever Mesut had done had taken all the wind from her sails. She simply lay there as Mesut stared into her eyes.

  When he saw she was not fighting, he released his hold on her neck and came to a stand. “Rise.”

  The presence. The asir. It hadn’t wholly vanished, as she’d first thought. It was still there, just . . . muted. Muffled. And now she could tell exactly where it was coming from. She turned to stare at the tall harbor gates—just beyond them, that’s where the asir was.

  “Yes,” Mesut said. “That one has been calling to you for some time.”

  Çeda ignored him, for she sensed someone else now. Someone standing near the asir, a source of great hatred to the creature who was once a living, breathing woman.

  A heavy thud resounded over the entire harbor. A rhythmic clinking followed, and a groan that sounded like the awakening of some hidden desert titan. Çeda turned and saw the leftmost harbor gate swinging inward. It stopped a moment later. All sound in the harbor had ceased. The snapping of pennants on the war galley mainmasts filled the dry desert air.

  And then a man strode through the gap in the gates. Even from this distance, she recognized King Cahil’s cocksure stride. He was dragging someone behind him. An asir, thin with dark, shriveled skin and lanky hair, which Cahil used to drag her forward. She struggled, but not as much as Çeda might have thought. It reminded Çeda of the night she’d been inducted into the Blade Maidens. An asir had been dragging a woman from Sharakhai toward the adichara trees. Now a King was dragging an asir, but the two events rang in sympathetic tones. As then, Çeda wished desperately she had the power to prevent what was to come, but as was true those many months ago, she was little more t
han a puppet in a gruesome play.

  As Cahil and the asir came closer, old urges whispered in Çeda’s ear. You might fight them. Even if you die, it would be better than allowing this to unfold. But those were the callow words of youth, the hopes of someone who knew nothing of the way of the world.

  Cahil tossed the asir at Mesut’s feet, then stared at Çeda with a face no older than her own. The face, but not the eyes. Those were ancient, atavistic. He watched Çeda with a primal hunger, as if he wished he could take her in return for the asir.

  “Do you recognize her?” Mesut asked in a conversational tone, waving a hand easily toward the asir, who lay curled in a tight ball before him.

  Çeda nodded. “I bonded with her before sailing for the pirate ships.”

  “Good. When did you first recognize that the anger within her was affecting you?”

  Did he know the answer already? Had he been watching her all along? She doubted it, or he would have done something before now. She painted on a confused expression for the Kings’ benefit. “I think she’s been doing it since the day we first bonded.”

  Mesut glanced at Cahil, then crossed his arms over his chest, the golden band and jet stone glinting beneath the sun. “You haven’t answered my question. It’s most important, Çeda. When did you realize?”

  It was a test. She saw how eager Cahil was for her answer. That combined with Mesut’s patient questioning could mean only one thing: Mesut was offering her an excuse for what she had done to Yndris. “In truth,” she said, “I didn’t realize it fully until now.”

  “You’re sure?” Mesut asked.

  “I’ve been”—she blinked, stared harder at the asir—“confused since we were first bonded.”

  “What do you mean confused?”

  “Random fits of anger.” Çeda stared at her knuckles, still bruised from Yndris’s punishment. “Times when I’ve found myself wandering with no idea where I’m going. Other times when spells of sadness overcome me.”

  Mesut turned to Cahil. “Did I not tell you? The asirim’s influence can be difficult to discern, even more difficult to resist.”