With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  A girl who walks upon the shore,

  A woman not yet grown;

  She breathes the air of discontent,

  Her life not yet her own.

  She calls upon the river swell,

  She wades into the flow;

  Wondrous swift it bears her south,

  A seed by wind is blown.

  She lands upon a distant bank,

  A place she does not know;

  She looks upon her withered hands,

  Nor maiden nor matron but crone.

  “It’s beautiful,” Çeda said when she’d finished. Only months ago she’d found herself wondering when the river would come and take her to the places she wished to be—how long ago that seemed already—and now that it had, she wondered when it would stop, and where she would land when it did.

  Kameyl stared into Çeda’s eyes, perhaps weighing the truth in her words, but then she softened and gave Çeda one sharp nod.

  “It will not be so bad as this once it heals,” Melis said as she finished wrapping the bandages around her chest and shoulder.

  “What care have I for that?” Kameyl had said.

  She sat stoically as Melis applied more salve to the wounds on her neck. The only sign she was feeling anything at all was the reddening of her eyes and the occasional grinding of her teeth. She would soon recover, nostrils flaring as she took a deep breath and stared at the ship’s hull as if she could bore into it by will alone. She was a severe woman, with sharp cheeks, an arrowhead chin, and eyes that pierced as deeply as spears, but for all that she was a beautiful woman in her own way. There were men who might want her—many men, in fact—but Kameyl would take none who would ask her to kneel.

  In this, at least, she and Çeda could agree. Çeda would never take a man, have a child with him, and sit three steps behind as he ruled the house, but that didn’t mean she need be alone, though. There had been days when she thought she would come to love Osman, the lord of the pits. He was skilled in the arts of sweat and skin and the sting of muscles pushed to the breaking point, but he’d always been so serious, his arms spread wide to encircle his holdings, haunted by the deep-rooted fear that someone, anyone, Çeda included, might put them at risk.

  And then there was Emre. There had been many days in the House of Maidens when she dreamed of his stealing into her room and pulling her blanket from her bed. He would shush her when she tried to protest. Then he’d lay himself down on top of her. Kiss her how she liked—rough in all the right places, soft in the rest. There were days when her body ached for it. There were days when those dreams focused on another. The lord from Qaimir. He was gone now, returned to his homeland, perhaps never to return, and yet she had hoped to hear he’d come back to the embassy house. They were two of a kind, she and Ramahd, in a way that she and Emre were not. He knew the sorts of things she’d been through.

  Her thoughts, as they had so often these past few days, drifted to Sümeya, the two of them lying on the sand, kissing, hands roaming. There were no two ways about it. Çeda had been using her. And yet her touch had been welcome all the same.

  “What are you doing?” Yndris asked.

  “What?” Çeda replied.

  “You’re sitting there like some moon-eyed calf.”

  Çeda shook her head. “Nothing.” Then she stood and headed up to deck. She wanted to be alone, but how could she be on a ship choked with people? She moved to the ship’s stern and sat along the gunwales. A short while later movement behind the ship caught her attention. Kerim, bounding across the dunes as the sun touched the horizon. She hadn’t seen him since he’d launched himself into the dark tunnel after Hamzakiir. She’d thought him dead, but Kameyl had said he’d escaped and later fled to the desert. She hadn’t been able to feel him then, and she could barely feel him now. He was masking his presence from her, she knew. She might have taken a petal and forced the issue, but what would be the point? She would leave him to grieve as he would.

  The ship’s captain called a halt well after the sun had set and true night had fallen. The crew ate quickly on the sands, and were preparing to return for their early morning departure when Çeda tugged at Emre’s sleeve and motioned for him to walk with her. Sümeya watched the two of them, but said nothing as Emre stood and walked by her side, away from the ship.

  “I thought you might wait until the middle of the night again,” Emre said when they’d passed beyond the dune.

  “The land becomes less rough in a day or two. I suspect Sümeya will start pushing for night sailing to reach Sharakhai as soon as she can.”

  “You’re not worried she will see us speaking alone?”

  “She knows we’re close. She won’t begrudge us a moonlit stroll. Besides, after what happened in Ishmantep, you’ve earned a bit of her trust.” As they climbed the lee of the next dune, she debated on how to approach the subject, the reason she’d wanted to speak to him. In the end, she saw no reason to approach carefully. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sent to kill Aziz?”

  Emre glanced back. No one was following them, but he still waited until the ship and crew were once more out of sight before speaking. “What good would that have done?”

  “We’re in this together, Emre.”

  “I didn’t even know if I would do it.”

  “But you did. You’d planned it all along. You aren’t just gambling with your own life now. Mine’s at stake as well.”

  “I know, Çeda. I’m sorry. He was a traitor. He had shifted his allegiance to Hamzakiir. He was feeding money and supplies to him and withholding it from Ishaq. If others felt they could do the same, it would cripple Ishaq’s hold on the Host.”

  “If what Kameyl learned from the soldiers is true, it’s already crippled.”

  “Exactly my point. We need to bring them back in line or Ishaq will lose control of the Host entirely.”

  Ishaq. Çeda’s grandfather. And Macide, her uncle. It was a thing she’d still not fully digested. Her first instinct was to let it go, to wait to tell Emre until she’d had a chance to think on it more, but she’d just berated him for not sharing something she felt she had a right to know. “Emre, my mother was Ishaq’s daughter.”

  That stopped Emre in his tracks. “What?” When she only stared, he asked, “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Macide told me.”

  He stood there for a time, lost in thought. “Before the attack on Külaşan’s palace,” he said after a time, “Macide and I spoke. He said he knew Ahya, but didn’t say how. It makes perfect sense now. He had that look in his eye, like the finch that filched Yerinde’s secrets.”

  Çeda shook her head at the wonder of it all. “What a weave the threads of our lives do make.”

  Emre had half a smile on his face, a quip just there on his lips, but then his eyes seemed to stare inwardly. “I know what they’re going to do,” he finally said. “Macide and Hamid and the rest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were right. I shouldn’t have hidden anything from you.”

  “What are they going to do, Emre?”

  “While the Kings are at the aqueduct, they’re going to attack the palaces. Three of them in particular.”

  “Which ones?”

  “I don’t know. They were waiting for that information when I left.”

  “Why, then? To kill the Kings?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think they’re hoping the Kings will be gone.”

  “Then why go at all?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something hidden within the palaces. Gold, perhaps. Or something else they value.”

  “You must know more.”

  “Truly, Çeda, I . . .” He stopped, a look of horror stealing over him. He gripped her forearm and pulled her back.

  She turned and saw it a moment later. She felt it as well. A presence lurking
at the edge of her consciousness. She thought it was Kerim, but when she peered closer, she saw a glint of gold reflecting Rhia’s light. It struck a memory of another night in Sharakhai, Beht Zha’ir, when she’d first met the King of the Thirteenth Tribe. This was he, Sehid-Alaz, but he didn’t move, perhaps fearful of being seen from the ship, so Çeda stepped toward him, the sand piling around her boots as she took the slope down.

  Once there she could see him at last, the sad king, the betrayed lord of the lost tribe. He rose up, crook-backed, eyes glinting. Emre approached as well, but remained a step behind her.

  “Why have you come?” Çeda asked, though part of her was afraid of the answer.

  All the old instincts, her fear of the asirim instilled in her from childhood, returned as he shuffled forward. The rattle of his breath made her cringe, but she pulled herself taller as Sehid-Alaz approached. “I have come to open your eyes,” he said, his words the rattle of windblown leaves. “Much was hidden from you.”

  “What? What was hidden from me?”

  His only answer was to lift a finger and reach for her. All her instincts told her to pull away, but she stood still, waiting for his touch. The moment his finger brushed her forehead she felt herself falling as the world dissolved around her.

  Chapter 55

  THIRTEEN YEARS EARLIER . . .

  WITH THE TWIN MOONS Rhia and Tulathan hanging like lanterns over the desert, Çeda and Ahya’s skiff sailed over the desert. Ahya steered while Saliah sat in the front. Çeda took the thwart between them, the knot in her stomach tightening like wet leather left to dry in the sun.

  Çeda was sure Saliah was blind, and yet she turned her head this way and that, as if sensing the heat from a fire. She pointed with one long finger. “There,” she said, and Ahya adjusted the course of the skiff. The moons were not quite full, thank the gods, so Beht Zha’ir was not yet upon them, but it was small comfort. Saliah was guiding them toward the dark patches that lay ahead—the blooming fields—and nothing could bode well from that.

  They came to a stop well shy of the pitch-dark trees and exited the skiff. Saliah led the way, pressing the butt of her staff into the sand, then putting her ear to the head, as if she were listening to all that lay below. She did this several times, moving closer and closer to the trees, which looked to Çeda like a pack of black laughers huddled close, ready to charge the moment the three of them came near.

  When Saliah approached, however, the branches began to part. Like a cloud of insects retreating from smoke, the thorny branches drew back, forming a tunnel to a clearing within the grove of twisted trees. The clearing was tear-shaped, and other spaces connected to it through arches or gaps between the trees, making it feel as though someone had crafted this place, planned it like some vast hedge maze.

  Saliah led the way with Ahya and Çeda following hand in hand. No sooner had they passed beyond the bent trees than their branches rattled back into place. It sent a chill down Çeda’s frame. She hadn’t liked being near the trees in the first place, and she hated the idea of being trapped within them.

  “Çeda should be the one to call to him,” Saliah said, breaking the tense silence.

  Ahya nodded, then knelt before Çeda and took her hands. “He is the one we spoke of, Çeda. His name is Sehid-Alaz, and he has lost his way.”

  The terror was rising in Çeda by the moment. “I want to go home, memma.” The rattle of the adichara was all around her. “I want to go home.”

  Ahya squeezed her hands. “Don’t be afraid. We only need you to call to him.”

  Saliah stared into the darkness of the trees. “Call to him, girl.”

  Nearby, the sand began to shift, to roll, as if a sand drake were lying beneath and twisting its body. She backed away. She knew very well it wasn’t a drake. She knew what it was, but she didn’t want to voice it. Doing so would only draw it nearer. “Home, memma! I want to go home!”

  Her mother grabbed her moments before her foot caught on an exposed root. Çeda nearly fell into the adichara’s thorns, but Ahya pulled her back and shook her. “Please be brave.” She pointed down at the shifting sand. “Now call his name!”

  Çeda didn’t know why they needed him, the father of their tribe. She didn’t know what her mother and Saliah expected her to do if she found him anyway. She only knew she had to leave. There must be a way out of here. She twisted away from her mother’s grasp and ran through the nearest opening.

  “Çeda!”

  She kept running but slipped as the sand gave way beneath her. She screamed as her foot sunk into the sand, as something grabbed her ankle.

  “Çeda! The thorns!”

  She stumbled, pulling her foot free of the slip-sand, and kept running into another clearing, smaller than the last, then ducked down and crawled through a tunnel, hoping, praying it would lead beyond the trees to the open desert.

  It did not.

  Ahead was another large clearing. She searched desperately for a way out, but the trees surrounding it were ordered tightly, like rank upon rank of black-thorned soldiers. There were no more avenues of escape. “Memma!”

  “Çeda, come back!”

  She tried. She ran back the way she’d come, but stopped when the ground before her moved. An arm lifted up, clawing its way into the air. “Memma!”

  She wanted to run past the asirim, but the thought of one of those things grabbing her kept her rooted to the spot. She backed away, stopping just short of the trees with their closed buds that looked like eyes on stalks. Had she not known how poisonous the trees were, she would have tried climbing them to escape, thorns and all, but she’d heard the stories of how painful the poison was, how quickly it killed.

  Two arms lifted from the sand, a head lifted up and scanned the area. Çeda was shivering badly. Part of her wanted to scream, but she was too afraid that the black, paper-skinned creature would turn and come for her. The asirim were slow when waking—or so the legends said—but fierce and fast once they’d shaken off their slumber.

  The memory of Leorah came to her, how calm she’d been, how uncaring of the world and its troubles. She remembered how, after Leorah had given her the piece of the petal, the vigor it had granted. It had given her too much at first, but then she had calmed. Quickly, she took out the kerchief from the small leather bag at her belt and unfolded it. Much of the petal had crumbled, bits and pieces falling away as she laid the remains out over her palm, but there was enough there to take. She picked up the largest piece and put it under her tongue, as Leorah had done, then took another.

  An asir levered its angular body up from the sand, blocking the entrance to the small clearing. Another rose before Çeda, staring at her, bow-backed and sniffing like a dog emboldened by starvation. In the darkness of the grove, Çeda could see few of the asir’s features. Lank hair. Emaciated limbs. Long, misshapen claws at the ends of its fingers. But the smell of it. Dear gods, it was the smell of sweetness and rot. It made Çeda gag even as saliva filled her mouth from the adichara petal.

  The asir came closer as more rose behind it. “Çeda, come this way!” her mother called, but her words were cut off. Çeda heard a strangled sound, followed by a scuffle.

  “Sehid-Alaz! Sehid-Alaz!” Çeda cried. “Please, I wish to see Sehid-Alaz!”

  The asir before her crouched lower, put its face close to hers. A sound emanated from its throat, a bare rasp. Words, she guessed, but what it might be saying she had no idea. “I wish to see Sehid-Alaz,” she said.

  The asir snorted, then leaned forward and sniffed her neck. It shivered—whether in anger or excitement, Çeda couldn’t guess—but then it turned and walked toward the center of the clearing while the other asirim cleared the way, leaving a rough circle of exposed sand. As the asir faced Çeda and beckoned her closer, it began to sink. First its feet were swallowed, then its ankles, then its shins. It beckoned again, and Çeda came closer, but she was deathl
y afraid of being drawn down into the earth.

  When the asir spoke in a breathy whisper, another asir shoved her. The first grabbed Çeda’s wrist even as its waist was lost to the grasping sand, and Çeda was pulled down as well. She hardly had time to scream—to claw at the sand, trying to break free of the asir’s grasp—than she was drawn below the surface.

  Stone scraped against her legs and hips, against her arms and shoulders. The earth pressed in, forcing the air from her lungs. And then, thank the gods who walk the earth, she was out and falling into darkness. Her ankle twisted as she landed, but the asir caught her, steadied her, then took her by the hand and led her through the darkness.

  They wound this way, then that, walking for minutes on end, and all the while, the asir kept a tight grip on Çeda’s wrist.

  “Where are we going?” Çeda asked.

  The asir said nothing. On and on they went, heading slowly downward. The air was cool in this place. They passed caverns filled with faint light emanating from unseen sources. Some were so large they made Çeda feel lightheaded. How could such caverns exist?

  When the way was dark she used her hand to feel along the tunnel walls. Sometimes it was hard, bare rock. Other times it was sharp. Other times still it was slick with moisture. Often she felt something rough and vine-like. Roots, she realized. She pulled at some when she felt them, and some of it broke away. They were roots. From the adichara? she wondered.

  She lost track of time. She should be tired, especially after their long sail, but the energy of the petal carried her on. Eventually they came to a set of winding paths that led them even lower. Çeda heard dripping water. The petal must be wearing off, Çeda thought, because she had begun to shiver from the cold. Ahead, a soft violet glow lit the tunnel. It was distant yet. It looked like little more than a twinkling star, but it soon grew, and then Çeda could see the tunnel itself, which was almost perfectly round, as if one of Goezhen’s wicked beasts had used its great claws to bore the passage. The roots were thick here, making the tunnel floor soft and spongy.