Conqueror's Blood (Gunmetal Gods Book 2)

by Zamil Akhtar

  “No. I…I…when you walked into the palace, I saw you. Wearing a turban, but not even that eyepatch could obscure your lovely face. I overheard your conversation with your Himyarite friend. I could have fled and told Zedra everything, but I chose to stay. For you.”

  I snickered. “Right — for me.” I picked up a silk pillow. “I could smother you this moment, and naught a one would care. No, that’s not true — Pashang and his Jotrids would likely cheer it. Perhaps I should. It would soothe my worries. Balm my wounds.”

  She dropped her wine cup on the bed, reddening the sheets. Then she clutched her hair and covered her face, all while trembling and crying.

  “You were part of it.” I fluffed the pillow. “I attained all I ever wanted. I became Sultana of Sultanas, and you helped her ruin everything.”

  “I-I-I didn’t know!” Her sobs resembled a bleating goat.

  “Didn’t know? Since when is ignorance an excuse? I don’t have a good choice here. It’s dangerous to keep you — it’s dangerous to let you go. Killing you is the only way. Why am I the only one who sees that? Are the others so delighted by your sweetness that they can’t taste the poison? Is it on me to make this awful choice?”

  “I don’t want to die. Please, sultana.”

  “I don’t want to kill you.” I inched closer, then put the pillow aside. I took her crying form in my arms, which both warmed and revolted me. Such an insidious little thing, whom I wanted to kiss and crush with a rock.

  “I want you to do something for me.” I stroked her hair. “It’s going to make everything better.”

  “Anything,” she managed amid sobs. Her hair smelled sweet and damp.

  “You fooled me, you fooled Zedra, you fooled Mansur. But can you fool Khagan Pashang?”

  She shuddered. “No. He’s not kind like the rest of you. There’s a frost in his eyes. He terrifies me.”

  I whispered in her trembling ear, “I should terrify you.”

  She shuddered even harder. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Find out what his intentions are. At the meeting, he lamented Mansur’s absence, but I suspect he may not mind it so much. After all, now there’s an empty throne…for him to sit.” Which only bothered me insofar as Pashang would lie about it. Why hide his intentions from me, whom he claimed to be truthful with?

  “How am I supposed to manage that?” Vera asked as she nestled her head against my neck.

  I kissed her forehead. I took her hand, placed it on my thigh, and moved it up to the warmest part. “Just how you managed me.”

  I awoke after two hours, a pounding ache in my belly. I’d barely eaten anything yesterday, and so my insides seemed to tighten on air. I retched in a precious tulip-patterned vase that was sitting atop its own small carpet.

  Afterward, I sat against the wall and watched an unclothed Vera snore on her side with small, rhythmic breaths.

  Was I really, honestly, truly going to kill her? Earlier, when I’d held that pillow, I wasn’t jesting. And it shocked me — how coldly I considered her fate. Was this what was necessary, now?

  In the Waste, I’d watched men kill for the pettiest reasons: an insult directed at one’s horse, a sideways glare, and I even saw a man bludgeon another for wearing yellow. Here in Alanya, men killed each other for weightier considerations: justice and moral order. Even so, the killing never ceased.

  When I’d written on the stars and summoned those locusts…it led to deaths. Scores of gholam and Jotrids died fighting atop the walls. All because of something I did. I’d returned to this city to clear my name, but in doing so, I’d drenched it in blood. And worse, I’d become something as arcane as the sorceress I was fighting. What was it for, then?

  Could I turn back, could I find the straight path, as Khizr Khaz admonished? But the path to anything worthwhile could never be straight. It would twist and turn through mountains and forests and jungles, and as you walked, sorcerers and jinn and Ahriyya himself would beset you. From here on, any path worth walking would be paved with bones and painted with bile.

  So why didn’t I suffocate her, then?

  I got more much-needed sleep and woke after dawn. Vera wasn’t next to me — perhaps she’d gone to ingratiate herself with Pashang. It was a tenuous reason, at best, to let her live, but it gave me room to breathe and decide what I ought to become.

  I went to Eshe’s room; he wasn’t there. After searching for a while, I found him in the guards’ lodging, asleep on a pallet, a book cradled on his chest. He awoke with a snort as I sat beside him.

  “Are you ready, now?” I asked.

  He rubbed his eyes and looked around, as bewildered as a just awoken man ought to be. “Can we have breakfast before I find out what I should be ready for?”

  He settled the book on the floor — the spine read Garden of Embers.

  “What’s that?” I pointed at it.

  “It’s about a man who,” he stretched and yawned, “discovered an underground kingdom of jinn while searching for his dead wife. Frightening tale…not sure how the author dreamed up such horrors.”

  “I want to know what they did to you, Eshe. You said you saw an egg. What did you mean?”

  In the Waste, I used to love devouring the eggs of this fat, tall-necked bird called a bustard. The eggs were bronze-colored and barely fit in my hand — that was the only egg I wanted to see.

  Eshe pulled on his utterly curly hair. “The man in the floral cloak — he wanted to know about a book my father salvaged from the Golden Kingdom after the blood plague ravaged it. A book I’d committed to memory.” He itched his scalp. “The strangest thing is…the book is about flowers.” Eshe began reciting:

  Red tulips, one of the seven hundred species of tulip. They are endemic to the areas north and south of the Syr Darya, west to the Yunan Sea, and east toward Merva. Local legends claim that the petals turned red from the bloodshed of when Seluq’s sons warred for the title of Padishah of the East, but this is entirely fiction. However, it is quite a coincidence that the red color appeared during that war, which lasted a century, and to this day is the worst calamity ever to befall the Seluqal kingdoms.

  I tried to hide how impressed I was that he could pluck whole tomes from memory, as if verses of a much-loved poem. “Tulips? Perhaps it has a hidden meaning, like the other book you mentioned.”

  “My hunch, as well. I told him that I knew nothing about it, but he knew I was lying, and so…that man in the floral cloak…he…” Eshe swallowed hard. “He pulled out a book. When he flipped through it, I saw that a different bloodrune was painted on each page. And then, he took my hand and forced me to touch one.” Eshe winced and shook his head. “I can’t describe what I saw. There was an egg, and screaming mouths, and the bitterest song from the coldest hell.” The Palace of the Living had mouths that sung of pain, too. “‘Why are there creatures on my womb?’ — that’s what the mouths were screaming. It was a memory…”

  A shudder seized me. Nightmares beyond our understanding. I put my hand on Eshe’s shoulder. “Did you do what he asked, then?”

  “He wanted a particular chapter — the one about red tulips. I’d just finished it when you all came.”

  I rubbed my turban. “I just remembered something — Zedra loved those red tulips. She’d ask the servants to bring her fresh ones from the garden each day.” Now I made a fist. “Just who do Litani and that flower fellow think they are, torturing you for such nonsense?”

  A few of Mansur’s guards nearby eyed us and walked toward a weapon-covered wall, chattering in some rhapsodic Kashanese tongue. Some grabbed swords, others guns. On the far side, several guards snored in sleep — how could they rest with their paymaster missing?

  “The Philosophers know who they are, Cyra. Theirs isn’t a false confidence. I’d rather fight a sorceress than them.”

  “Why? Their tower is just stone and paper. A well-placed bomb could end it all.”

  “Do you know who taught us how to make bombs? Men were fighting with bron
ze before the Philosophers appeared. It’s said they have knowledge hidden in the top two floors of the Tower that could destroy a city faster than a hummingbird flaps. They keep it from us out of compassion.”

  Pashang had claimed that a starwriter could bring a city to heel. It seemed the Philosophers were sorcerers in their own right.

  Another group of guards passed by, munching on seeds and laughing.

  I said, “Khizr Khaz told me that the Philosophers are loyal to the Empire of Silk.”

  Eshe shook his head. “I’ve heard that, too, but people cast similar aspersions on us Himyarites.” He took my hand. “Listen, let’s ignore the Philosophers, for now. We have to find Zedra and stop whatever she’s planning. One doesn’t kill a shah for fun.”

  I rubbed the eye beneath my patch — my star-seeing eye — careful not to let Eshe see. Although, it was long past time to tell him.

  “Eshe, there’s something I need to tell—”

  “My failure to stop Aschere led to tens of thousands of deaths in Sirm.” He cracked his knuckles. “I won’t let it happen here. I won’t let darkness win.”

  Darkness…if only Eshe knew how it called to me, how I prayed to it, perhaps he’d strike me dead this moment.

  “Sorry, I cut you short,” he said. “You were saying?”

  I swallowed my secrets and nodded. “Nothing. You’re right. We must stop her.”

  But my intentions weren’t so noble. I didn’t share Eshe’s horror over what happened in Sirm. I just wanted revenge, to restore my place in the world, and ensure I kept it this time by destroying my enemies before they destroyed me. A stew of rage and longing drowned me. I hoped, after I’d defeated Zedra and secured my place, I could seek nobler ends.

  “You’re wrong. You are a good man, Eshe. Or at least, you’re still trying to be.”

  He shrugged his shoulders as if unsure of himself. I knew well that feeling.

  While Eshe went to find breakfast, I sought out Khagan Pashang. He was in the great hall with Ozar and a few viziers. I waited by the entrance, then caught the two as they were leaving.

  Ozar was garbed in a maroon and bronze vest with emeralds for buttons. He greeted me with a nod and smile. Pashang wore a fresh white caftan with an almost glossy blue turban.

  “Bright morning,” Pashang said. “Eshe was right — Mansur and the child never made it to the shrine.”

  “My man confirmed it,” Ozar said, “and more. Last night, Zedra was stopped from running into the streets, claiming she’d dreamt Chisti himself was delivering her son to her.”

  It was now beyond doubt. Zedra was the soulshifter. She’d stabbed my eye out, killed Tamaz, and slit my throat — for reasons unknown. Reminded of her evil acts, I felt better about my own.

  “So,” I said, “why don’t we march on the shrine and demand her arrest?”

  “We won’t have to,” Ozar said. “My man has already informed Khizr Khaz. The sheikh has confined Zedra to her lodging, with a thorough guard, and is weighing when to tell the others in his coalition. The ruse is up — everyone will awaken to it soon. My good name, and your most exalted name, will no longer be curses uttered in the dark.”

  It truly was a bright morning. Brighter with every word. Khizr Khaz was no fool. He’d seen through her veil, and soon I’d have everyone on my side.

  Pashang sighed. “We still haven’t a shadow of where Mansur and the child are. Without them, what are we doing here? What authority have we?”

  “Authority?” I scoffed. “When did Mansur have any authority, to begin with?”

  Ozar said, “Mansur was the heir before Kyars was born. Shah Haran, Tamaz and Mansur’s father, made them stand atop the peak of Zelthuriya and swear an oath that Tamaz would rule first, and then Mansur after him. But Tamaz betrayed the oath — and those of us old enough to remember, remember.”

  “You chose his side because of an oath?” I said. “That’s not like you, pasha.”

  “Why are we arguing this?” Ozar shook his head. “I thought we all agreed that Mansur should rule. That’s why we’re here and not with Khizr Khaz and his ilk.”

  I said, “I’m here because an injustice was done to me, to my brother, to my father-in-law. I’ll stand with whoever rights that wrong. But I won’t pretend it’s because some words said on a mountain before most of us were born.”

  Ozar smiled, almost out of pity. “I don’t envy you, sultana. Your hand will always be what struck down Tamaz. But deeper truths oft lie beyond the veil — and time is the thickest of veils. Regardless — you’re right. I am not a truth seeker. And so, I ask myself — does it really matter who killed Tamaz? Who should be shah? Rather, what matters is we’re on one side, and those who want to kill us are on the other. And if I were you, I’d bring to mind that Mansur, unlike Kyars, isn’t beholden to Zedra, whom we all know was bedding other men.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What she’s done is bad enough. We don’t need to heap lies on top of it. We’d start to sound ridiculous if we did.”

  Pashang cleared his throat. “I’ll tell you what I think. Forgetting your enemies are your enemies — there’s nothing worse in war. Make no mistake, Cyra — this is a war with Kyars, and we’ll be heads on walls if we lose.”

  “Kyars is my husband by law. Khizr Khaz will enforce the contract. Just because I’m your ally, for now, doesn’t make him my enemy.”

  “By law.” Pashang sniggered. “And in the same law, do you know how easily a man can end a marriage he hasn’t consummated? Not more than three words, and your marriage is undone,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that.”

  “No, Khizr Khaz won’t let him.”

  I turned my head toward the wall as a few viziers I recognized walked by, chatting the while, sweet myrrh wafting from their brocades. I couldn’t let myself be known — a reminder that I was still in danger, in my own home, from all sides.

  Ozar put a stiff hand on my shoulder. “Sultana—” I backed away.

  “If you don’t believe I’m the wife of the Shah, why call me that?”

  “You know I always called you that,” Ozar said, “not because of whom you’re married to, but because you have a sultana’s grace. But I fear you’re putting your hopes in the wrong men. Khizr Khaz — powerful as he may be — won’t save you. Kyars never liked the white-haired devil. He’ll want a more permitting Grand Mufti, one that matches his own vision. Which is why Khizr Khaz supported Mansur, too, before stabbing him in the back.”

  Was Khizr Khaz, the one honest man who seemed to believe in me, just another double-dealer? Did I have to abandon the hope Kyars would honor our marriage? And what would I be to Mansur? Just a trinket to display? I didn’t want that; I wanted to be someone who could make a difference. I wanted to be the Sultana of Sultanas!

  “Kyars is a good man,” I said, though it sounded so false. “Everyone is going to tell him about Zedra’s treachery. Then he’ll know I was innocent, and he’ll honor our marriage!”

  Pashang grumbled. “Then go, Cyra. Go to Khizr Khaz. But once you choose their side, ours will be shut to you, forever.”

  Did I really have to choose? Why did there have to be a war, anyway? Was I foolish to have revealed my feelings? So many thoughts stirred, and I couldn’t grasp what to do.

  One thing, though, was obvious: Mansur and the heir were missing. Whoever found them would decide the fate of the country. Perhaps the stars would help me be the one.

  I found Eshe in the hallway outside the great hall, staring into a mirror and combing his hair. He kept it so short, I couldn’t conceive why he needed to style it.

  “Did you eat something?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Not the shah’s food you promised. Curry and a bit of lamb — what the guards were eating.”

  Watching him comb his beard, I realized I hated everyone…except him. Everyone in this place was so twisted, so devious, so double-sided…me included. But Eshe, he was the kind of person I wanted to be: purposed. I wanted a purpose above myself, too. And
yet, I remained so mired in my anger and appetites.

  “Eshe…I don’t think we should be here.”

  He settled the comb beneath the mirror. “I could have told you that. The history tome won’t praise the Jotrid side — well, unless they write it.”

  “I heard Khizr Khaz has placed Zedra in confinement. He’s aware that she’s the soulshifter. We should go there and join him, like we were supposed to. Besides, I want to talk to her. Find out why she did what she did.”

  “Cyra…is that wise? While the Jotrid side isn’t the good side, it may well be the safer one, for now. The numbers tell it — there’s naught between that shrine and tens of thousands of loot-mad Jotrids.”

  True…but rather shortsighted. “And when Kyars gets here with enough gholam to even the odds, won’t he catch us on the losing side, then?”

  Eshe sighed. “I don’t know. But until Kyars returns, the last place I want to be is that shrine. I don’t think Kyars would begrudge his wife for playing it safe and remaining here, in her home.”

  “What should we do, then?”

  “Wait and see, lest we get caught in the mire.” He beamed, teeth wide and white. “In the meantime — I’ve never been in the harem before. What’s the Shah’s bed chamber like, I wonder?”

  I chuckled. “There’s a golden cage around the bed.”

  He widened his eyes in surprise. “Oh? You’ve been there? Not as innocent as I thought, perhaps.”

  “I slept there, in fact…last night.”

  “Last night…when you were supposed to be sleeping with me. Forced me to go with the guards so I wouldn’t be all alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone, either.” I grinned.

  His jaw dropped. “What? Don’t tell me…P-Pashang?”

  I nodded, eyebrows high, and then laughed.

  Eshe breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Lat.”

  “You were jealous for that moment, though.”

  “Not even a little. I’ve got a trove of lustful nymphs waiting at my brass throne.”

  We both laughed. He seemed to be in a better mood than last night — his old self — and that made me happier than I expected.