I looked at the villagers who stood near. How did they miss this magical jinni standing beside their king? My eyes found his again. He still stared. Movement seemed impossible, his eyes pinning me down like a collector’s moth. I trembled with fear, with fury. What was he doing to me? I wanted to scream at him, at all of them. But even more, I wanted to be free of them.
The jinni’s mouth curved up to one side, a reluctant smile, almost a plea. No, I would not indulge. I tore my gaze from his and leaned into Firoz.
“I need to go.”
Wedging my way through the hollering and heaving people, I thought I could feel the jinni’s eyes on me and a warmth, like a hot wind, brushing against my neck.
When I stepped out into the open air, two partridges, with swirls of black on their wings, fluttered away. The sun was sinking behind the settlement tents. Their shadows were long, cast onto the sand, sharp like the teeth of a fox.
I ran rapidly back to my home. The warm wind at my back urging me on.
Chapter Six
“You will get us all beaten to death.” Sabra stormed at me when I walked into the tent. Conversations were silenced as my sisters turned to watch us.
“I—what?” I stepped back from Sabra. Her fury was palpable.
“Your little escapades,” she hissed the words, speaking quietly so none outside would not hear. “Your selfish adventures. Going to the village—your forbidden life—while we are imprisoned in this infernal palace.” She waved her hands wildly as she spoke.
“I don’t understand.” I looked from Sabra to my sisters who stared at us from around the room, waiting for someone to explain. Sabra could make the same choice to go into the settlement, she just never did. None of my sisters did.
Tavi crept over to Sabra. “Leave her. She didn’t know. How could she?”
“Do you hear how she defends you? She doesn’t even realize what you’re doing could get you killed. Could get her killed.” Sabra turned to Tavi. “Sit down. This is between me and Emel.” Tavi did not move.
“Patrolling guards checked on us this afternoon,” Sabra said. “They counted us. Imagine their surprise when they found one of us to be missing. Where were you? Oh, just out doing whatever it is you do out there.” She fluttered her hand as though shaking off an insect.
“C—counted us?” I stammered. “But what about girls at the rama or harem?” My sisters came and went from our home frequently. It made no sense that they would suddenly expect all of us to be present in one afternoon.
“You were the only one missing.”
Clutching the clothes on my chest, I steadied my breath. I thought of my mother. Had she set me up? I shook my head. That was ridiculous. So someone indeed knew one of us was leaving, someone that was not a friend. A traitorous guard—Alim, Jael? I would be punished, maybe even banished. Or worse.
“We lied for you. Said you felt ill and were occupied.” Sabra tipped her head in the direction of the pots. “Had to save our own necks so we didn’t get in trouble for not telling them you’d left. Didn’t think of that, did you?”
She was right. I hadn’t.
“They left without questions,” Tavi said quietly.
I exhaled, grateful for their lies and for the large amount of salt I had given the guards as a bribe. Had they been asked, both men, I was sure, firmly denied the escape of an ahira.
Sensing my distress, Tavi added, “It’s okay, Emel. There’s no trouble.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, and my eyes fell to the ground. I had been selfish.
Sabra said, speaking more loudly now, “You’re caught up in your own world. You focus on only you. Father gives you extra attention, lavish clothes, more lenience. But what do you have to show for it?” Sabra laughed. “Nothing. Just like me. You aren’t special, Emel.”
I stared at Sabra, aghast at her words, at her callousness toward the death of Aashiq and my grief. The anger seemed to be years old, waiting for an opportunity to unleash.
The Salt King was shameless, as he was in all things, in his favoritism. He surveyed his ahiran periodically, deciding who was most beautiful, most worth his time. Those he chose would receive extra attention when being courted by a suitor, by gifts of gold-spun costumes and finely crafted chains and jewels. Sisters were always jealous of the chosen ahira, but the feelings vanished the moment the girl was wed.
I had been chosen quite young as a favorite of the King. My attendants said it was because of my beauty: the high bones of my cheeks; my slender neck; my long hair, dark as night; my strong frame that carried large breasts and wide hips. The only evidence I was of the King’s blood was the charcoal black of my eyes. I had what men wanted to see, what they wanted to touch and hold.
My father was fascinated by me; touching me, fingering my hair when I was near him during courtings. Like the jinni’s vessel, I was one of his favorite baubles. It took years for him to become discouraged by the lack of proposals I received. Even then, his obsession was apparent despite the heavy veil of frustration he pulled between us.
As the years passed, my sisters’ jealousy toward me faded—I possessed nothing worth envying. Evidently, Sabra’s did not. Our relationship frayed as we got older, and the time that remained for Sabra dwindled to months. I assumed it was her fear of being banished, cast out by her family. I remember watching the same tension snapping between the older ahiran those years ago when another was cast out.
I set my jaw and watched Sabra. I had apologized. There was nothing left for me to say.
“I won’t risk my life lying for you,” she said. “Don’t leave the palace again. If not for your sisters’ sake, then for your own. If you do, I’ll tell Father.” She turned from me.
The girls in the room gasped, and I stared at her retreating back, horrified. All the anger I had felt toward Nassar, the Salt King, the jinni, paled compared to what I felt for my sister—for someone I was supposed to be able to trust. It was cruel.
As I walked to my bed, my shadow jerked wildly from the torch-fire. I thought of Sabra’s threat and whether or not it was to be believed. I began planning ways I could sneak out without her realizing. I dropped my veil and robe onto my mat and unfastened the sack full of salt from the leather belt around my dress. I dug a small hole in the sand into which I furiously stuffed the bag before sliding my mat over it.
Raheemah came to me, the stack of cards in one hand and the bowl of cowries and glass beads in her other. I picked up one of the beads, milky blue on the outside, a chip in its surface revealing it to be clear blue on the inside. Slave beads, we called them. As if slavery was something beneath us, as if it were something separate.
“I don’t want to play,” I said, setting down the bead.
“Okay,” Raheemah said. She sat beside me and lowered her voice. “You should know that the guards were just patrolling. Seemed like maybe Father has them on high alert since . . .” She paused, chewing the words she did not want to say. Unlike Sabra, she did not want to remind me of what happened . . . of what I lost that day. “They didn’t seem to care one way or the other that you were gone. I don’t think anyone knows where you were.”
Clasping her shoulder, I brought her to me and hugged her gratefully. She was wrong, though. People knew. Every guard I’d bribed, every hidden servant who peered through splits in tents, my mother. Who else? “It doesn’t change Sabra’s threat.”
“She wouldn’t. She’s just angry.” She picked up my servant’s clothes, shaking out the sand before folding them, and hid them away at the bottom of our basket. There was no reason for an ahira to be in possession of clothes like that.
“I don’t want to find out if you’re right.”
Exhaustion consumed me. I lay on my mat and pulled the thin blanket over my head to hide in its shadows. But the heat poured in, and sweat rolled off of me in large drops. I threw the blanket aside.
I was trapped. I had no hope of running and nowhere to run.
Mama was distracted when I told her of t
he address.
“Did you see anything strange?” She said, interrupting my summary of the King’s speech.
I shook my head, thinking of the jinni. “What do you mean?”
“Anyone out of the ordinary?”
I watched her, picking at her fingers just as I did when nervous. Then it hit me. Of course. She wanted to know about the Altamaruq. “No. I saw no one.”
I pointed to the stacks of parchment, small looping handwriting scribbled across the pages. “What are you reading? A letter?” One looked to be signed by someone.
“These?” She picked them up and folded them. “Just stories.” Reading letters was rare in the palace—the wives had none to correspond with—but reading for pleasure was equally baffling.
I reached for one. “Can I see?” My reading was not strong, and I had never read a story, but it seemed a good distraction.
My mother stood, tucking the parchment to her chest. “Oh, no,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “Your father would frown upon it. They’re only for children, he’d say. I should get rid of them. They’re so silly.” She spoke in a rush, smiled weakly, then raised the sheets up to the flames of a nearby torch. The corners caught on fire, and she dropped them onto the sand and watched them burn, the frankincense in the room was swallowed by the smell of charred meat.
With Sabra’s threat at my heels, I did not stray from the palace, and each day that passed was a painful reminder of what I had lost in Aashiq. It was the life I was supposed to leave behind. I was never supposed to be in these tents again. Some days, I would cry. Sons, how often I cried. Others, I would sit and stare at the tent wall, watching to see if the fabric moved, if there was a wind outside I could not feel. I invoked the names of Eiqab and Wahir when gambling away beads in card games, gossiped of neighbors whenever tidbits of information slipped from our attendants, wove tapestries and blankets for palace trade.
In a moment of recklessness, I found the young girl with the marked face and showed her my map. I made her promise me that one day, she would see the world. She promised with wide, disbelieving eyes. Then, her father called to her and she ran from me into his arms. He lifted her from the ground and kissed the mark on her face it seemed one hundred times while she cackled and pushed away from him. He nodded to me before he took her inside their home. I heard her tell him about the world, and in his silence, I heard him listen.
The salt sat unused beneath my mat.
As the moon waxed and waned again, the pain of Aashiq was dulled, leaving me in a haze of apathy. My sisters tried to help, telling vulgar jokes and pantomiming nights with suitors with ridiculous flair. Sometimes it did help but just for the moment. Sabra and I would sit across the room from each other, sharing our hatred for the world we lived in, but never daring to let that be something that brought us together. I would not be the first to yield. When servants chattered about the caravans that came and went, I found myself daydreaming of the things I would wish for in a world where the jinni could be trusted. Where he belonged to me and not my father. Always, it was freedom.
Summer was fading to autumn when still there was no sign of the Altamaruq. The King permitted suitors to court again. Some ahiran came back with hearts heavier than when they left, some with bruises, others with news of an impending engagement. I was not again requested by a prince but it was not for a lack of trying.
“I saw Basimah at the rama. She said the muhami may request me again tonight,” Fatima said proudly. Rings of red bruises wrapped her forearms, a swelling in the hollow of her cheek. My sisters who sat weaving with us looked up from the tapestry, feigning joy. I stared down at the strands in front of me, pretending to focus on my task.
“Perhaps a wedding then.” The false excitement in Kadri’s voice provided comfort to none.
“I hope so,” Fatima agreed. “I’ve prayed to Eiqab.” The skin on her brow shone where the sand had burned it. “I doused Masira’s flames with my tea.”
This was the way of the ahiran: to eagerly embrace the life that was given to us, hoping enthusiasm would transform into happiness. Sometimes the men were too rough with us, sometimes intentionally violent. It was our burden as King’s daughters, so we must endure it. Life as a thrashed wife was more honorable than life as a castoff, after all.
Fatima looked around the room conspiratorially before leaning in closely and whispering, “I let him kiss me. Down there.”
“He wanted to?” The younger girls’ eyes were wide with indecent curiosity. Fatima nodded and smiled, one eyebrow arching high.
“Next time he’s down there, why don’t you give him a heel to the head?” I murmured.
Fatima’s lips quirked, and so quietly I almost did not hear the words, she said, “I can promise you that if I become his wife, he’ll get more than that.”
When we met the next muhami, I laughed with him, fluttering my eyelashes. When he was across the long room mingling with my sisters, I smiled seductively.
“Emel, come to me,” my father said. He had watched me from his deep cushioned lounge. The midday sunlight soaked through the white fabric, heating the air despite the servants who fanned the room. I went to him, stepping around the slaves holding trays of flaky date pastries for only my father and his guests. I eyed the food.
“Sit down,” he said, patting his knee. My stomach twisted. I did not want the suitor to see me as a child, destroying his visions of my legs around his waist in bed.
On my father’s knee, I could smell the candied, bitter aroma of liquor and his unbathed body. His nostrils whistled in my ear with each breath in, the hot air touched my shoulder each breath out. From the corner of my eye, I could see the golden rings fastened to his nose gleaming.
The King’s fingers trailed up and down my spine. “You are beautiful tonight.”
I stiffened. “Thank you, my King.”
“Ah, Emel. King? I am your father.” He snapped his fingers at one of the slaves holding a silver tray. The man came over dutifully carrying a bowl of small, red jewels. I had never seen anything like them. I stared as the King took one of the shining gems and placed it onto his tongue. He bit into it and tiny drops of liquid hit my cheek. I could smell its sweetness and was baffled. What magic was this?
He reached for another and held it before me. I reached for it.
“Not for you, my greedy minx.” He placed it into his mouth. My cheeks grew hot.
He waved the slave and bowl of treasure away. I reached up to my cheek and wiped at the drops. On my fingertip was liquid the color of blood.
“Mmmm,” his groan rumbled through me.
An exhibition just for me. A reminder of his power. It was always a show with him. The spark of shame that heated my face ignited into anger. I thought of the words my mother, my attendants told us: you are lucky to be the daughter of the King. Show him your gratitude by being graceful, subservient. Still, the shame and anger lingered.
“Come, Qadir,” the King called to the suitor, “and meet my beautiful daughter.” His fingertips pressed into my shoulder, my hip, my back.
Why did I have to feel grateful when his sordid paws touched me like a prize he wanted to pawn? There was so little I could control in my life, why let someone else dictate how I felt about my father and his court? If I could not choose my love, at least I could choose my enmity.
I needed to get away from him and his wicked palace. I looked up to Qadir as he crossed the room. I attempted to smile, to show Qadir why he should choose me. Take me from here. My face cramped as I held my features in an eager expression despite the hand that now rested on my thigh.
My father discussed my prowess both intellectually and physically and my role in Qadir’s home should he marry me. On and on, this and that. Talking of me like I was a goat to be raised on new land. Qadir listened more than he spoke, his narrowed eyes betraying his unease with my father’s intimacy.
My father’s hand traveled to my inner thigh. It was heavy and hot. I held my breath. I imagined myself to be a st
one on his lap—unfeeling, uncaring. My eyes dropped to his hand, and I glimpsed gold and glass peeking from behind my father’s robes: the jinni’s vessel.
Qadir’s eyes darted to my father’s hand, too closely linked to his daughter, then to me, then back to my father. Almost imperceptibly he leaned back, the corners of his lips tugging downward.
I turned away. Embarrassment, shame, and fury striking my temples like a hammer. I began to stand, to move away from my father, to get away from the monster, to save my pride, and show Qadir that I did not want it either. But my father’s hand shoved me back onto his lap.
“My dove, where are you going? Stay.” His words held an icy edge that terrified me.
Looking down, I saw again the glass vessel. Only this time, I noticed it was empty. Was the jinni there in that room? Quickly, I searched for him. Perhaps Firoz was right. What did I have to lose? The jinni could help me get out. I didn’t have to wait until my father decided I was worthless. Maybe I could leave now.
My father’s grip was tight on my leg now. I was shackled to him, under his control. Just like his slaves, just like my sisters. Just like the jinni.
When I met the jinni after Matin’s attack, I had been too distressed by everything that had happened that I didn’t see the jinni—how he had asked permission, had let me leave when I asked. What if he wasn’t loyal to the Salt King? He had not told my father of our encounter. Could he be trusted after all? Maybe he was another unwilling slave, and I had let his offer slip through my grasp. I wanted to throw my head into my hands and kick my feet like an outraged child. What had I done?
Qadir and my father continued to talk, the muhami barely hiding his revulsion in his strained words. I did not pay attention to their conversation. I wanted to see the jinni again. Perhaps only to test his word. Did he truly intend no harm? Could he really grant wishes? Through him, could I be free? But there was also a part of me that wanted to see if he was real—had it all been a horrible dream?
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