Daughter of the Salt King

by A. S. Thornton

  Her wings beat slowly, but her flight was swift. She headed to the opening, and I waited to see her disappear. But then she rose up and snatched the quail from its panicked flight with her great claws. She drifted out of the tent, her easy prey held tightly by her sharp talons, and vanished into the day.

  The crowd was silent. Never before had the King been unable to give word to Masira. It was an ominous sign.

  “I won’t continue like this,” the King barked, glaring at Nassar, at Ahmed. He stepped from the challenger and unsheathed his scimitar. “I wish for this to end,” he cried into the air.

  There it was again: a wish. The Salt King touched his belt, looking for the jinni’s prison I had stolen from him. I reached into my sack and cupped it in my palm, watching the filtered sunlight glint off the etched flowers and moon. My father would never have shown his face in battle if he knew his jinni was gone.

  What an elaborate deception this was. My father was a doll on strings in Masira’s wicked hands. What a fool he had been to hold on to the jinni for so long. Masira had been patient, calculating. Like a scorpion waiting in the sand to seize Her prey.

  The King spun when nothing happened, stumbling slightly in the uneven sand. He peered around the room. “I wish for this to end!” He screamed. Spit flew from his lips, his cheeks purpled as he grew enraged.

  The challenger pulled his sword from his waist and held it ready.

  “Where is he?” the King shouted, backing away from the long blade. “Where is he?” He turned around, looking from face to face. The rage that had consumed him was like fire without oil, and it dwindled quickly, fear taking its place. His eyes narrowed as he examined his own people suspiciously, rolling his shoulders forward in a protective posture as he realized just how vulnerable he was.

  “He is mad,” one villager said loudly to another.

  “What has gotten into him?”

  “Too much wine!”

  The villagers mumbled to each other in their confusion. This was not the behavior of the King they knew.

  Despite every aching pang of grief that had racked me that morning, I smiled.

  Ah, Masira. What a cunning goddess She was when crafting destiny. To take and take and take, but then to leave just a little, just enough. How wickedly cruel it was to take from my father his only confidant, to erase Nassar’s existence in the eyes of the King’s people, and to leave those memories intact for my father alone. To take from him the foundation of his strength, the fountain of his power, his jinni, and to leave him with only the memories. So that he, too, could feel what it was to be laid bare. To feel the terror of vulnerability and the degradation of being powerless to another.

  “Let us end this,” the challenger announced, and he stepped toward the King.

  The man moved like a shadow across the room. Years of training had taught him how to swing the sword, and a lifetime of living in the desert had taught him how to navigate the sand. He moved effortlessly.

  “No! Stop this!” The King backed away from his pursuer. “I wish for this to be stopped at once!”

  The spectators lining the ring opposite me stepped away from the King as he neared them, but the crowd was dense. They could not retreat further. The King got closer and closer, until finally, one man pushed the King’s back so he tripped forward into the arena.

  “Fight, you coward,” a villager cried.

  And just like that, the loyalty to their king was lost. Life in the desert is not one that makes allowances for valueless allegiances. Desert rulers played a game of strength, and the people followed its victors. If they did not, they, too, might die. When their ruler was a ruthless tyrant, the choice was even easier. When they saw their king’s weakness, they were quick to abandon him. Surely, some even took joy in it.

  “Fleeing like a mouse!”

  “Eiqab will guide us to the true champion!”

  “A fool!”

  “Kill him!”

  The hunter approached his prey, swinging his sword elegantly through the air. This match was too easy for him; he would play with his food. Swiftly, he wielded the sword around him. Its fine point sliced across the top of the King’s golden turban, knocking it to the ground in an unraveled pile.

  The King brandished his scimitar, wagging it back and forth before the challenger as he spat powerless words at him. The man swung his sword overhead and heaved it down onto the King, who defended the blow. The clash of metal rang out into the tent, silencing the whispers and shouts of the fickle villagers.

  The people watched as the men swung their blades, the King’s training as a youth returning to him as he parried several more of the man’s swings.

  But there was only so much that a sick, drunk, and weakened King could do to evade the blade of a young, well-trained attacker. Soon, a slash of silver sliced down into the soft spot between the King’s neck and shoulder.

  An agonized scream tore from the Salt King. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees. Wordless, he reached up to his wound as the blood spilled into his ivory robes. The challenger’s back was to me, so I could not see his face, but I could see my father’s. He looked at his bloodied hand, horrified, before he looked to the man standing before him.

  The blade of his sword left a trail through the sand as he approached the King. With his other hand, he reached up and unwrapped his ghutra from his head and neck.

  “I want you to see the man who has brought you to your knees,” he hissed. Had the tent not been so quiet, I would not have heard the hushed words. A desert wind blowing over the sands.

  Terror, deep and far-reaching as the ocean, transformed my father’s face when he saw his challenger. And it stayed there as he made the last choice he would ever be allowed—he begged. He dropped his gaze to the ground and placed his palm into the sand while his other arm curled into his chest.

  “Please,” the King mewled into the sand. “Be merciful. Spare me!” The King babbled his pleas, his eyes searching those of us who stood at the circle’s perimeter.

  As his gaze neared me, I stepped forward, slowly pulling my own scarf from my face. It was a small step, a tiny movement, unnoticeable to others who stared at their king, but it was enough to draw my father’s attention. With a wry smile, I pulled my hand from my sack and turned my hand over so that my father could see the item I cupped in my palm.

  So that he could see that I had the jinni’s prison.

  That I had won.

  His face paled when he saw what I held, when he recognized who I was. When he realized everything he had lost.

  The challenger said, “Anisa did not let your bird carry your message to the goddess, so I will let you tell Her yourself. Masira sees not the moving; She devours only the souls of the stilled. I will hurry so that you can take your journey to her sky, if She will even receive you.”

  The King still stared at me, his mouth agape. Did he hear the challenger’s words? Did he know what came?

  The man raised his sword over his head and plunged it through the King’s back, pinning him to the sand.

  The villagers stared in stunned silence as their king ended his thirty years of reign by vomiting blood into the sand that had birthed him. The strongest King of the desert. The King who would never fall.

  They were shocked, but they were not stupid. The silence gave way to cheers for their new king. Many were quick to leave the great tent and palace, wanting to be the first to share the news. Their excitement spilled out into the village. The men who guarded the Salt King’s throne room, his keep, and his quarters, along with all the villagers who remained in their homes, swiftly heard the cries of the finished battle.

  “A new king!” the people shouted through the streets.

  Some of the old king’s wives and children cried, others simply stared, dumbfounded at their slain husband, their murdered ruler.

  I felt nothing.

  “Bow before your king!” Nassar thundered into the tent as he held the flag of his people aloft.

  One b
y one, the villagers and ivory-clad guards kneeled as though pressed down by the gods’ hands. I followed, the people nearly on top of each other as we found the space.

  I stared at the ground, my mind reeling at the motive of this new ruler. The Dalmur thought they accomplished their aim. Yes, Father was dead, but that which they sought was gone. Why had the threads of fate failed to guide these men back home? Back to where I hoped Saalim sat upon a carved throne in a stone palace beside the sea.

  “My people.” Our new king’s voice rang out like thunder. The venomous malice had left his words, and in its gentleness, there was a familiarity that snagged my attention. “You may rise.”

  Slowly, we did. I desperately tried to see our new ruler, but still, I could only see his back. His brown hair was shorn at his shoulders, and it fell down in sweaty strands by his neck.

  Several of his guards approached him carrying large trunks. The people parted for them swiftly. The men set the trunks at their ruler’s feet, and our new king dropped to his knees and opened them. They were filled with salt.

  His shoulders tightened as his fingers trailed through the white crystals.

  “This has been stolen from me, and now the price has been paid. You may return to your families, but carry with you tales of his treachery and what happens to those who take what they do not earn.” He spoke sharply to the spectators who remained, staring angrily at the salt in the trunks.

  People filed out of the tent, sifting through the palace, their voices growing quieter and quieter, until they had returned to their homes. With some of my father’s guards and the foreign men, our new king left.

  The rest of my father’s guard, my sisters and I, our mothers and their young children stayed behind. Tavi found me.

  “What do we do now?” she asked, “Where will we go?”

  The voices of my family grew louder as they all began asking each other the same. No one knew what came next.

  “If no one comes, we return home,” I said. “Then, we wait until we hear word from the king.”

  “I can’t believe Father is gone.”

  We looked at the ground where our father was slain. Now, there was only red-stained sand, and a path leading from the puddle to the outside. The new king’s men had dragged his corpse out into the desert. They, at least, had given him the gift of a sky burial. It was not something Father would have gone out of his way to do for them.

  Tavi said, “Emel, would you think me a monster if I told you I don’t feel sad?”

  “Only if you promise you won’t think the same of me,” I said.

  “What will happen to us?”

  “I don’t know, but we will withstand it.”

  We joined our sisters, watched their fear multiply as they shared their worries with each other. My sisters did not know how to be anything but ahiran. What if we were asked to do something else? We grew restless, considered returning to our homes, when finally, the king and white-clad guards entered the tent again.

  “These were his wives and children, his daughters—the ahiran,” the guard said. “They belong to you now. What will you have us do with them?”

  As the king approached us, I could see him wholly. Despite the dust of the desert and wear of the sun, I could tell he was young. The sharp angles of his tanned face, his long, straight nose, and roughly bearded jaw was unmistakably familiar. Even his hair, now that I saw him straight on . . .

  Impossible.

  The king scanned our faces, his eyes briefly passing over us, unseeing.

  “Send them home. I don’t keep women from conquests,” he spat. A roguish smile emerged on his lips. “Though if some are willing . . .”

  His men laughed, and the king’s eyes flicked around the women and landed on me.

  Ice drove straight through my spine when our eyes met because, even from where I stood, I could not mistake his eyes were the color of liquid gold. The same eyes that my father looked into before he died. Surely, he had recognized them too.

  A rush of hope rose in me. My hands shook, my heart thundered against the roar of blood in my ears. It can’t be.

  But then he turned from me and continued to appraise the women before him, like I was just another ahira, indistinct and unmemorable. My hope plummeted, the pain of my loss, my heartbreak aching anew. He did not recognize me at all. Even if I was within an arm’s reach of you, I wouldn’t know you.

  “I will soon return to my home in the north.” His tone had changed. He sounded almost kind. No, not kind. Obliging. He was fulfilling his role as our new king. “I have enough camels and stores to take you to my home if you desire it. It is a large city, called Madinat Almulihi. There is enough work and lodging for everyone.”

  He continued. “Though you are not my daughters nor wives, I have taken from you your father and husband, and I recognize my duty to provide you shelter and a life of at least nominal comforts. Should you choose to make the passage with me and my men, I warn you it is not an easy journey—forty days on foot with dangers beyond the harshness of the desert.

  “If you choose to stay, I will leave you with a small sum of coin so that you may attempt to forge a life for yourself, as you will be asked to leave the palace.”

  Tavi gripped my arm tightly and leaned into my ear. “Do we dare? Have we found a way out?” I looked at her, confused by her meaning. Out of the palace? Her eyes were so bright, so full of optimism, they softened my ache. Tavi, brave as our mother, quicker to see it than me. She was right, this was our chance to leave the settlement.

  The goddess had not ignored me after all. She heard me, and She listened. I had wished for freedom from the Salt King, and I was given just that. My father was gone, the monster put to death at last.

  “You would leave here?” I asked, disbelieving that this was my same sister who had chastised me for wishing for the same.

  “If you are with me, yes.” Her radiant smile was infectious. “A city larger than ours? Just think of all the food!” She giggled, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed, too.

  We were free.

  The softest tingling spread from my shoulders to my fingers, from my spine to my toes. I grinned to myself, laughter bubbling from my lips again.

  There would be no loveless future bound to a man who paid to have me. I would choose my path, and I would choose my love.

  Before me, clothed in fabric of the night sky and draped in the color of his ocean, was Saalim, my new king. He was not the man I knew, but I could not lose hope that somewhere within him was the man I loved.

  Masira had not abandoned me. She had rid us of a vile King and, in doing so, had given me the world.

  But I was greedy, and I wanted more.

  I had promised Saalim I would fight for him, and I would not renege on a promise.

  I had vowed that I would have a life that was whole, one that I chose for myself, and I would not break that vow.

  I was done giving. It was my turn to take. And I would get what I wanted.

  Following my sisters from the tent, I turned back once more to Saalim. He stood with his arms crossed, talking not to his guards, not to Nassar, not to the lingering women.

  He was silent and still, his gaze clinging to me.

  Epilogue

  Saalim

  * * *

  Sand swirled in the wine dregs at the bottom of my goblet, and it crunched between my teeth, too. The damn dirt was everywhere, and I was sick of it. Slamming the goblet down, I turned to Nassar.

  He and Amir sat across from me in the throne room. I stifled a scoff. This tent, a throne room?

  “Start over,” I said, interrupting their discussion of the village and our departure.

  Nassar glared at me, never shy about letting me know his displeasure. “I suggest you listen this time, my king.”

  I waved him off then turned to Amir.

  Amir shifted on his stool and summarized what I had missed. “Our caravan will be ready to leave tomorrow at dusk. We need to determine who will stay behind and
govern.”

  Looking at Nassar, I smirked. “Your chance is here, my old friend.” I had been surprised by how quickly Nassar understood the motives and mores of these village people. It was almost as if he had once lived amongst them.

  Nassar’s eyes narrowed, and he brushed unseen sand from his sleeve. “I’d rather milk one hundred camels than stay in this Wahir-forsaken desert.”

  “Disgusting animals,” I agreed, thinking of the journey back to Madinat Almulihi, during which I’d once again be surrounded by them. Flies flocked as though they were rotting fruit, and Sons, the smell.

  Amir cleared his throat.

  I looked away from a soot-blackened lantern. “We will settle this tonight. Tell the men to meet at dinner, and we can elect someone. Do you think Usman would be willing?”

  Nassar and Amir guffawed and gave each other knowing looks.

  “What is it?” Did I even want to know?

  “Usman would be willing, I think,” Amir said while trying to hold his grin at bay.

  Nassar giggled. “More than willing! Just remind him that he’d be staying here with the daughters.”

  I had forgotten that Usman with women was a like a starved man for meat. “Fine, fine.” I sighed, watching my men laugh like girls. The desert was driving them to madness, too. “Leave me. We will finish this tonight when everyone can have their say.”

  They left mumbling things I could not hear. I pressed my eyes closed when they had gone and leaned back in the ridiculous throne—gold and silver twisted into the hardest and most uncomfortable chair I’d ever sat upon. Again, I considered the man who sat here before me.

  On our journey to the settlement we had encountered nomads who willingly shared with me rumors of Alfaar. The Salt King, they called him. They said he was the strongest king of the desert and that I would perish under his blade. They told me his village was built on salt bricks and his people were as loyal to him as worshippers of the Sons.