The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

  Aleveran is unimpressed. “Being the son of a chin khaffit does not qualify you for the black, boy.”

  “My mother was Sharum’ting Ka Sikvah vah Hasik am’Jardir am’Kaji,” Arick says. “My grandfather was bodyguard to Shar’Dama Ka himself.”

  Aleveran dismisses the claim with a wave. “I knew your grandfather, boy. He was a great warrior, as a dog might be a great warrior. But like many dogs, his aggression outgrew his usefulness, so he was gelded and cast out in shame. You have no claim to a man’s robes.” He raises a finger to the guards. “Strip the black from him.”

  Arick screams and throws off the warriors holding him, but half a dozen more swoop in, holding him as the kai cuts away his blacks.

  I can hear a whine in my head, and realize I am grinding my teeth. There is a dampness on my palms, and I glance down to see my fists clenched so tight my nails have drawn blood.

  “Release my brother.” Rojvah takes a step toward the guards when they do not unhand Arick quickly enough. “We come as emissaries under the seal of Shar’Dama Ka. You dishonor this holy place with your inhospitality.”

  At first the guards look ready to pacify her, as well, but then they glance at her white robes and think better of it. The Evejah states it is death to strike a woman in white. The guards hesitate, glancing up to the throne.

  Rojvah is the daughter of my half sister Amanvah, technically my niece, but we have always called each other cousin in our letters—hers in Thesan and mine in Krasian—as we practiced our language by writing poetry and discussing fashion. I remember laughing until my face hurt over our attempts to one-up to each other with stories of Grandmum Elona and Tikka Kajivah.

  Now I really am picking targets, plotting a course of broken bones through the guards to reach my family. Arick and Selen still look ready to fight, and my hanzhar can slice their bonds in a single stroke. No doubt Darin can slip his anytime he wants.

  Still, the odds are against us in a room filled with sharusahk masters and dama’ting sorceresses. Where could we run, in any event?

  Chavis leans over, whispering in Aleveran’s ear. He grunts and nods. “The novice whites of the Kaji betrayers mean nothing here, girl. The guards do not risk Heaven if they strike you. You would be wise to show respect if you do not wish them torn from you before the court like your brother’s blacks.”

  “Ent us, bein’ uncivil.” Darin’s Krasian is surprisingly good, though his Brook accent is as thick as it is when he speaks Thesan.

  For some reason, hearing Darin’s voice makes it all too real. Nothing can hold Darin Bales if he doesn’t want it to. If he’s here, this wasn’t a kidnapping. They’re here for me.

  I swallow the sudden lump in my throat as all eyes turn to Darin. He shrinks a little, like he does when he’s toughening his body against a blow.

  “And you are?” Aleveran asks.

  “Darin asu Arlen am’Bales am’Brook.”

  Again, chatter runs through the court. The Krasians returned to the desert before Darin was born, but his father is as famous as mine.

  “Here as Messengers, like Rojvah says,” Darin continues. Aleveran and Chavis still consult in whispered tones, but if I know Darin, he can hear every word. “Lots of ale stories about honorless Majah in the North, but never paid ’em any mind till now. Countess Leesha accepted your delegation with respect. You ent good enough to do the same?”

  Aleveran flicks a finger for the guards to release Arick. They give him a last shove, then quickly leap back before he can recover. He gets to his feet, taking great breaths to calm himself as he stands seething in only a blue bido.

  The Damaji sits back against the Skull Throne, feigning ease when the tension in the room says anything but. “Speak, then, son of Par’chin. Why have you come?”

  “Lookin’ for Princess Olive of Hollow.” I’d already deduced it, but hearing the words out loud still shakes me, like seeing a torch stuck into a funeral pyre.

  “Why would you look here?” Aleveran asks.

  “Watchers who kidnapped her weren’t as sneaky as they thought,” Darin says bluntly.

  The Damaji gives him a tight smile. “Nevertheless, Princess Olive is not here.”

  Chadan’s hand finds mine, and it’s like fingers on the taut string of a bow. He squeezes, warning me not to speak. Even knowing full well the danger, I need the reminder. It will only get worse if I reveal myself. If I remain silent, perhaps the Damaji will let them go.

  Darin’s nostrils flare, and I wonder if he can smell the lie on Aleveran. “Damajah’s bones say she is. Only a matter of time before her da comes to look for himself, and his army won’t be as easy to bully as four teenagers. Givin’ you a chance to stop a war.”

  Aleveran steeples his fingers. “And so you have, son of Par’chin, by delivering more of his family to hostage. Even so, the Shar’Dama Ka will no more find the missing princess than you.”

  “Liar,” Selen growls. “Where is Olive?”

  One of the Arms of Everam raises his spear to beat the insolence from her. I know from experience how the Majah treat those who dare speak bluntly to their Damaji.

  I am moving before I realize it, leaping out to catch the shaft of the descending spear. I pull it into a circle that misses the target and follow through. As expected, the guard refuses to let go and is yanked along with the weapon, flipping over to slam into the floor.

  I plant a foot on him and pull, but still he holds tightly to the weapon. I give a hard twist, popping his white-sleeved arm from its shoulder socket. He screams as I tear the spear from his grasp.

  Other guards move in to protect their brother, but I have a weapon now, and am ready to use it. They won’t find me as helpless as they did my first time in this place.

  “Stop!” Aleveran booms, before the guards can attack.

  Selen looks at me as the warriors put up their weapons. “Olive?!”

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Sel,” I say. “You need to go.”

  “Would that it were so simple,” Aleveran says. “But now they have seen you.”

  “You gave me no choice,” I growl. “But there is still time.” I play the one card I have left. “Let them leave in peace, and I will stay willingly, even if my father comes to demand my release.”

  “Olive, no!” Selen cries, but it’s too late.

  “Done,” Aleveran says, and the word closes around me like a blood lock. This was what he wanted all along. I want to renege, out of spite if nothing else, but the Damaji holds my friends’ lives in his hands now, like he did my sister’s before. What can I do, save give him what he wants?

  “What have you done?” Rojvah asks.

  “Saved all your lives,” I say, though I know that is only the point of the spear I have driven through my life. I force myself to remain in the moment.

  “Waning will soon be upon us,” Aleveran says. “Prove your loyalty, and I will set them free.”

  “They will not be harmed in any way,” I tell him, “or our pact means nothing.”

  “Agreed,” Aleveran says, as the Arms of Everam haul my friends away.

  I’m not even allowed to speak with them.

  47

  LOYALTIES

  Chadan is kept behind as I am escorted from Sharik Hora by six white-sleeved holy warriors. They fall back as I leave the temple grounds, but continue to follow until I exit the Holy City entirely.

  I’ve given him everything he wants, given my own life away, but still Damaji Aleveran doesn’t trust me.

  I force a breath into a chest tight with anxiety, swallowing the urge to sick up from helpless anger.

  But who am I angry at? Everyone acts from love. Aleveran, for the love of his people, puts their welfare before his own honor, or my life. Darin, Selen, and the twins risked their lives out of love to find me and bring me home. Even Mother, who kept me in safe suc
cor like a bird in a cage, acted out of love.

  All of them moved like game pieces at the behest of the demon dice. Is that where my anger should go? Throws of the alagai hora have shaped every moment of my life, even before I was born. But the dice only offer predictions based on probability, like the little women who come to Mother with their ledgers, predicting births and harvests and taxes years in advance.

  The very act of looking into the future threatens to change it, Favah used to say.

  The bones are not truth tellers. They didn’t know who I was or what I would want. Such things are irrelevant. They simply calculated better odds if I was raised as the princess of Hollow.

  Micha was right when she said I was losing myself. I’m not Princess Olive anymore. I cannot go back to that life—hiding who I was, what I could do, struggling to be perfect enough to satisfy an insatiable mother.

  But neither is Prince Olive the perfect fit I once thought he was, and there is no denying his life expectancy is far shorter than his sister’s would have been.

  What point is there, being angry at a handful of dice? They are not truth tellers, but neither are they liars.

  I tell myself the blame lies with the alagai, whose hunt for me has left countless dead in its wake. But demons are nameless, faceless. They try to kill me, but it was not their decisions that pulled out the stitches of my life to leave me exposed.

  In my heart, I know the truth. I’m not angry at the Majah, or my friends, not at my mother or the demons or the dice.

  I am angry at myself, because I am a fool.

  Chadan loves me. I am sure of it. He doesn’t care that I am intersex, or that chin blood runs in my veins, only who I am. He accepts me.

  But I see now the rest of the Majah will not. The world will try to fit you into one of two boxes, Mother said. Even if Aleveran allowed me to be with his grandson, would it be as I am, or would the privilege of bearing Chadan’s children see me forced back into the harem? Would they try to take my rights, earned with blood and ichor in the Maze, to hide me behind a veil?

  I shake my head. Now that I have earned the spear, I won’t give it up—ever. Mother fought off an ambush by a mimic demon and its horde while I was in her belly. I won’t be told I am less than her because Aleveran has forced his people to step backward in history.

  My prince is the most skilled fighter I have ever seen, but he was willing to let the Baiter in the Maze die rather than break tradition. To let the alagai have the folk in the greenblood quarter, rather than defy orders. Is he strong enough to stand up to his father, his grandfather—the whole tribe—to fight for what we might have?

  It frightens me that I have to think about the answer. That I doubt my ajin’pal. But all I can think of is his silence and downcast eyes as his father had the armorers strip him of the symbol of our union. As he was informed they had chosen him a bride.

  But Selen, Darin, and the twins—they came for me. I feel an ache in my throat at the thought. They followed me all the way from Hollow, across hundreds of miles of demon-infested land and an unforgiving desert. I want to be angry at them for their foolishness, but would I have done any less?

  I think of Micha, and my stupid, hurtful words the last time we spoke.

  Oh sister, I am so sorry.

  * * *

  —

  I return to the training grounds to find an empty field where the spear and olive pavilions once stood. An older dal’ting woman in black robes waits there, rising at my approach. She does not make obeisance on the dusty ground, but her bow is deep and long.

  “Prince Olive,” she says when she rises. “I am Madana, head of the women of the Majah Palace. I am here to escort you to your new quarters.”

  There is much about Krasia I struggle with, but palace servants I understand. Mother’s head maid is one of most powerful women in Thesa. Madana may have bowed low for me, but I would be wise not to cross her. I follow as she escorts me to our new barracks, built into the outer walls of Chadan’s new palace.

  Banners fly atop the turrets, signifying Chadan is in residence, but the busy courtyard that stands between the barracks and the palace itself might as well be a moat full of water demons. It will not be easy to cross without word getting back to the Damaji.

  I don’t much wish to see my prince in any event, and the feeling appears mutual. Tomorrow is Waning—we should be making plans and drilling the men, but there are no messages waiting as Gorvan lets me pass into the barracks.

  “The men billet on the first floor,” Madana says. “Meals are served below in the hall beside the harem.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “We have our own harem?”

  “Of course,” she says, misunderstanding my interest. “You and your warriors need a place to rest and eat and relax after fighting in the Maze. To drink cool water and have your pains massaged away. Without wives of your own, the Jiwah’Sharum are there to see to your needs. If you wish, I can…”

  I shake my head. “I do not require heasah.”

  Madana’s eyes bulge. “Jiwah’Sharum are NOT heasah!”

  Her shout startles me, and I react on instinct, taking a quick step back and assuming a sharusahk stance.

  Madana notes the move, and her air of control evaporates. She might have dominion over the dal’ting servants, but I am a man, and a prince of the Kaji. She falls to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floor. “Mercy, Prince Olive!”

  Mercy? Just what does she think I’m going to do to her? She’s shaking with fear.

  “Rise, Tikka,” I say, hoping the term of endearment will put her at ease. “It is I who should apologize. I meant no offense.”

  Madana eases back onto her heels. She looks scandalized as I offer a hand, but she takes it and lets me pull her to her feet.

  She withdraws her hand quickly from mine. “It is easy to forget you are new to many of our ways, Prince Olive. I will remind the servants of this, so you are not…startled again.”

  “You can start by telling me how I gave offense,” I say.

  “Heasah are transactional,” Madana says. “Lending their bodies for a handful of draki or a jug of water, taking herbs to prevent the seeds of their unions from taking root.” She looks ready to spit, even in her veil.

  “Jiwah’Sharum are sister-wives, your spear brothers our husbands. It is a position of honor and respect. You protect and provide, and we give comfort and care, carrying the children of the glorious Princes Unit into the next generation.”

  “I understand,” I say, though I am not sure I do. I’ve only kissed two people, but both times, it was freely given, not a sacred duty or paid service. My brothers speak often of the incense-filled pillow chambers of the Jiwah’Sharum, but I have never dared follow them there.

  “Your chamber is located above, down the hall from the drillmasters.” Madana leads me to a private room. The space is not mean, and is comfortably furnished with all my possessions—many of them the lavish gifts of a doting prince—already stowed or on display. Still, compared with the luxury of Chadan’s private pavilion, it is small and unimpressive. I had bigger closets in Hollow.

  I ignore the dinner bell as I pace the room. Night falls, but there is no Horn of Sharak to call us to muster. Other units have been assigned to guard the Maze to keep the Princes Unit fresh for Waning, and I am glad of it. I no more want to face my spear brothers than I do Chadan.

  My mind keeps going back to Selen, Darin, and the twins. Here, in Krasia! It seems like a dream. I love them for their tenacity, but the timing is terrible. If new moon brings a storm, they are targets, too. I’m thankful at least that they are being held in the Holy City, shielded by the powerful magic of Sharik Hora. They’ll be safe there, no matter what.

  There’s a knock at the door. I open it to find a green-robed chin servant bowing his turbaned head as he presents a tray of food. The smell of spiced mea
t and flatbread would normally set my stomach rumbling, but now it nauseates me.

  “I don’t want it.” I move to close the door.

  “But I came all this way.” The servant looks up.

  It’s Darin.

  I grab his arm, pulling him into the room so hard he needs to quickstep to keep from spilling the food from his tray. I glance into the hall, but there is no sign of anyone. I shut the door and pull him into a tight embrace. He’s gone slippery, but solidifies when he realizes I mean no harm. We hold each other for a long moment.

  Then I push away. “What are you doing here?!”

  “Came to ask you the same question,” Darin says. “We track you all the way across the desert to find you’re…what? Majah, now? And a boy?”

  “I was never a girl,” I growl. I’ve dreaded having this conversation with Darin my entire life, but his accusations and aggressive posture make it easy. “I have the same boy parts you do.”

  Darin looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Know that. What’s that got to do with anythin’?”

  I blink. “You know? What do you mean, you know? Creator as my witness, Darin Bales, if you were spying on us in the bath…”

  Darin looks offended. “You might need a fancy helmet for wardsight, Olive, but I was born with it, along with a bunch of other senses, all keener’n they got a right to be. Knew you had boy parts as well as girl since we were in nappies. Doesn’t change who you are.”

  “And how do you know who I am?” I demand, shocked to hear I was carrying such weight for nothing all these years.

  “Know you’re a fool, you trust that old man to let us go, no matter what you do,” Darin says.

  “He swore on the Skull Throne, in front of everyone.” I sound defensive, even to myself.

  Darin shrugs. “Krasians can find a thousand honorable ways to delay something they don’t want to do. Today they won’t let us leave till you prove yourself—whatever that means. Then it will always be another Waning, or a coming storm, or the position of the stars. They won’t have the right provisions for the journey, or there will be a holiday to prepare for, a ceremony that takes months to plan, and on and on. They’ll call us guests and keep us in a silk prison, but now that we know you’re here, they will never willingly let us go. So why promise them the sky?”