Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She finished spreading the pollen and threw the flower to one side, then brought out the last and sent its dust into the air as she had the others. She wished she had more now; the room was large, and she never dreamed she would need so many.

  Another coughing fit came, this one much longer, much wetter, than the last. He sounded so close Çeda whirled, striking out with her blade in the hopes of catching the King, but her blade caught only empty air.

  “You are new to the House of Maidens. You were brought to us by Zaïde, blessed by Yusam, embraced by Husamettín. But Sümeya had the right of it, did she not? She saw through you.”

  Out of adichara blooms, Çeda was left feeling utterly alone. She had no idea if the pollen was affecting him or not, and she had no idea how she would find Külasan.

  But she realized there was something within her heart: The adichara in the desert. She felt them after taking the petals of her chosen bloom, and she felt them now, not unlike the sun upon her skin, or the scent of death in the desert—always near to hand, however faint it may be. She had felt the asirim as well, not individually, but as one. A whole. And now, here in the Wandering King’s palace, she could feel him, a thing apart from the adichara, apart from the asirim, connected yet foreign, hated and despised.

  It was a distant feeling, but it was there all the same, and it was fueled by the unending hostility of the asirim. They could not take up swords of their own. They could not move against the King. But Çeda could. And they could speak through her.

  As Çeda stepped away from the darkest places of the room and closed her eyes, turning one last time to make sure Külasan was nowhere near, she reached out, feeling for the heartbeat she knew was there. “Would you cower from one so young as I?” she said, her words echoing.

  Külasan laughed, a ponderous, leaden thing. She felt it in her heart, in her bones. “I see the asirim have taken you beneath their wing, dear child, but who do you think lords over the asirim? Who do you think holds the reins to their yokes?”

  She still couldn’t sense where he was, but then his wracking coughs suddenly filled the empty air, and his presence became known to her. Like a wight in a boneyard he floated at the very edge of her perception, and he seemed to sense it; for just then he stepped out from behind a tall, empty throne on the opposite side of the room. He wore bright mail armor, a conical helm with a slim nose guard, and fine chain mail that draped along the back of his neck. Çeda’s time in the pits had taught her to assess men quickly, and Külasan was impressive—broad of chest and well proportioned, death on the battlefield were the pollen not hobbling him.

  As they stared at one another, she felt his heartbeat—so strongly, in fact, that it felt as though his heart beat for hers, as if, were he to release her, she would fall to the floor, her heart unable to beat on its own.

  Çeda fell to her knees. She was frozen in place. Her breath came to her as shallow as the water trapped in the salt flats. It felt like the dying of the day over the Amber City, the fading of light. It felt as though, after this one last breath, she would crumble, never to be remembered.

  The King strode toward her, embossed buckler in one hand, Gravemaker in the other, a weapon with dozens of nicks along its well-oiled haft. He held the morning star easily, as if he were intimately familiar with its every angle, its every nuance, and he came with intent clear on his youthful face.

  He hasn’t aged a day. Not a day since they made their foul pact with the desert gods.

  That day, the Kings, in order to appease the gods and save the people of Sharakhai, had sacrificed the Thirteenth Tribe. Brother and sister had been sacrificed. Mother and daughter. Father and son. It wasn’t just this brutality that fueled a fire deep within her. It was also the laws the Kings had made in the generations that followed, as written in the Kannan.

  Thou shalt not cross the threshold of an adulterer, lest thee be stoned by the hand of thine own blood.

  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s love, lest thine own skin be lashed with sharded whip.

  Thou shalt not doubt the word of thy King, lest thee be sent into the desert for seven days and seven nights.

  The Kannan’s laws were created by those left standing after the slaughter of Beht Ihman. Laws passed down and enforced both vigorously and viciously, to hide their own crimes, even while they celebrated their own moral failures each holy night of Beht Zha’ir. On that night, they called upon their cousins from the lost tribe and paid the price the gods had demanded, proclaiming it a divine honor to be chosen.

  They had lied to everyone. To the Tribes who remained. To the people of Sharakhai. To their own blood. The Kings had been desperate, Çeda knew. They would have died had they not done with they’d done—the might of the desert tribes would surely have seen to that—but instead handing Sharakhai to the enemy and sacrificing themselves, instead of protecting the people they claimed to love, they had chosen to sacrifice an entire tribe of people.

  Külasan was nearly upon her. He slowed and bent over, his body wracked by the coughs that gripped him so completely he couldn’t even look at her. In that space, Çeda’s heart beat freely, and with it came a surge of pain from her right hand. Another beat, and the pain in her hand blossomed. It was centered on the adichara wound, the thorn that had cut her in the very place that Saliah—the goddess Nalamae herself—had touched her with blood.

  It had been a gift all along. Saliah had kissed Çeda that day, blessed her, given her a way to reach the asirim, even trapped as they were in their shriveled forms. Or maybe Saliah had merely seen it, and it had been near enough to grasp all along. Whatever the case, it had allowed her to feel the asirim’s rage, their thirst for revenge, and it was this depthless well that let Çeda rise to her feet, to breathe deeply. To lift her sword in her poisoned hand, though the pain was white fire.

  Külasan’s coughs finally died away. He pulled himself erect again, their heartbeats still in sync, but the intricacies of their bond had changed. The souls of the asirim reached through her and into Külasan, governing his breath, the beat of his heart. And they were both slowing.

  He wheezed while staring into her eyes. There was a look of shame upon him, a moment of honesty after centuries of ignoring the pain he’d cause. “So many,” he said softly. “I had no idea there were still so many.”

  He raised his morning star and swung at her, but it was child’s play for her to slip under it and run the point of her blade deep into his chest.

  His weapon clattered to the floor with a sound that seemed strangely crude in this regal place. His blood, dark in the gathered lamplight, flowed from his wound and pattered against the veined white marble. The King fell to his knees, grasped his chest feebly, heedless of the cut that was spilling his lifeblood several inches below.

  There was a vast sense of release in Çeda, of a thing that had been building so long—not only within her, but within the asirim—that tears sprung to her eyes. Not tears of joy but of regret. Regret that any of this had come to pass. The tears clouded her vision and almost caused her to miss the movement from the corner of her eye. The soft beat of leather-soled shoes sprinting over marble.

  Çeda turned just in time to see a Maiden bring her sword down in a vicious arc. She was barely able to roll to one side, but the Maiden was on her in an instant.

  “You dare!” came the Maiden’s voice.

  It was Jalize. Lithe Jalize. Quick Jalize.

  She bore down on Çeda with powerful strokes, parrying Çeda’s feeble attempts to stop her.

  Çeda’s right hand was pain itself. But strangely, she was able to see more through the pain. It was nearly blinding, the outline of Jalize, of the plants and furniture about the room that brightened as she grit her teeth against the agony that burst from her unhealing wound.

  “Listen to me,” Çeda said as she backed away, desperately fending off Jalize’s strikes. She tried to put a massive clay urn
between them, but Jalize shattered it with a swift, powerful kick, sending shards flying at Çeda.

  She hoped that she could touch Jalize’s heart, that she could fend her off as she had the King, using the deep well of hatred the asirim bore for Kings and Maidens both.

  But she couldn’t. The asirim were so fixated on Külasan they could think of nothing else.

  So she fought, trying in vain to keep Jalize beyond striking range. Jalize was too good, too swift, both in her movements and in her ability to guess Çeda’s intentions. She was too in control of her emotions. She sliced Çeda’s thigh, gave a shallow cut along her shin, caught Çeda’s shoulder with the tip of her blade. Warm blood crept along Çeda’s thawb. She could feel it slicking the marble beneath her shoes, making movement treacherous.

  Fear, Çeda realized. She could feel it taking root. She might lose everything she had fought for, all that her mother had fought for, after coming so close to escaping, and with a King lying dead at her feet.

  Enough, Çeda thought. Enough! Strike the fear from your heart! If she continued thinking in this way, it would surely be her undoing.

  In a flurry of blows, she forced Jalize to retreat, even if only for a moment. When Jalize came in once more, Çeda brought her sword down in a move that seemed to leave an opening for her opponent.

  Jalize took the bait. In a move Çeda had honed in the pits time after time, she halted the blade—leaving Jalize off balance—and stepped in, grabbed her wrist, and spun her while lifting Jalize’s arm high. Dropping her blade, she controlled Jalize’s arm, swinging it around her back and locking it in place, while snaking her free arm around Jalize’s neck. Immediately she leaned and pulled Jalize off balance.

  Jalize arched her back, trying to grab Çeda’s head, but Çeda lifted Jalize’s locked arm, hearing a wet crunch as the arm popped out of socket. Jalize screamed, but only for a moment, for Çeda wrenched her neck to one side sharply, and let her fall like a doll of wood and string to the cold marble floor.

  Çeda stood there, right hand quivering so badly she had trouble picking up River’s Daughter. As she sheathed it, the pain felt like a brand against her skin. She looked down at Jalize for a moment but then knelt by Külasan’s side. He still drew breath, and oddly, it was the breath of the unafflicted. It came easily, if shallowly. He stared at the underside of the dome, at the sweeping mosaics there, rolling hills and a grand sun—the farther fields, as envisioned by some mosaicist who had long since passed to those very same lands—and for a time, Çeda did the same. She hoped it was true. She hoped her mother walked through them, proud of what her daughter had done.

  “You saved me.”

  Çeda looked down at Külasan. He looked so young. Hardly older than Çeda herself. “What did you say?”

  Before he could respond, Çeda felt more than heard others in the room. She looked up and saw Sümeya and Kameyl and Hasenn and a handful of other Maidens.

  Sümeya approached, ebon blade in hand. She saw the King still alive, staring with widened eyes, Jalize lying motionless on the floor some distance away, Çeda with weapon sheathed. And then Sümeya lowered her blade.

  “Goezhen’s dark kiss, what happened?” The words were spoken with the hint of threat. She was confused, and for good reason, and she did not entirely trust Çeda to give her the truth of it. Why would she? Çeda wouldn’t believe Sümeya’s words had their roles been reversed. But she had to ask. The story had to begin somewhere.

  Külasan lifted an arm and reached for Çeda with quivering hands—one bloody, one not. He took Çeda’s poisoned right hand in his own. It pained her, but not so badly as she would have guessed. “Do you understand?” he asked, tears streaming down his face. “You saved me.”

  He smiled and kissed her hand, breathing deeply as he did so, then fell back, his warm hands still gripping hers, whispering words that Çeda couldn’t understand.

  “What happened?” Sümeya repeated, looking more confused than angry now.

  Çeda swallowed the tightness in her throat. A flood of emotions were welling up inside her, but she choked them back. “I don’t understand it all. But there were calls of alarm in the desert. Silver Spears, I suspect. I went to help, but before I could find them, an adichara wrapped its branches around me and brought me down here, into his palace.” She stared around the room in wonder. It was only half an act, for she was still astonished at all that had happened. Tears slipped down Çeda’s cheeks, hot and biting and beautiful. “The King summoned me—in his desperation, I suppose—and when I came here, I found Jalize standing over him. She’d already delivered the killing stroke.”

  Külasan squeezed Çeda’s hand tenderly, like a father might his daughter. She wanted to pull away, but she stayed with him and watched as he stroked the tattoos on her right hand.

  Then the light in his eyes dimmed. He went limp, his hands fell to the floor, his chest releasing his final breath in one sweet exhalation.

  Çeda looked up then, saw the look of confused awe on Sümeya’s face. On Kameyl’s and Melis’s and the others’ as well. Sümeya looked between Çeda and Külasan. Her eyes were alive with uncertainty, her mind clearly trying to weigh the truth in Çeda’s words, the truth in Külasan’s words. Then she seemed to come to a decision. She looked into Çeda’s eyes with something like embarrassment, and gratitude, and with solemn care took one knee, bowed her head, and brought her closed fist across her chest.

  One by one, the others did the same. The last to take a knee was Kameyl, who seemed, if it were possible, even more reverent than Sümeya.

  “All hail,” Sümeya said.

  “All hail,” echoed the others.

  ÇEDA WALKED WITH A REAL LIMP NOW, not so different from the one she’d been feigning for years. It was even the same leg, making her wonder if she’d been tempting the gods with her ruse all along.

  Her wounds had been slow in healing. She wore not her fighting dress, nor any other raiment of the Blade Maidens, but a simple, clay-colored thawb that faded to blue along the skirt and sleeves. She walked along the Trough with no one the wiser that she was a Maiden, not unless they looked closely. One might be able to tell by the way she carried herself, or the tattoo on her right hand, or the freshly crafted one inked on her left. Sümeya had requested the honor of designing and inking the tattoo herself, and Çeda had granted it to her. She didn’t know what design Sümeya would choose, but she would let the history of that night be written upon her, no matter that it came from the leader of the Maidens herself, a woman Çeda had considered her enemy not so long ago.

  No longer, though. At least, not in the way she had before joining the Maidens. She had come to realize just how deeply the Kings’ lies ran. Who could fight such weight of history? The Maidens had all been raised in deference to the Kings’ carefully cultivated tales, a grand tapestry utterly naked of the truth. No wonder they believed in the Kings and their Kannan. How could they not?

  But no, Çeda no longer considered them her blood enemies. She would tread carefully in the coming months, but one day she would begin to reveal the truth. She didn’t know how—one revelation offered to the wrong woman could mean Çeda’s death—but she would find a way.

  Sümeya had taken great care in designing Çeda’s tattoo, and even more care in inking it onto Çeda’s skin. A beautiful peacock wrapped around her wrist, its feathers not in bright display, as the one in Külasan’s seal, but half closed, the bird’s head dipped low, as if bowing. Above it, on the back of her hand, surrounded by images of curling leaves and gentle waves of water, were written, in the old signs: Savior of Sharakhai.

  Just as Sümeya was finishing, Husamettín had come into the room and looked over his daughter’s shoulder. When Sümeya was done, she wiped away the ink, leaving it clear for the King of Swords to view. Husamettín had stared at the design, then at Sümeya, then Çeda herself. In that moment, Çeda had been unable to read him, and in the sam
e breath felt laid open by his glare. When he left, Husamettín did not nod to her, did not give any sign of approval. He merely turned and strode from the room, a thing as close to acceptance as she was likely to get from the King of Swords, Sümeya told her afterward.

  For two weeks after the attack on Külasan’s palace, the entire city had huddled in fear as the Maidens and Silver Spears had gone door-to-door, turning over the smallest of stones for any clues to the location of the Moonless Host, and any sympathizers who might still be in Sharakhai. Each morning had led to dozens of deaths, some hanging from the gallows at the gates of Tauriyat, but many more dying when the Kings’ inquisitors finally finished with them.

  As far as Çeda knew, Macide had escaped. Surely she would have heard if he’d been captured or killed by the Kings. Of Emre she’d heard no word. She prayed that he’d escaped as well, and as the days passed, as she looked at those who had been hung at the gates, she began building more and more hope that he was both free and alive.

  After passing Bent Man, Çeda turned left onto Highgate Road, and soon after that turned onto Floret Row. She came at last to an apothecary shop. Outside there were spices, a bit of wine, a bit of bread—for Bakhi, for the other gods. Çeda opened the door without knocking and stepped inside to find Dardzada sitting behind his desk, transposing in a ledger figures from a crumpled note he was holding flat with a splayed hand.

  He looked up when she came in. He swallowed once, hard, blinking fiercely but then went back to copying, his ever-present frown deepening.

  “Have you heard the Maidens took me in?” Çeda asked. “That I am one of them now?”

  Dardzada paused to ink his vulture quill. “If you’ve come only to ask self-evident questions, you may as well turn around and return to them.”

  “There are changes afoot, Dardzada.”

  “You think I don’t know?”

  “I know you know, but it’s high time you stopped trying to protect me and started helping me. I am a woman grown now, and whether you like it or not, I am a part of this, as surely as you are, as surely as Macide.” She paused. “As surely as my mother was.”