With exaggerated care, Dardzada dropped the quill into the inkwell and crossed his arms over the ledger. “And how would you suggest I go about it, Çeda? Ask the Kings to lie down before you so you might slit their collective throats? Demand of the gods that they accede to your will?”
Çeda glanced into the back room, then glanced outside into the street. Finding them clear, she lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I killed one of them, Dardzada.” She lifted her right hand and pointed to the puckered wound, which felt almost normal today. “With the help of the asirim, Külasan lies dead.”
Even as she spoke, Dardzada was shaking his head, his heavy double chin waggling from the effort. “It cannot be.”
Despite herself, a smile touched her lips. “He was slain by my own hand.”
“We would have heard news of it.”
“Do you suppose the Kings would have sent their criers to tell every corner of Sharakhai that King Külasan is dead? They’re covering it up, Dardzada. Hiding it. But they can’t hide it forever.”
“The Kings can do much, Çeda. You of all people should know this.”
Çeda nodded. “They can. But the fact remains. One lies dead. Eleven still live. We need clues, Dardzada. We need to find more verses from the poem.”
“I have no more rhymes to give you.”
“Yes, you do. Ahya gave them to you before she died.”
“She did not.”
“She told Saliah she had four. One was for Külasan, so three remain, and she wouldn’t have risked their loss after her death. We both know she spoke with you about her plans before she left for Tauriyat that night. There isn’t a chance in this wide, grand desert she didn’t ask you to keep those secrets safe so that others might continue her work.”
Dardzada stared at her. His eyes shifted toward the door, as if he wished she would leave, or that he could flee. But then he visibly deflated. “Külasan is dead . . .”
“Külasan is dead.”
After gripping the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white, he stood and lumbered to the stairs that led up to his room. He returned a short while later with a small brass key tied with a purple ribbon. He placed it into Çeda’s hands and said, “She gave me this to give to you when I felt you were ready, along with a message.”
Çeda stared at the key, wonderingly. “Which was?”
“‘The silver moon unlocks the bloody verses.’”
“The silver moon. She meant Rhia, of course, but what did she mean by unlocking the verses? Is there a box? A chest of some kind?”
“No. I never saw her with one, nor had I ever seen the key before she gave it to me.”
“This is all she left for me?”
“That and her book and locket, which I’ve already given you.”
“And you’ve withheld this for eleven years now. What else might she—”
“I’ve given you everything she gave me, Çeda.”
“Why didn’t she tell you what she meant?”
“She feared you might be found. That I might be found, which would lead them to you. She wanted to leave as few clues as she could.”
It made some sense, but it was frustrating to come for answers, only to be given more riddles. She held the key gingerly in one hand. It felt weighty and somehow momentous, as if the gods themselves were waiting to see what she would do with it. “We can bring them down, you know.”
There was pride in his eyes now, and a deep-seated fear, one that would probably never leave him. “You’d better go,” he said, jutting his chin toward the door.
Çeda stepped toward him, but Dardzada turned away and returned to his seat behind the desk. He resumed scratching away with his quill a moment later.
“I must know something else. The story my mother told herself the night she died. What was it?”
When Ahya and Dardzada had spoken alone in his back room that night, Çeda had eavesdropped and heard Dardzada say to Ahya, Repeat the story I gave you, or some such thing. She’d long since realized Ahya’s strange behavior was due to hangman’s vine, a distillation that allowed one to supplant one’s memories, permanently if the draught was strong enough. Most often, the one administering the draught would feed a story to the one drinking it, or one would have been arranged ahead of time.
For a moment Dardzada gave her the same obstinate look he so often chose as his first reaction to her queries, but this was information she wouldn’t leave his shop without. Perhaps he sensed this. Or perhaps he thought he owed her this much after the news she’d given him of Külasan death. Or perhaps he was simply tired of hiding it from her. Whatever the case, he raised his eyebrows as if were surprising even himself and said, “She went to kill a King, Çeda. She told herself she was an assassin, and that the one who’d paid her to do it had been hidden from her. Nearly all other memories would have been stripped from her by the vine. The memories and skills that remained would be those that served the simple story we’d decided upon.”
“As simple as that? She was an assassin? She didn’t know the identity of her patron?”
“There would have been much more to it by the time she arrived at Tauriyat. It’s best to think of that simple narrative as a framework. Hangman’s vine draws from your past experiences, some imagined, some dreamed, some real, and fills in that framework, brick by brick, until an edifice has been built, one that looks whole and complete to any who would view it, including and especially the one who swallowed the draught.”
“Which King did she go to kill?”
At this Dardzada’s mouth straightened into a grim line. “We have to be careful about their names. You shouldn’t speak them so easily, as you did with the Wandering King. The chances may be small that the King of Whispers will ever hear us, but it’s not a chance I’m willing to take if I can avoid it. Do you understand?”
Çeda nodded. “A clue, then.”
He pointed to her right thumb. “The King of that which wounded you.”
A thorn. The King of Thorns. He meant King Azad. The very one Nayyan, the leader of Sümeya’s hand, had been off to visit when she’d disappeared. Her mother hadn’t succeeded—Çeda had seen Azad with her own eyes—but whatever she’d done, it was surely related to Nayyan’s disappearance.
“What is it?” Dardzada asked.
“Nothing,” she replied.
He stared intently into her eyes, then returned to his ledger. “Have it your way.”
“Dardzada?”
“Yes?” he asked, not looking up.
“Do you think my mother would remember me? Given time?”
Dardzada stopped. He looked up, sharing a grief-stricken look with her, and said, “That is my most fervent hope, Çedamihn,” and then rededicated himself to his task.
She had asked him this same question when she was young but hadn’t seen then what she saw now: that Dardzada had harbored as much pain as she over the stories he’d fed to Ahya. And not merely for the part he’d played in making her forget her child, but also because he’d made her forget him as well. He may have felt some sense of regret over one, but to have loved her so deeply and to have then helped her forget him completely before her death . . . It would be like Çeda making Emre forget her, a thing she could hardly even imagine.
“Mine as well,” she said before stepping up to his desk and leaning over to kiss his forehead.
He is blood of your blood, her mother had told her long ago, and Çeda hadn’t believed her. She did now, though. Dardzada had the blood of the thirteenth tribe running through his veins, and so did many others, most of whom wouldn’t even realize the thirteenth tribe existed. One day she would find them, though, and she would tell them the true story of Beht Ihman.
She left Dardzada’s apothecary and walked along Floret Row, wending her way toward the Trough. She might have gone to her old home, the one she’d shared with E
mre, but he wouldn’t be there. The lonely part of her wanted to visit Osman, to find her way into his arms once more, but she didn’t wish to bring the old shademan to the House of Maidens’ attention. She also didn’t want Osman to get the impression that she might love him, so she buried the urge and instead spent her day wandering through the busy streets of Sharakhai, stopping to partake of thousand-layer sweets and rosehip tea and a bit of Tehla’s crunchy bread, before finally returning to her new home: the House of Maidens.
In the days that followed, Çeda heard nothing from Emre. She worried for him so, yet there was nothing to do but wait. Wait and hope he could find a way to send her a message.
She continued to struggle with the meaning behind her mother’s message. The silver moon unlocks the bloody verses. What did that have to do with the key she’d given Çeda? Was there some chest that could only open beneath Tulathan’s light? Some piece of magic that would keep it safe until Çeda came for it?
She worried that she’d never figure it out, that she’d never find whatever lock the key would open, that she’d not been able to deliver something crucial to Dardzada before she’d died. But when she thought about all her mother had given her, the answer was obvious.
The answer wasn’t to do with the key at all, but her mother’s book.
That night, when the sun had set, and Rhia had risen in the east, Çeda went to the rooftop of the House of Maidens. When she was sure no one had followed her, she opened her mother’s book. She leafed through the pages slowly, seeing nothing at first, yet utterly confident she would.
She found the first poem halfway through the book. On that page, over the other darkly inked words, silvery letters glowed beneath the white light of Rhia, in Ahya’s flowing script.
Sharp of eye,
And quick of wit,
The King of Amberlark;
With wave of hand,
On cooling sand,
Slips he into the dark.
King will shift,
’Twixt light and dark,
The gift of onyx sky;
Shadows play,
In dark of day,
Yet not ’neath Rhia’s eye.
Several pages later she found another.
The King of smiles,
From verdant isles,
The gleam in moonlit eye;
With soft caress,
At death’s redress,
His wish, lost soul will cry.
Yerinde grants,
A golden band,
With eye of glittering jet;
Should King divide,
From Love’s sweet pride,
Dark souls collect their debt.
Two, Çeda thought. Two more poems. Two more riddles. Two more bloody verses.
She would think on these in the coming days, and she would unlock their secrets. And then she and the others would move once more against the Kings.
But for now, she merely stared at the lines, feeling not the meaning of the words but the weight behind their history. Her mother had found these. She had risked everything to unearth them. Çeda felt so many things as she held that book in her hands.
Relief. Thankfulness. Betrayal, if she was being honest. But more than anything, pride over what her mother had achieved.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered into the night.
But how could she have? How could her mother have explained all of this to an eight-year-old girl? She couldn’t, so she had remained silent, and then the world caught up with her. As it still might with Çeda.
“We shall see,” she said softly to the pages of the book.
She looked up at Rhia and the firmament beyond, and said once more, “We shall see,” then closed the book and went back down, into the House of Maidens.
Acknowledgments
The list of people that helped to get this book where it is now is longer than any book I’ve written in the past. Why? Because it was the first book in a new series. I was graduating, stepping up, trying to push my boundaries in order (I sincerely hoped) to reach a wider audience. It was very important to me that this first book in a new, expansive series was told well to get the series off to a roaring start. So I threw the net wide, so to speak, and I’d like to thank as many of you as I can. For any omissions, please forgive me. I tried to catch everyone, but realize I may have missed some.
First, I’d like to thank those who read early partials that eventually became part of the proposal package that sold the first three books in the series. Rob Ziegler, Paul Genesse, Robert Levy, Justin Landon, Doug Hulick, Paul Weimer, and Betsy Mitchell. Thank you for your thoughts that helped steer me in the right direction. Also, Patrick Tracy, rivers of gratitude for helping me with the epic poem that became one of the central threads, not just of this book, but the entire series.
To all the folks at the Coastal Heaven writing workshop—Grá Linnaea, Rob Ziegler, Chris Cevasco, Brenda Cooper, Adam Rakunas, Kris Dikeman, David Levine, Mark Teppo—thank you for helping to sharpen those opening pages. And to my full ms critters, Jennifer Linnaea and Beth Wodzinski, thank you for your insights on the entire (let’s face it, rather rough) ms.
Russell Galen, thank you, once again, for guiding my career so expertly. I don’t know where I’d be without you.
Betsy Wollheim, thank you for believing in this book. Thank you as well for all your wonderful advice, not just on the ms, but on all the things that surround it as well. The wealth of knowledge you have about this business is invaluable, and I’m grateful to benefit from it. I owe you, the team at DAW Books, and indeed your father, a huge debt of gratitude.
Gillian Redfearn, who provided so many smart comments on this book, thank you for all you did in finding the niggling (and some not so niggling!) problems, and for getting this book ready for the UK market. I’ve rarely met someone so wholly in love with speculative fiction. It’s infectious!
Marylou Capes-Platt, I’m so sorry about all those dashed parentheticals! And the ellipses! And the plenitude of ¶’s! Thank you for lending your expertise to this story. I love your eye for what makes a story work, what a reader will and won’t put up with, and the funny comments in the edits!
Adam Paquette, thank you for once again creating a stunning cover for one of my books. Sharakhai is even more beautiful and grand than I had imagined it. The interior artwork turned out wonderfully as well.
Juliette Wade, thanks for providing your insights. I’ve always appreciated your sensitivity to a wide variety of issues, and you brought that same sensitivity to your review.
Sarah Chorn, thanks for agreeing to my out-of-the-blue request to read the book. It was pretty well baked by the time you read it, but just like it’s important to get early feedback on what isn’t working, it’s important to get feedback on what is working, so thank you.
Aidan Moher, I’ll say it again, thank you for all your feedback, but specifically, for narrowing in on the book of poems, Çeda’s relationship with her mother, and the ritual surrounding Çeda and the adichara. Those three things alone opened up so much in the story and made it a much richer tale.
Paul Genesse, who’s read so much of my fiction that he knows my strengths and weaknesses. Thanks, Paul, for pushing me to shore up those breaks in the line and to build upon what’s already working. Protags have to protag, right? The hinge point of this book changed because of your comments. Thanks for fighting for it!
Rob Ziegler, who read the novel again when it was pretty far along. Thanks for tackling this beast and helping me to narrow in on the things that weren’t quite working.
Justin Landon, who read the early partial, but then read the whole book two more times. The book is vastly better for your influence. The story really blew up after the first of those reads, but it needed it. Your comments gave me the confidence to break the story up, to tell more of Çeda’s backstory, to
have parallel threads and to tell the story from additional points of view, and more. Thanks, Justin, for those insights and for plot bashing this with me.
To my fans, especially those who knew about Twelve Kings before its publication and cheered me on. You may not have known it, but your support helped keep me going on the long road to publication. The thought of getting this out and into your hands was a comforting feeling. I hope the wait was worth it.
In past books, I’ve saved the final thank you for my wife, Joanne, who deserved (and deserves) heaps of gratitude for carving out time from her own life to allow me the time to write. Thank you, honey, for all you did to make this possible. But I now have to add my children to this Most Important List. Relaneve and Rhys, thank you for giving up time with daddy to let him chase his dreams.
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