Heart of Flame

by Janine Ashbless

  His eyebrows rose but then he smiled, and it was a different kind of smile to any that she’d seen in his face before, warmer and more relaxed. “Fair enough.” Then he came over and knelt near the fire so as to be face–to-face with her. “You don’t have anything to fear from me, I promise. I give you my word, you will be as a sister-in-law to me.”

  She wondered at the slightly odd choice of words. “The usual form of words is ‘as a sister’,” she said stiffly.

  “My sisters bossed me about cruelly when I was a little boy.” His mouth twitched. “I’m hoping for a little peace this time round. Though from what I’ve known of Zahir…”

  “Ha. Funny man.”

  The relationship between a brother- and sister-in-law was not so bad, she decided after consideration—an alliance that was mutually respectful but not intimate. It was in its own way like a veil, allowing her to move in his world without exposing herself to criticism or unwanted attentions. As if I wouldn’t welcome his attentions, she mocked herself. Then, more soberly, she refuted her own accusation. His desire is all for Ahleme. He’d only be making a whore of me if he did turn my way.

  “So…? Do we have an agreement?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

  “Well. Good.” He sat back. “In the meantime I’m going to sit over here on this pile of bricks. I don’t know what the word of a ghoul is worth but I doubt sleeping is the best idea tonight. You might sit at the other end if you like.”

  “All right.”

  They both sat within reach of the fire’s warmth, but not within reach of each other. Taqla wondered if she should set about making coffee but it felt awkward performing that courtesy for him, as if it would be letting down a defense. She put her chin in her hand.

  “So what’s your name, you-who-are-not-Zahir?”

  She couldn’t think of a good reason not to tell him. “Taqla.”

  “That’s Greek, isn’t it?”

  “My father’s mother was a Greek from Constantinople, I believe.”

  “Well, it’s a pretty name.”

  She shook her head. “You’ve got to stop doing that too.”

  “What?”

  “Being nice with me. Flirting.”

  “Was I flirting?” There was a hint of humor in his tone, and she suspected there was no right answer to that question.

  “You should treat me just like you would Zahir.”

  Rafiq sighed. “I didn’t see him as sister-in-law material.” She gave him a sharp look and he spread his hands. “But if that’s what you want…”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll try.”

  There was silence for a while.

  “Taqla?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m planning to stay awake all night. I’m happy to prepare coffee for us, but could you get the pots out of your magic bag there? And some food?”

  It was almost a relief when Yazid made a reappearance. Not, Ahleme hastened to tell herself, because she wanted to see him, but because she was so lonely and bored that anything that broke her solitude was welcome, even if it was followed at once by fear. She laid her hand over the barely clothed slopes of her breasts, feeling the painful lurch of her heart. He was so big—somehow it took her by surprise every time—and taller and broader than any of her father’s guards. The mere physical fact of his presence was terrifying. It made her aware of her own fragility.

  “Ahleme.” He dipped his head in a minimally polite greeting. Despite the dense line of his brows, he didn’t look particularly angry today, and his skin was the luminous gray of a clouded sky. But still his eyes burned, like pale embers.

  Hesitantly, she bowed in return. She’d had a lot of time to consider what Zubaida had told her and it had left her very confused. From the very start she’d taken it for granted that Yazid’s fury was due to her refusal to submit to him. Was it really more complex than that? Had she provoked him in some way, without realizing it?

  “Are you comfortable now?” he enquired. “You’ve food and drink. Is there anything else I might bring to you?”

  Every time previously she’d demanded that he release her. This time she tried another tack. “If you would be so kind,” she said softly, “I’m alone for so many hours. Please—” She didn’t miss the spark that lit his eyes when she said the word. “Please would you bring me some books? And paper and pen? Or a lute perhaps, so that I can practice my music?”

  He spread his arms, his broad chest expanding with the gesture. Suddenly the floor of her cell was covered with books, one stacked on another, and a chess set there too with familiar gilded and ebony pieces, and a five-stringed oud lute, and a frame on which a piece of silk was stretched, half embroidered with a peacock design.

  “Here—everything from your room. Every book on your shelves. Your embroidery. So that you may amuse yourself when you’re not in my arms.”

  Ahleme was so pleased she didn’t object to the implication of his words. With a squeak of excitement and a rattle of her chain, she jumped off the bed and ran over to a pile of books, seizing the one from the top. Yes, there it was, her favourite book of poems just as she remembered it. There was even a red stain on the third page where she’d once allowed a drop of wine to spill upon the paper. She flicked through, her eyes devouring the lines and making themselves familiar once more with the tiny jewel-bright illustrations of flowers and birds.

  “You seem pleased.”

  She glanced up. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Yazid picked up a book at random and flicked through. The volume looked tiny in his big hands. “Can you play the lute?” he wondered.

  “Yes.”

  “Play something for me.”

  Ahleme nodded. This was better than anything he had required of her so far. She took up the instrument, tested the strings then began to pluck out a tune she knew well. The notes fell like ice water.

  Yazid dropped his book and picked up another, frowning. Then another.

  After a few bars she began to sing the words of a simple ghazal, keeping her voice low and, she hoped, pleasing.

  “You hypocrite!” His cry of disgust shattered the song.

  “What?”

  “Hypocrite! All these books are full of love poetry! Every one!” He hurled a volume down with some force. “Such passion, such frustrated desire, such heartfelt yearning! Is this what you read about all day? Your books are full of love but you won’t take the love I offer you!”

  Ahleme started to tremble, and she thrust her lip out to keep her voice steady as she replied, “What you offer isn’t love!”

  “No?”

  “No! Would your heart fill with joy at my smallest smile? Would you pour out your passion for me in poetry?”

  “That’s love, is it?”

  “Yes!”

  “It’s the posturing of failures and eunuchs!”

  She set the lute aside because she didn’t want to drop it. “It’s love, though you’ve never felt it. A man who writes one of those poems bares his soul. He bleeds with love. He gifts his beloved his pain and his hope because he wants her to know how much he’d do for her, how much she has cost him. Because he wants her to share that emotion.”

  “Hah! The emotions of a wine-addled poet! What do they matter?”

  “The emotions of the woman matter. That’s why poetry moves the beloved—because what she feels matters to him.” She gathered up handfuls of the chain from around her feet and brandished it at him. “Is this love, according to you? This is captivity.”

  Yazid drew himself up. “The chain is there to keep you safe.”

  “And the way you treated me on this bed?”

  He took a step forward. “My desire for you is like a raging fire. Do you doubt my love? I’ll prove it willingly.” He gestured at his crotch.

  She started to retreat. “That’s not what you said outside,” she reminded him. “You said I was nothing.”

  “I…” His jaw worked. “I spoke in anger.”

>   “Why do I make you angry? If you love me, then why this rage?”

  “Because you are full of lies like a dead horse is full of maggots!” He snatched at the air in frustration. “Because of your arrogance and hypocrisy! One day you won’t love me because I haven’t your father’s permission, but today you will not love me because I don’t express myself in tender poetry. Which is it, Daughter of Earth? If a poor man wrote you poems, would you love him? If the day comes when your father chooses you a husband, will you refuse him for being too old and dry and not being sick with longing for you?”

  Ahleme’s mouth fell open.

  “Well, which is it—duty or passion? I see no connection between the flames that burn in those books of yours and the rich powerful man your father will undoubtedly pick. Do you?”

  “It’s an ideal,” she whispered. She gestured toward the books. “That’s what I want from my husband.”

  “But he won’t be like that, will he?”

  “I…I’m not…” He was pushing her back step-by-step and it was impossible for her to think. His eyes wouldn’t leave her alone. They ate her.

  “Which matters most to you?” Yazid had the look of an eagle about to fall upon its prey. “If you loved with all your heart a man who wasn’t suited to your father’s purposes, what would you do? Which would you chose—happiness or duty?”

  “I would choose honor,” she said in a ghost of a voice.

  For a moment he faltered, obviously taken aback. “Why?”

  “Because…because…” She felt dizzy. She laid a hand upon a glass pillar and began to retreat around it. Everything that Zubaida had said about Mankind whirled around in her head. “Because we do,” she admitted. “Honor is status. Status is power. We’re human. We would rather have power than anything.”

  “Even love?”

  “Yes.”

  Yazid put his shoulder to the pillar and stared at her, uncomprehending. “Why?” he pleaded.

  Her voice was shaking. “Because we’re afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Yes. We’re not like you. We can’t change the world with a snap of our fingers. We can’t live alone; we’re too weak. We live…in packs.” She took one more step around the pillar and the chain at her ankle locked, nearly tripping her. When she spoke next, it was almost breathlessly. “So we cannot really bear the freedom that poets write about. We live by laws and honor and obedience instead.”

  He circled the pillar until he was almost on top of her. “You must be miserable all your short lives,” he growled.

  She averted her face, pivoting on her trapped ankle to turn her back on him. “I suppose we are. It isn’t important.” She rested one flank against the pillar, feeling the cool glass against her thigh and left breast.

  “How can you say that?” He was standing right over her now. She could feel his breath on her hair when he spoke. “I would make you happy, Ahleme, if you’d let me.”

  “You’d make me your slave,” she whispered.

  “I would set you free.” His hand descended on her thick braid at the nape of her neck and she jerked.

  “No!” she warned as spines broke through the skin of her shoulders. Yazid hissed and withdrew his hand.

  “Don’t—I’m not going to hurt you. Not even touch you. Just your hair, Ahleme. Let me stroke your hair.”

  She pressed her face to the pillar, gathering her will to repel him. Then he laid his hand on her head gently and ran it down her braided hair, and she nearly whimpered.

  “There. There. It’s not hurting you, is it?”

  He wasn’t hurting her. Her resistance wavered. The spines shrank into their cusps of flesh.

  “You’ve beautiful hair, like darkest honey.” His voice was a low murmur, and Ahleme felt her bones turn to water at its purr. She was tired and scared and she dreaded the thought of mutilating herself once more—every part of her recoiled from that thought—but she would do it to stop his assault, she was ready for that if she must. If he did. If he didn’t just stand there stroking her hair, twining the long tail of her braid with his fingertip, dipping his face to the top of her head to breathe the scent of the rosewater she’d washed her hair with. She shut her eyes. He wasn’t hurting her. It didn’t feel bad. It even felt good, this slow caress, because it had been so long since she’d been touched or embraced or comforted by anyone she knew. She was accustomed to physical contact every day with her women, and she’d missed those soothing fingers massaging or anointing or combing out her hair. It was good now just to feel the contact, the rhythm of his stroking hand, the warmth radiating from his skin, the brush of his fingers on her spine…

  She shivered.

  “Oh… Your skin is so soft.” Yazid traced the line of her backbone from the cloth stretched across her shoulder blades all the way down to the hem of her shalwar just above the cleft of her bottom, exploring each dimple of her spine. He was very gentle and she couldn’t feel even the tip of his claw. She wanted to feel angry but she couldn’t. It would have been so much easier if he’d made her angry. She could have turned into a monster in a moment. She couldn’t even feel scared now, not really, although in one way she was as dizzy with terror as if she were back outside standing on that high arch. Yet it wasn’t a fear that made her recoil or fight. It made her press herself to the glass, aware of every inch of her skin as he repeated the motion. Her scalp pricked and shivers chased the length of her back, raising gooseflesh, which he soothed away with the warm sweep of his palm. “Don’t be frightened,” he whispered.

  She was frightened. And yet she wasn’t, not at all. She didn’t understand how she was feeling, only that that there wasn’t room to step back and analyse it, only to react to that gentle, searing touch. One way or the other.

  “Let me just stroke you.” Yazid’s spread hand nearly encompassed the whole width of her waist. “You’re so beautiful. I just want to…” His hand slid over the firm orb of her bottom cheek.

  “No!” she groaned, stiffening instantly. No—that was too far, she knew that. That crossed the line. Yazid removed his hand.

  “All right. It’s all right. Just your back. You don’t mind me touching your back, do you?”

  How could she say no, when she’d let him already? When he went back to stroking her back it was such a relief, and such pleasure. Even when he hooked a finger under the stretched cloth of her top and the fabric turned to dust that fell shimmering down her smooth skin like sprinkles of gold. Ahleme gasped and pressed her bare breasts to the glass, her breath fogging the blue surface. Yazid laid his hand flat between her shoulder blades, on the bit that always itched, rubbing in slow circles.

  “Don’t be afraid. You’re beautiful, my Jewel of the Earth.” His voice was the growl of a lion, but so quiet, so very quiet that he had to lower his mouth to her temple and utter the words with his lips brushing her ear, something that sent shivers prickling all over her skin. He sensed the movement and scratched her gently between the shoulder blades, which made her gasp with gratitude. Then he ran his claws down her back, tenderly, all the way to the rising sweep of her bottom, and that made her groan out loud. “Oh yes,” he breathed.

  Dimly she realized she wasn’t thinking straight anymore, that somewhere along the line sensation had become too important, that her body was overriding her better judgment. Somewhere in her head she was still scared and outraged by the djinni, but not enough to drive him off. Not even when he buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply the scent there, not even when his bare chest brushed against her bare back, his heat making up for the cold of the glass he was pushing her up against, the cold that was pinching her nipples to stiff points. Not even when he stopped talking and just breathed hard and quick. She couldn’t see any part of him and didn’t have the experience to realize what he might be doing with his other hand, the one that wasn’t stroking the lower half of her back over and over, firmer and firmer, kneading her firm smooth flesh and pressing her harder against the glass. She only felt the
flush of heat to his chest and the change of his stance and the hitch in his throat, and while she was still confused, he uttered a groan that sounded like despair and lurched up against her, the whole length of his body pressed hard against hers, his thighs rigid and his silk shalwar clammy on his perspiring legs.

  Ahleme was too stunned to react. She just held on to the pillar as Yazid held her, the tension easing from his big frame. Even when he finally stepped away she couldn’t turn and face him—she was topless and he would see her breasts. She wouldn’t have turned to face him though, not even if she had been wearing the thickest of winter abas. Her cheeks were burning, her heart pounding. Her whole body roiled with confusion and shame and unfulfilled arousal. She pressed her forehead to the glass and gnawed her lip to stop herself losing control.

  Without a word Yazid lifted her hair aside and stooped to press his lips to her neck. She could feel the heat of his mouth and the indent of her skin under his teeth. His thumb traced one last path down her backbone. Then he was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  In which a poem is read.

  As the sun rose, the ghouls withdrew, creeping into the ruined outhouses and into holes beneath the rubble.

  Taqla had managed to doze for a few hours with her head cradled on her knees. As soon as it was safe, she rose and stumbled away to find some privacy, and while she was hidden behind a wall she took the opportunity to cast her spell and revert to Zahir’s shape once more. Then she strode back, taking the ball of silver wire out of her bag.

  Rafiq looked at her once-more masculine face and his brow puckered faintly but he said nothing. He rubbed at his neck with the slow movements of one who ached in a number of places. In the light of dawn, he looked tired out, all narrowed eyes and stubble. He hadn’t slept at all through the night and, looking at him, Taqla felt a pang of guilt. She’d simply assumed that he would be the one to sit watch, and he hadn’t asked her to take a turn. She gave him the last piece of meat to make up for it, breakfasting herself on dry bread, and then she prepared the Horse Most Swift for their departure. They would need to get as far away as possible, she told herself, to escape the ghouls. They had to make it pointless for the Pale People to pursue them.