Sümeya pushed herself off the sand and sat up. She wiped away her tears, sniffing, avoiding Çeda’s eyes. She stared up to the moons, a silent plea to the twin goddesses, though for what, Çeda wasn’t sure. “There was another who had the mantle of First Warden before me, did you know?”
“Nayyan.”
Sümeya turned to Çeda, her eyes looking over Çeda’s face like a vintner might examine the first glass poured from last year’s harvest. “Nayyan.”
The reverence in her voice . . . No, not reverence. Love. She loves Nayyan as I love Emre. “Tell me about her.”
“She was a wonder.” Sümeya’s voice was lusty. “Gifted in so many ways.”
“All say she was the best in a generation with sword in hand,” Çeda offered.
Sümeya shifted on the sand until she was sitting across from Çeda, their knees nearly touching. “There was that, but that was the least of it. She played the harp, taught to her by her mother. It was enough to make you weep. And how she could dance, without a blade somehow more beautiful than with. Would that I could hold her hand openly once more.”
Through the haze of araq, something began to tingle inside Çeda. The night she’d gone to the blooming fields to poison herself. Çeda had nearly been caught by a woman in a Maiden’s dress. She’d worn a necklace of what looked to be long black thorns, and it was said Nayyan, before she’d become First Warden, had killed an ehrekh in the desert, and made a necklace from the thorns that bristled like a crown on its head. Nayyan was thought to be dead, but she’d disappeared on the night Çeda’s mother, Ahya, had been caught by the Kings.
Ever since learning more of Nayyan, Çeda suspected the Maiden with the thorn necklace had been her. And now Sümeya had said something most strange. Would that I could hold her hand openly once more. Not simply hold her hand once more, as one might say of a dead loved one, but hold it openly.
The tingling in Çeda’s chest spread to her limbs at the very thought of what she was about to do. It could very well get her killed, but Çeda stood anyway and held out her hand to Sümeya. “How would you dance with her if you could?”
Sümeya looked up from her seated position, blinking for a moment before focusing on Çeda. Then she reached out and allowed Çeda to pull her up. As the music from the ship played in the distance—a tune that began slowly but picked up speed as it went—the two of them began to circle one another, Sümeya keeping her eyes on Çeda the whole time, a sultry look Çeda wondered if she was even aware of.
They spun and turned, dipping and turning their hips in time to the music, each of them throwing one hand in the air when the song called for it. The melodic calls of the crew came to them, but softly, as if they two were mere wraiths in the desert, remembering the lives they once led, envying those that still breathed. More than once Çeda had to steady Sümeya, but Sümeya didn’t seem to mind. She laughed harder each time it happened, and then she did fall near the end of the song, tipping headlong onto the sand, Çeda coming with her.
They lay there side by side, out of breath as they stared at the stars. Sümeya reached out and took Çeda’s hand. She rolled onto her side, stared at Çeda instead of the stars. “I see some of her in you, you know.”
“What could you see of her in me?”
“You are gifted in blade and blood, as she was. You are willful, as she was.” She reached out one hand and touched Çeda’s cheek, ran her fingers along Çeda’s jaw. “You are beautiful, as she was.”
Sümeya paused, waiting for Çeda to turn to her. When Çeda did, she raked her fingers through Çeda’s hair. Çeda shivered from the simple, gentle touch of another. She’d been so long without it in the Maidens’ House that its sudden return made her think of Emre, of Osman, of Ramahd. More than anything, though, it made her wonder whether she might lie here with Sümeya, a woman none would deny was beautiful, and forget for a time all that lay ahead, all that lay behind.
Before Çeda knew what was happening, Sümeya had crawled on top of her, slipped her hand behind Çeda’s neck, and drew her in. For a moment she stared into Çeda’s eyes, but then she leaned in and pressed her lips to Çeda’s. Çeda stiffened at first, but the kiss was long and warm and immediately began melting her resistance. Sümeya was a chiseled woman, both in mind and in body, but by the gods her lips were soft as velvet. Çeda relaxed. She knew it was the wine speaking, but it felt so good to lose herself in another person’s flesh, even if for completely wrong reasons.
When Sümeya broke the kiss at last, it was with an audible smack that left Çeda wanting more. She threaded her fingers through Sümeya’s hands, not allowing her to leave, struggling for words that would raise no suspicion. “Why don’t you go to her if you miss her so?”
Sümeya kissed Çeda’s neck, then whispered into her ear. “You think it so easy?”
“It can be if you wish it so,” Çeda whispered back.
“An assassin’s blade took her from my side. You might think it uncomplicated to love a woman who’s become a King, but I tell you it isn’t.”
As Sümeya stitched more warm kisses along Çeda’s neck. Her hand slipped beneath Çeda’s dress and crept slowly up her thigh. Çeda, however, remained perfectly still. She swallowed uncontrollably. By Bakhi’s bright hammer, Nayyan a King? But which one?
Çeda moaned as Sümeya put her lips to Çeda’s dress and exhaled, her hot breath spreading through the cloth and over the skin of her breast. She gasped as Sümeya’s hand slipped beneath her small clothes. Sümeya ran her fingers like one might apply oil, with long strokes at first, then in ever tightening circles. Like a falcon riding hot desert currents, the pleasure rose with each turn. Sümeya was an artist, her skillful fingers bringing Çeda higher, then letting her fall, then bringing her higher still.
Dear gods, I can’t do this. Sümeya is First Warden.
And yet despite her own thoughts, Çeda arched her back. She pulled her dress down over one shoulder, grabbed a fistful of Sümeya’s hair, and pulled her head against her bared breast. As Sümeya used her tongue to circle Çeda’s nipple, used her teeth to make playful bites, Çeda spread her legs wider. She leaned into the movements of Sümeya’s fingers until the two of them were in perfect sync. When Sümeya slipped two fingers inside her, Çeda grabbed her hand, drew her deeper while pulling Sümeya in for another kiss. Their breath mingled. Their lips and tongues met with greater need. The wind cooled Çeda’s skin where Sümeya’s mouth had been.
Sümeya had just pulled Çeda’s dress down to her waist when a blood-curdling yowl rent the cool night air. The sound was eerily similar to the call of the jackals that roamed this part of the desert and yet it was inescapably human. Çeda stiffened from it. Sümeya lifted her head, looking to the top of the nearby dune. Çeda craned her neck and saw the asir, the one that had been so vocal these past many days. It crouched there, watching the two of them.
It made her skin crawl just to look at it. As she quickly pulled her dress back on, she felt Sümeya trying to warn the asir away. She felt the asir’s cold indifference. It continued to creep closer, low to the ground, arms akimbo, spider-like. Çeda had no idea why it had become so hungry, but she knew that murderous thoughts now drove it.
As the asir approached, scuttling like a beetle over the sand, Sümeya stood and took a step toward it. “Leave,” she said, reinforcing the silent command she’d been giving it. The asir slowed, but now looked more akin to a starving panther that was weighing just how wise it would be to leap.
Keeping her eyes on the asir, Sümeya sidestepped to where her sword had fallen, then crouched and picked it up. She advanced on the asir. “I said begone!”
Shall I press the life from her? the asir asked. Will you watch as you watched Havva die in the harbor at the hands of the Confessor King?
Leave, Çeda said to it, dearly hoping this wouldn’t end in bloodshed. You’ll solve nothing by killing her.
That wo
man deserves to lie breathless beneath the sand.
Now is not the time.
It crawled forward, then raised itself up onto thin, blackened legs. And when will that day come, favored of Sehid-Alaz? When will you finally work to free us?
As Sümeya stepped forward, brandishing her ebon blade, Çeda felt herself being drawn into the emotions of this creature. As it had been with Havva, she felt the asir’s burning desire to choke the life from a Blade Maiden. Any Maiden would do, but this one would be particularly sweet.
What is your name? Çeda asked.
My name, it spoke with clear pride, is Kerim Deniz’ava al Khiyanat, cousin to our King, Sehid-Alaz, and Havva was my love, my wife, the mother of my children. Khiyanat meant betrayal, or the betrayed, in the old tongue.
Kerim, I promise you, the day will soon come.
The asir paused, then glanced at Çeda, which made Sümeya do the same. Whether she could sense that some conversation was being played out between them Çeda couldn’t say, but soon Sümeya had turned back to the asir. Çeda could feel her exerting her will, though it was doing little. Çeda worried that Mesut might be drawn to this meeting of wills, or that Sümeya might reach out to him, but she felt no other presence than herself, Kerim, Sümeya, and the second asir, curled in a tight ball somewhere out in the dunes, alone, confused, angry.
Go, Çeda said. You’ve done enough damage this night.
Still the asir waited, obstinate, but they both knew it would not harm Sümeya. Not this time.
Go, before she suspects I’m to blame.
Finally, with an inhuman wail, a sick twisting of its neck and shoulders, Kerim son of Deniz turned and fled into the night. Sümeya watched it gallop away, sword still at the ready. Something in her seemed to break then. Her sword tip lowered. Her shoulders slumped. She looked about her, to the wineskin, to the imprint she and Çeda had left in the sand.
She turned toward Çeda but didn’t lift her eyes. Then, after sliding her ebon sword home in its scabbard with a clack, she walked to the wineskin and snatched it up from where it had fallen. She held the neck to her mouth, took a long pull from it, and without another word walked away, back toward the ship.
As Sümeya crested the dune, Çeda wondered if she’d just made a horrible mistake not letting the asir drink Sümeya’s blood. It was only a fleeting thought—there and gone in the flick of a butterfly’s wings. She knew she wouldn’t kill any of her hand, not even Yndris. Not without provocation, in any case.
“Would you join me if you knew the truth?” Çeda said to Sümeya’s retreating form. Most Maidens would not, but there must be some who would. She had to believe that. If there was no humanity in those who held power in Sharakhai—the Blade Maidens, the Silver Spears, the sons and daughters of the Kings—then all was lost no matter what she did.
Çeda waited—for what, she wasn’t sure. Answers from the desert, she supposed. Didn’t the old tales speak of the Great Mother answering one’s most fervent prayers? The wind blew harder for a time, pulling spindrift from the dunes like spray upon the sea. Sümeya was but a dark form now, cresting a distant dune. Hearing no answers, Çeda pulled her veil into place and set after her.
Chapter 46
“I NEED A FIRE, ANILA,” Davud said at the end of a long day of travel. The day had been cold and windy, and the night promised to be worse.
Anila was nearby, pulling their bedrolls from the skiff they’d stolen before fleeing the gathering of the Moonless Host. Every night since fleeing the Burning Sand, the cold had settled in Davud’s bones as he slept, making any movement feel like spikes were being driven into his joints. It was only the lingering effects of his change, he knew, but it made him crave warmth. He might have asked Anila to sleep next to him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to ask. She was still so very angry with him.
Instead he’d requested a fire, only a small one, enough to warm him for a time before falling asleep. Every day for the past week she’d denied him, judging it too dangerous, but this time she stopped what she was doing, turned, and stared at a brilliant horizon that somehow made Davud feel colder, as if the retreating sun had stolen the very warmth from the desert, leaving all things within it to suffer.
“Very well,” she said.
Davud hid his relief. Anytime he’d showed softer emotions, be it relief, happiness, or the occasional attempt to share a joyful reminiscence of their fellow scholars, she’d become despondent. She felt guilty, of course. Their friends had not been as lucky as they. They’d suffered terribly while Davud and Anila had escaped. “We’ll find them,” Davud said to her. “We’ll free them.” Though how they might do that he had no idea.
Anila said nothing. The comment only made her seem more miserable. They both knew they had little hope of achieving the goal she’d set for them. In all likelihood they’d both die and Hamzakiir would use the survivors from the collegia attack to unveil his plans like a storm over Sharakhai. They’d have thrown away their lives for no gain at all, but there was nothing for it now. They were committed.
While Anila prepared their bedrolls and their rations of hardtack and water, Davud built a fire in the trough between two dunes. Soon they were sitting across from one other, the fire between them, their bellies contented if not full. As the fire snapped softly in the desert night, Davud held his hands over it, glad for the warmth, glad for the golden light as well. Anila watched in silence, contemplative, her knees pulled up to her chest. She was thinking again, worrying over what would happen in Ishmantep, but treating it like a problem to be solved, not some unassailable wall.
It enhanced her beauty, knowing her mind was working. She had a brilliant mind. A quick mind. It made him proud to know her, a thing that had been true practically from the moment they’d met. If only he could have said so before all this.
“Show me the ritual,” she said suddenly, breaking the stiff silence between them.
“What?”
“You said you have an exercise to bring you in tune with fire.”
“I do, but—”
“Then show me.”
“I thought you hated the red ways.”
“I do.” She stared into his eyes, the firelight playing across the contours of her face. She swallowed hard. “But we’re going to need it, Davud.”
She meant in Ishmantep. She might be right, but they both knew his abilities would make no difference at all if they were pitted against Hamzakiir. Davud couldn’t hold a candle to the blood mage. How could he? Hamzakiir had been trained by magi in Qaimir. He’d mastered it over the course of many decades, longer than Davud had been alive. What was Davud but some bumbling fool with the misfortune of having tainted blood?
He took the small kenshar Anila had had the foresight to bring—a simple, bone-handled knife that Davud now considered part of his everyday existence—and drove its point into the palm of his left hand. He felt the now-familiar prick of pain.
Setting the knife in his lap, he watched the blood well up. When there was enough of it, he touched a finger to it and with practiced strokes drew one of the sigils from Hamzakiir’s book onto his palm. The sigil was really a combination of two master sigils: fire and another that meant assimilate or subsume. Like two shades of color combining to form a third, one sigil was laid over the other, the two acting in harmony.
Satisfied, Davud held his hand over the fire once more. He lowered it slowly as Anila watched hungrily. It was a familiar look to anyone who knew her. It stole over her in philosophic debates with Master Amalos, or during algebraic instruction with Master Nezahum. “It’s like sunlight passing through colored glass, then? It’s the symbol that performs the magic?”
“Sigil,” Davud corrected. “And no, it does not.”
As he lowered his hand, and the heat began to rise, Davud concentrated, holding the concept of fire to him like a talisman. “The sigil is merely a starting point, a familiar
frame of mind. It is the place where mind, body, and world meet and become as one.” He willed the fire toward his heart by way of his open palm, and the fire began to swirl.
Anila watched. Her face might be like stone, but her eyes were bright and full of wonder. She found this abhorrent but the student within her found it too fascinating to ignore.
Davud lowered his hand. The fire swirled faster. Licks of it were thrown from the building maelstrom like moths bursting into flame. The heat on his palm built, but not nearly so much as it would have without the sigil.
“What’s different now?” Anila asked.
Davud wiped sweat from his brow. “It enters through the palm, but it goes well beyond. It suffuses me, like the feeling you get after a run.”
Anila smiled a wicked smile. “As though you run.”
“I run,” Davud said with an indignance that was only half felt.
“To your mother you run, after I’ve spanked you in yet another debate.”
“Do you wish to learn about it or not?”
“Well then”—she bowed her head and flourished a hand—“please continue, Master Davud.”
And so he did, telling her how it continued to spread through him until he was burning from it, how if he didn’t release the power it would make his muscles ache, or eventually blister his skin. He showed her how he could make the fire dance beneath his palm. How he could bring it to life between his fingers at a mere thought, but not if he waited too long and the heat slipped away.
“Can you throw it?”
“The fire?” he asked. “I haven’t tried.”
A bit of a lie. In truth he’d been afraid to. Hamzakiir had warned him explicitly not to attempt it. Many had died from doing so before they’d understood the nature of fire and the sigils and the way they and the body interacted. They are threads held in delicate balance, he’d written. Toy with them before you’re ready, and you’re as like to boil your own mind as bring about the effect you’re looking for.
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