by Zamil Akhtar
It wasn’t long before I arrived at the harbor, which was built on an inlet of the Vogras River. The pungent stench of dried fish replaced the usual sweet air by the riverside. I passed by wooden and reed-built boats, seafood stalls, and hawkers selling everything from palm oil to fake artifacts from the ruins on the Pedang Isles, toward the slave market. Or rather, the Stables, as the city folk called it. A herding place for men, women, and children. I loved horses, as my Sylgiz blood demanded, and I’d never think to keep a horse the way they herded slaves at the Stables. But there was no place better to find a gift for Crown Prince Kyars.
From any vantage, the Stables resembled a massive, open-air prison. Wooden cages covered a length of the embankment in perfect rows and columns. Reed matting shaded those herded within.
Upon entering the premises, my gholam kept the touts at bay by brandishing their gilded batons. But the touts shouted their wares at me anyway.
“Muscular workers from Himyar, the Sultan’s best! Can carry loads all day!”
“Serving girls from the Waste, easy on the eyes and ears!”
“I’ve singing girls, my lady, from distant Sargosa!”
“Northmen! Ruthenians! Perfect for the metal mines!”
“I’ve a Crucian princess for sale!”
That last one — I found the man who’d said it. He wore the turban-wrapped red hat of the Sirmian zabadar and a floral caftan.
“You’re an attention grabber,” I said to him. “Is it true?”
He laughed from his round belly. “Of course not, but she likes to think it.”
“Hmpf. Crucian slave girls are as rare as sea foam.” I was ready to move on.
“Her skin is like snow, unkissed by the sun. Come, see for yourself.” Oh, then she wasn’t sand-colored like me and Zedra — probably had a slight nose and straight locks too. Fucking Hadrith. Might as well see her and get this over with.
As we followed the man, I tried to ignore the human sea around me. Dusty-faced children stood in cages, wailing for my attention as I walked. They wanted to sell themselves because anywhere was better than here. Or so they assumed. I wasn’t so sure, given how many perished in the mines and plantations throughout Alanya. But the fates of the free often weren’t much better — a pasha’s boot crushed all beneath, and sometimes those pashas were slaves themselves. One thing was true about Alanya: anyone could climb high or die in a ditch — it was what you made of it, and I had to climb as far from that ditch as possible.
Finally, we stopped at a rusted metal cage at the end of a row. A single girl sat inside against the bars, light brown hair draped over her forehead. I’d call her pale — not fair — and rather short and plump, though my opinion of her beauty didn’t matter.
The zabadar man whistled; the girl pushed her hair off her face, dusted sand from her rags, then stood and raced toward the bars in front of me.
She stared into my eyes with her mellow, hazel pupils. “You look like a sunshine lady,” she said in Sylgiz, pronouncing each word at an odd angle, as if they’d fallen off a cliff. “Please aid my soul. I don’t settle here.” Strange word choice. It took me a second to realize she was speaking Sirmian, which was a cousin language, though not entirely similar.
“What’s your name?” I asked in Sylgiz.
She stared at me as if I’d just cursed her mother. The zabadar repeated my question in proper Sirmian. I guess the word for name wasn’t the same.
“Celene Saturnus,” she said. “My father is Imperator Josias of holy Crucis. Please, you must aid my soul.”
The zabadar man laughed and slapped his thigh. “She does that routine so well.”
But something in her voice rang sincere.
“How did you end up here?” I asked.
She seemed to understand my Sylgiz this time. “I escaped from the Shah of Sirm, then I was caged by the zabadar, then...” the rest I couldn’t understand too well, but I gleaned it amounted to her being brought here.
I looked her up and down. Shapely was a word men would use. Innocent demeanor, too. But good enough for Crown Prince Kyars? A snow-skinned Crucian girl who spoke Sirmian and seemed to believe, earnestly, that she was a princess…I could do worse.
I tossed the bag of gold Hadrith had given me at the zabadar man. He opened it; his eyes almost fell from their sockets.
“Thank you, my lady,” he said, wind in his mouth. “May Lat bless you a thousand and one times. May the saints chant your name beneath her glorious throne. May Ahriyya never—”
“Just get her out,” I said, feeling the sudden urge to retch.
“Chains or no chains?”
“Are you jesting?”
“She likes to run, this one.”
“She won’t be running.” I pointed to the four gholam warriors, each holding a glimmering baton.
The zabadar man released Celene Saturnus and gave her a pair of wooden sandals. Off we went.
Not five minutes later, as we ascended the sandstone stairs toward the central thoroughfare, Celene grabbed my shoulder and begged, “Sunshine lady, please, put me on a ship for Hyperion. I want to go to the resting place.” Resting place…probably meant home. The bags and rings around her eyes were obvious imprints of tears and sorrow.
“You’re going to the palace. You’ll be much safer and more comfortable there.”
She shook her head, hazel locks waving over her face. “Please. I don’t belong here. I haven’t seen my family in over a year.”
I’d felt the same eight years ago when I was brought to the Sand Palace for the first time. But today was not for sympathy. In any case, she’d be better off in the harem than whatever pleasure house she was about to end up in.
“You’ll have a new family soon. Best get used to it.”
“That’s what they keep telling me, but I never will! I’m not carved flesh to be tossed about a land. I’m the princess of an empire that once ruled the world, and will again, one era.”
Conversing with her made me understand the distinct Sirmian words better. And her eyes…so sincere, so pleading. If I really wanted to, I could escort her to a ship, though none would sail for Crucis. After all, Ethosian pirates controlled the fort city where the river met the Yunan Sea, so no ships would sail that way until Kyars rooted the pirates out.
Celene didn’t look like a Crucian princess; she looked like a Crucian slave girl. But did it matter? If she really was a princess, all the better for Kyars. I wouldn’t let her go after paying so much — in Hadrith’s gold and my pride.
I brushed her locks off her face. “Calm yourself and listen. You’re going somewhere so plentiful that you’ll never want for anything again. And in that place, no one will ever hurt you. I promise.”
“That’s what they told me in Sirm. And then they did hurt me. This is all a nightmare. A nightmare within a nightmare within a nightmare.”
I supposed her prior masters had mistreated her, and she feared the same here. But for all his faults, Kyars was kind to his women. He showered them with rapturous attention, extravagant gifts, and didn’t restrict their movements. As long as his loyal gholam were their escort, they could go wherever they pleased and thus enjoy every delight Qandbajar had to offer. It truly wasn’t that bad, but this girl wouldn’t know it yet.
The earthy smell of lentil soup wafted as we passed the yellow-domed shrine of Saint Jamshid. Outside, lines snaked around the colorful stone arches of the shrine’s plaza: men, women, and children stood in rough-spun wools and rags, some with dirt caked on their faces. Meanwhile, the men and women of the Order stewed soup in massive stone cauldrons.
“Cyra,” a voice called.
I stopped and stared at the man who’d uttered my name. He wore carded wool and a hood. No turban because the Order of Saint Jamshid didn’t permit themselves soft fabrics.
Khizr Khaz, the Grand Sheikh, mixed a cauldron across the lane. I’d met him before only in passing; how did he even remember my name? He fixed his deep-set eyes on me; his beard was whiter than
the clouds above.
“Sheikh?” I said.
“Follow the straight path, Cyra.”
“What?”
“The straight path.” Though he merely whispered it, his voice boomed through the surrounding clamor.
All I could do was nod; a chill ran through my back, as if a jinn had pricked me.
“What did he say?” Celene asked, her slender nose raised in curiosity. Clearly, she didn’t understand Paramic.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Let’s keep moving.”
Celene and I stood in the main hall of the harem as the chief eunuch Sambal and the Shah’s sister Mirima glared at us with their hands covering their mouths.
“Whose idea was this?” Mirima finally said.
“Mine,” I lied. “I was browsing the Stables when I noticed her. Thought she’d be a fine gift for your nephew.”
Sambal made a sizzling sound with his tongue, as if he were a boiling pot.
Mirima moved her hand across her eyes, as if — by some miracle — that would make Celene disappear. “My dear, I am more than capable of selecting the Crown Prince’s nightly entertainment. As sultana of this harem, only I choose who’s allowed within it.”
I bent my neck. “Apologies, sultana. But last year, His Highness gifted me a handmaiden of my own. A lovely, young Ruthenian girl. I thought it only fit to repay the gift in kind.”
“Gifts do not need repayment, Cyra. They are given from those who have to those who don’t.” She let out an old woman’s sigh. “But I see you are well-intentioned. I won’t punish you. However, this…this…ill-blooded creature cannot stay. Send her back to the Stables.”
Quite the barb; Mirima was expert at those. Good thing Celene couldn’t understand Paramic.
“Ill-blooded? Whatever do you mean?” I asked, hoping not to strain Mirima’s tolerance.
“Look at her,” Mirima commanded.
I looked at Celene, who stared at the floor, hands clasped politely across her belly.
“I see nothing wrong,” I answered. “A perfectly good woman, with wide, child-bearing hips. Perhaps she’ll give Crown Prince Kyars another son.”
“That’s precisely what we don’t want,” Mirima said. “Another son to challenge Seluq, with the blood of some western swine herders. Weak blood that will see him a puppet of the gholam and viziers. Why do you think the Seluqal House of Alanya has remained strong for hundreds of years while our cousins to the north and east flounder from invasions and civil war? Because we are careful with whom we breed. Our blood comes from the Waste, just like yours. And that blood must be renewed from the source, not mixed with Lat-knows-what.”
If I messed this up, Hadrith would be furious. But what could I say to Mirima? Not all Kyars’ women were from the Waste, but the ones that weren’t at least had status.
I blurted out a dumb thing, “She’s the daughter of Imperator Josias.”
Sambal squeaked, then laughed with thigh slaps. “Is that so? Then her Crucian must be perfect — heavenly, even.” He said something to Celene in Crucian.
Of course, Sambal hailed from Crucis too — it had slipped my mind. Though I forgot which part.
Celene said something back at him; his bottom lip hung, and he turned away, nose pushing between his brows.
“What did you say?” I whispered to Celene.
“Nothing.” Seemed she didn’t trust me.
Now Sambal whispered something to Mirima. I felt like a child left out of a fun game. What the fuck was going on?
Mirima snapped her fingers at one of the other eunuchs waiting compactly at the doorway. “Get her a room,” she ordered. “Bathe her and call the tailor to take her measurements. Call the healer, too.”
Whatever Celene had said, it’d changed everything.
“What did you say?” I asked with just enough fierceness to show her I was serious, though not too much to scare her.
“Why should I tell you? You were tested on the path. The Archangel saw you. You had the chance to do a good, to help me go home. But you chose the path of evil, and now I’m here and have to fight the wolves for myself. I don’t want to be in your sight ever again.” She sounded like a sheikha who’d once berated me for stealing a jelly sweet when she wasn’t looking.
“I live here too, idiot. You’re going to be seeing a lot of me. Don’t even think of getting on my bad side. Now tell me what you said, or I’ll devote my days to making your life hell.”
“Eat a slipper,” she said. A Sylgiz taunt for children. Didn’t know the Sirmians said the same.
“Only children say that!”
“Go away, you giraffe!”
Sambal pulled us apart. “Girls, girls. We don’t allow fighting in the sublime harem. Celene, first thing to remember — always keep your voice at a whisper. Cyra, run along now. Wonderful find, truly, but we’ll take over from here.”
Back in my room, I flung a crystal cup at the wall. It didn’t shatter and just bounced off. How unsatisfying. I grabbed a brass plate, threw the red grapes to the side, and banged it on the closet door. It chipped the wood and bounced across the room, clattering to the floor.
Hadrith had told me, “Whoever you choose, become her best friend. From her, you must learn everything about Kyars that you can.”
And I’d told him, “But I’m friends with Zedra. She already knows everything about him.”
“And has she ever given you details? Intimate details?”
I thought about it and answered, “No, never. She’s a very private person.”
Hadrith raised his brows in a smug, satisfied expression, then said, “Private people oft have much to hide. And Zedra is not beholden to you, the way a fresh slave would be. We need to learn everything about the shah-to-be and his affairs — worldly, spiritual, nocturnal. You get me?”
I sat on my low bed and dug my head into my knees. Hadrith, Hadrith, fucking Hadrith. He was all I’d been thinking about the last few moons, like a sickness I couldn’t cure. But did he really feel a thing for his little fawn?
“Obviously not,” I said out loud as a trickle formed in my eyes. “I’m such a fool.” I thought about all my moments with him. Eight years ago, when I saw him for the first time, laughing at a low table with Prince Faris, Kyars’ younger brother. We bumped into each other in the hallway, and Hadrith smiled, scratched his head, and said, “You’re pretty.” Or how about last year, after he’d returned from a trade mission to Kashan and put a little mechanical horse in my hands. “It’s from the Silklands,” he said, as if he’d conquered it. “It made me think of you.”
How many mechanical horses had he bought for how many gullible girls? Could I expect him to be so different from Kyars, the man he looked up to most?
The door squeaked open. Vera, my young Ruthenian handmaiden, stepped inside, gaze low. Kyars gifted her to me a few moons ago, though she’d been in his service far longer. She locked the door behind her.
“Mistress.” She bent down near the edge of the bed and put a warm hand on my knee. “Half the hall heard a clamor. What happened?”
“I’m fucking worthless.”
She shuffled closer and touched both my knees. “Is it him again?”
“Why can’t I do anything right?”
She tousled her yellow hair, then sat her lithe form next to me. “You’re frustrated.”
“Of course I’m frustrated. I’ve been frustrated my whole life. Nothing I do ever gets me anywhere. I’m almost twenty-four, I’m not married, and all I do all day is walk in a garden, pay some poet to fill my head, spend someone else’s money buying trinkets in the bazaar.”
“And you think Hadrith will save you from that?”
“Someone must. My brother offered to take me away, you know. I told him I have no other home but here in the Sand Palace. And yet, sometimes, I feel these walls are just a prettier prison.”
Vera pushed her shoulder against mine. “You want things when you already have things.”
Is that what passed for wisdom i
n Ruthenia? But I couldn’t blame Vera for not being wise. Kyars didn’t buy her for her words.
“Everything I have is on the outside. Within, I’m bereft. Hollower than a wispy cloud.”
“I disagree. When Kyars told me he was giving me to someone else — I swear, it was the most awful thing I’d ever heard. Half the ladies here beat their handmaidens, the other half consider us too base to even touch. But when I learned it was you, I was so joyous. Because you’re kind. And good.” She put a hand on my thigh.
“Stop,” I said. “I don’t want to do that.”
Follow the straight path. Khizr Khaz’s words bounced through my head.
She slid her hand up — it felt good just to be touched — then whispered, “You’re frustrated.”
I shook my head, but didn’t have the resolve to push her hand away. “It’s wrong.”
“Everything is,” she whispered hot in my ear.
As she slid her fingers closer, I shut my eyes and put my hand in her shirt.
I cried in the bath again. The straight path. That was what the Recitals of Chisti taught us, the most important precept being to worship only Lat, and to never worship another god or ascribe to her a partner. Second, to tend your own soul, not to dirty it with sin, impurities, and vulgar thoughts. The sheikhs and sheikhas had planted these seeds in me, but the roots never took hold, blown away like thin topsoil upon salted land. I feared I was forever bent. Unclean, in mind, body, and spirit. No steam or water could purify me, make me good again, so might as well go all in.
I had to succeed at whatever game I was playing. Celene had talked tough, but beneath that, I sensed a terrified little girl. I’d have to teach her respect and make her beholden so she could be useful to Hadrith and me.
As I scrubbed myself with twice my normal vigor, I realized I was in the same steam room as the other day. I pushed the coal tray aside, and to my surprise, the bloody print was still there. But because I’d pushed the coal tray further, I noticed something else: a picture, of some sort, drawn in blood. I crouched to get a better view; it looked like three eyes around a star.
