by Zamil Akhtar
I’d had enough. “It pains me to say this about a once dear friend, but she murdered my beloved father. She helped the Jotrids over the city walls. She pulled her silks over our eyes. And now, this sorceress wishes to bewitch our ears, too. It seems I’ve become the target of her malice, which no doubt is inspired by Ahriyya’s own, but next may be one of you. Our only safety is her death.”
I turned to everyone. To Kato, Khizr Khaz, Kyars, the viziers, the gholam — anyone with the steel to bloody a girl. “Kill her. For the sake of this kingdom, kill her!”
Kyars, his scimitar brandished, said, “Oh, I will. I learned in Sirm not to suffer a sorcerer.” My beloved wound his sword arm.
The Himyarite standing beside Cyra pushed in front and shielded her. “You don’t know me,” he said as Kyars paused mid-air, “but I was a Disciple of Chisti. I hunted sorcerers. And it’s true — Zedra is a soulshifter! She killed your father, not Cyra!”
“How dare you accuse the mother of my son? You’ll die too!”
In a flash, Khizr Khaz pulled a scimitar from a nearby gholam’s sheath and wielded it in Kyars’ direction.
“You may be the Shah,” he said, “but I am the Fount, and I’ll not suffer more murder in this palace! It is so — Zedra is the soulshifter!”
Kyars turned to him. “You dare raise a blade against me?”
Kato strode up and put a matchlock to Khizr Khaz’s nape. “Drop the steel, old sheikh. The bitch isn’t worth dying for.”
“I live and die for Lat’s justice alone. I serve naught else. There’s truth buried beneath the lies, and if you start killing, we’ll never uncover it.”
I knew how to reveal the truth. Or at least, the truth I wanted. “Take off that eyepatch!” I shouted. “Show everyone what you really are!”
Cyra glanced at her Himyarite companion, then at the floor.
“Take it off, or I’ll come up and rip it off!”
She shuddered, then pulled off the eyepatch. A glossy black marble shone where an eyeball ought to be.
Everyone gasped, myself included. Even the Himyarite aside her gaped and stepped away.
A righteous jinn from the Peri tribe who lived and died six hundred years ago once told me about such horrors: the eye of Ahriyya. A way to see the light of dead stars, and to pull them into each other’s orbits, thereby writing on heaven itself. How could Cyra have gained such power? Given that I’d gouged out her eye, was I somehow responsible?
“As clear as the desert sky,” Kyars said, “the sorcerer unveiled.” He brandished his scimitar at the Himyarite. “Why the surprise? Were you fucking my wife without knowing what she was?”
The speechless Himyarite lowered his gaze.
Cyra dropped to her knees, shivering. Poor girl. I’d done this to her, hadn’t I? Instead of accepting a quick death, somehow in her rage, she’d turned to the gods of the void. Names I’d learned but blocked from my mind because even thinking them could awaken something you didn’t want gazing in your direction.
“Kill her!” I shouted. “Before she uses her power against us!”
But she wasn’t trying to use her power — no, she was a young woman, shivering at the thought of death, despairing at being abandoned by everyone she loved. She would die, like my daughters, undeserving.
“Kill her!” I screamed.
Kyars wound his sword arm.
“He said I was the daughter Lat had taken away.”
Kyars stopped at the skin, an inch from her life. Cyra didn’t shudder from the edge on her neck.
“That’s why he—” Tears streamed down her cheeks, even from her black eye. “That’s why he ran to me when I cut my eye out. Because I was hurt, and he didn’t want to lose another daughter. Not again.” She pointed to Kato. “You were there. You saw the way he held me. Do you think I’d hurt the man who was a better father to me than my own? Who had just given me everything I ever wanted?” She looked Kyars in the eye. “Who’d just made me your wife? The Sultana of Sultanas?”
The sword rattled in Kyars’ jittery hand. “Why, then?”
“I don’t know why anyone would hurt Tamaz. Why anyone would choose war over peace. Why…I’m not the one to ask because I truly don’t know.”
She’d made a puddle with her tears. And now Kyars too — his eyes were well watered.
He sheathed his sword and turned away.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. Calm, I told myself, calm, lest I reveal too much in my anger.
“I’ve made hundreds of girls cry, heard hundreds of girls lie.” Kyars shook his head. “She’s not lying.” He gestured to Kato. “Keep her and the Himyarite under guard.” He walked down the dais and passed me without even a look.
“My love, where are you going?” I reached out my hand.
Still, he wouldn’t look at me. “Your story and her story are irreconcilable, and neither seems whole. Sheikh Khizr is right. Truth matters…but so does winning.” He gripped his hilt. “Eventually, I will get to the root of this. But for now, I’m going to go kill Khagan Pashang.”
I turned to Cyra; gholam surrounded her and bound her with rope. Same with the Himyarite and Khizr Khaz, too.
The three knew, and so the three had to die.
Time to sit in my closet, soulshift into a gholam, and kill them. Though it risked revealing me, their mouths flapping in front of Kyars was a worse danger. I asked Celene and Sadie to guard my door. A relief to see my room as I’d left it — empty fruit bowl in the corner, bed smooth and undisturbed, pillows leaning against the wall at the precise angle I’d left them. I plopped into the closet, pictured the bloodrune I’d written in the palace hallway, and pricked it with an imagined fingernail.
Nothing happened. I’d written the bloodrune with seeker’s blood, which was so common plenty of gholam must’ve possessed it. Perhaps I needed to relax?
I breathed deeply and focused on the air going in…and out. Again, I touched the bloodrune, but again, nothing happened. I tried bloodrunes I’d left in the solar and antechamber, to no avail.
They weren’t working, for some reason. Lat only knew. I banged my knuckles on the floor and growled. Had Cyra done something with her starwriting?
If so, I’d have to ask someone to kill them. If Kyars returned after defeating Pashang, and those three still breathed, they might convince him of their truth. Khizr Khaz, especially, was not known to lie, and I didn’t know what to expect from the Himyarite. Worst of all, none could deny the sincerity in Cyra’s tearful pleading. A few well-earned deaths would solve these problems.
Another idea: my soulshifting bloodrunes didn’t work, but perhaps I could write other bloodrunes that would. No…using sorcery to kill them would risk exposing me. I needed a killer. A brave soul who’d do my dirty work. Kato…Kato had always been by my side.
But if Kyars was going out to fight, then doubtless Kato would be beside him. By now, they’d both be going after Pashang. Who, then? Who would kill for me?
I beckoned Celene and Sadie into my room. Shut the door behind them. We sat on cushions around my wooden tea table.
“I’m so close,” I said in Sirmian while tap-tapping on the wood, nervous and barely knowing what I meant to say. “So close…to peace.” Though I wanted war. “Celene…I’m going to put you on the next ship for Crucis.”
She gasped in relief. “R-Really? Now that you have your son back, that’s all I want.”
“Sadie, I ought to give you something, too. What do you want?”
She snickered. “Another bottle of ginja. I rather liked it.”
“No, dear. What do you really want?”
“You…can’t give me that.”
Celene folded her arms. “You’d be surprised, the things she can give you.”
“No.” Sadie shook her head. “What I want is…to be with my mother and father again, and with my friends and tribe and the man I love, and just…live life until I grow gray. But it’s impossible, and so I’m here, with you two, doing all I can to distract from
the longing.”
I could give her that fantasy, for mere moments, but then it would dissolve and leave her with an even more bitter longing. Considering how she piled up those ginja bottles, she was the type to become addicted, and I wouldn’t do that to her. No, I wouldn’t be so cruel.
But in truth, I’d been unbelievably cruel to Cyra. She didn’t deserve what I did to her…and yet, she had to die. It was her or me, and I had to raise Seluq into the Padishah of the Final Hour who would save mankind from the Great Terror. My cruelty toward her, as things stood, was justified.
And yet…all I fought for seemed so distant from this day, this hour. Seluq was just a baby. These girls were just girls. I, too, was just a girl trying to kill another girl.
“You girls stay here. I’ll be back.” I got up and left the room.
Perhaps I could talk to Cyra. Convince her to shut her mouth and go away, back to the Waste, where she belonged. That would be just, wouldn’t it? Else, she’d bear my full rage, and surely she didn’t want that.
So submerged in my thoughts, I crashed into someone while turning a corner in the hallway. He grabbed my arm and kept me from falling. It was him — the fair-haired, light-eyed, jelly-chewing man. The man who’d taken my baby and brought him and Mansur to Kyars that night.
“You…” I said.
He stared into me. “I’ve seen those eyes. Heard that voice. A mother’s eyes. A mother’s voice. ‘Khizr Khaz, now!’”
By Lat, how could he know?
“What are you talking about?”
“I know an actress when I see one because I’m an actor, unrivaled in the west, unrivaled here.”
“Aicard,” a voice shot from behind me.
It was Sadie, and she was talking to the man.
“Sadie,” the man named Aicard said. “My apologies for the seeds, but they are so calming.”
I recalled Sadie talking to him before they stuffed seeds in our mouths, as if she knew the man. But more worrying, the man knew me. Perhaps my ruse was over. Perhaps I ought to take my son and flee.
“You’re far from home,” Sadie said to Aicard.
“I always am, no matter where I go in this world.”
“Why are you here?”
He sighed with satisfaction. “I told your lover, not long ago, that I’m on the side of man. And in this country, the gods toy with man like nowhere else. Kyars knows what I speak of — he saw the Archangel, a sight I was spared. When he came to root out the Ethosian pirates, I opened the gates for him, spared him a fight. Even got him the ships in the harbors, so he could sail back here at speed, unbeknownst to all.”
So…that explained Kyars’ sudden and timely appearance. It seemed my beloved trusted this man, but what was he really after?
“You’re right,” Sadie said. “The gods are meddling here. They meddled in Sirm and in my life, too. But they’re gods, and we’re not, so what could we possibly do?”
“We can start by not letting them manipulate us,” Aicard said, looking at me. “By freeing ourselves of their requests, by disavowing their promises. We’re a spectacle for them. A game by which they compete. They don’t love us, they don’t hate us, the same way you don’t love or hate the sand you step on. But they step all over us — you can even see their boot prints across our necks.”
Had he prepared that speech? I’d heard a Philosopher once spout such nonsense.
“Thank you for aiding my beloved,” I said. “Doubtless, you are his trusted friend. I’d love to speak with you more, but I’ve tasks waiting.”
“You think you know the enemy,” he said. “But the enemy has always known you. Sorcery is not of this world…no matter its kind. Stars, blood, and souls.”
I ignored him and continued toward the guest room, where they kept Cyra. It was too lovely for her; someone had opened the golden drapes, letting the sun kiss the silk sheets she was reclining on. As soon as I entered, she stood and backed against the window. Her hands were still bound — good; she was taller than me.
“Out,” I ordered the gholam in the room.
“Shah Kyars ordered us to remain with her, at all times,” one said. Khizr Khaz had ordered his men to stay with me, and it didn’t work out for them.
“Out!” I ordered again. But instead, the gholam moved to stand between us. I couldn’t speak to Cyra plainly unless we were alone.
“Afraid they’ll hear you slip?” Cyra said. “Admit your crimes? You’re a deceiver. A murderer. Worse than Ahriyya himself!”
“You have no idea! No idea—”
“Why’d you do it? Why kill Tamaz? Why use my hands? Why gouge out my eye? Why slit my throat?”
The gholam looked on, grips on their matchlocks.
“Out!” I shouted again. “I am the mother of the Crown Prince! You’ll obey me!” But they just stood there, in the way.
“Haven’t you realized, Zedra?” Cyra sniggered. “You’re nothing. A slave, like them. A glorified womb. Were you jealous that Tamaz chose me for his son? Is that why you did it?”
Clueless girl. She could never understand how base her motives were compared to mine. Of course she’d think me as petty as herself.
“Cyra, your death would be a mercy, for yourself and all. But I’ll give you the chance to go away. Far away, wherever you want. Anywhere, but here.”
“I used to love watching rabbits play when I was a child. Know how they mark their territory?” She spat on the ground. “Want me gone? You’ll have to put me in a funeral shroud.” She presented her bound hands. “Why not untie this? Pashang and Kyars are out there, fighting. Let’s do like and see who wins.”
“So you can write my death on the stars?” I let out a poisonous chuckle. “Do you know you serve evil?”
“And are you serving something so wonderful?”
“I’m serving Chisti. I’m serving Lat.”
“You served the good by killing a good man? By lies? By blood? By ruining lives — mine most of all — and bringing war?”
Was she right? Why did she sound so right? “You got in the way,” I said, admitting it. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt…but you got in the way, with your schemes, with your marriage, with the tender spot you’d tended in Tamaz’s heart.”
The gholam had heard. Yet another tiresome, dreaded, inescapable complication.
“Wonderful.” She leaned forward. “To think…you were my friend. My only friend.” Her eyes watered as she grinned. “Your palace of lies is crumbling, Zedra, and you know it. Everyone will see you for what you are. Fine — I’ll die, but at least I dragged you down with me.” Her high-pitched laugh grated. “They’ll hang us both for the witches we are.”
Perhaps they would. I’d come so close to succeeding…and yet, it was all slipping from my grasp. If Cyra and Khizr Khaz knew, how many others did, too? Ozar, Hadrith, and Lat knows who else. With Hadrith in the wind, who knew whom he’d told, and whom those he’d told had told, and on and on. Staring at Cyra’s smug, tearful, grinning face, I realized I’d likely failed.
“You’re ending the world, Cyra. Do you realize?”
She didn’t seem surprised or upset and just continued grinning. “A world this wretched should end.”
“You think the one coming after will be better?” I shook my head. “You have no idea. We will all be remade in fire.”
“Wonderful.” Her black eye bulged like an oil-soaked bead. “Let everyone feel the hell I’ve felt. Misery adores company.”
“You think you’ve had a hard life? I watched as everyone I loved was laid prone at the edge of a river. I watched as their heads were pushed into the water until life had left them. Don’t talk of misery, you bitch. You’ve not even sipped it.”
She laughed. Laughed at what I’d suffered! The cold-hearted bitch put her lips together and said, “Wonderful.”
“Is that all you can say?”
“What’s left to be said? Out there, they’ll be bathing in blood. Pashang or Kyars, only one will triumph. I’m confident in my
prayers. Are you?”
Father Chisti had saved me. Had brought me here. Had given me a son. I couldn’t lose hope, not now. I gritted my teeth. “I’m with the light. With the good. With the truth. Pray to the dark sky all you want…but one day, the light will scathe everything.”
Her smirk was as dark as her eye. “One day, perhaps. But I have a good feeling — today is a day for darkness.”
25
Cyra
“A day for darkness”…how the hell did I come up with that? But it upset Zedra enough — she wasn’t in control, which was a relief, and now glared at me in silence. Kyars…he’d heard me. He’d see through her veil of lies in time and see that I was innocent. Though our marriage was ended, I could at least hope he’d know it wasn’t me.
But what a fool I’d been for clinging to our marriage: my black star-seeing eye had thoroughly disgusted him. As if I were not human. Even Eshe had looked at me with a terrified gape. But this eye didn’t make me evil. I wanted to tell them that, though, how could I? I’d hidden it, and the innocent don’t hide their eyes.
Zedra was still glaring at me. If not for the two gholam standing betwixt, she’d likely wring my neck. That murderous look…the way red poured into her sand-colored cheeks and how her nutmeg eyes grew so round…she was not the friend I knew. As if that friendship of memory was between two other people.
“You’re still here?” I said to annoy her. “Don’t you have better things to do than stare death into me?”
Her lips trembled, and she huffed. Seemed she was struggling to form words.
I got on my bed and reclined. In a way, I’d already won. All I’d wanted was to go home and expose the truth. Whether anyone accepted it was out of my hands, and perhaps, knowing that, I could be at peace.
But then what was this pain boiling my heart? Eshe…was he all right? Did he hate me? In a better world, we could’ve been friends. I would’ve visited his throne, each morning, for those sordid verses. Maybe Zedra would’ve come along to feel the thrill of debasing yourself. And on the way to the palace, we could stop to smell Ozar’s spices, then pray with Khizr Khaz at the shrine, and see what schemes Hadrith was stirring.
