by Zamil Akhtar
“So, bye-bye to the middle girl?” The man snapped his trigger. Bang. Disha’s screaming ended, and her body thumped onto the grass. “Ah, by Lat, that scratched an itch.”
“Curse the fucking saints! May I never, ever get on your bad side.” The horseman cleared his throat. “So, to be clear, after we fuck the older one, do we just…leave her here?”
“Why not? One witness to carry this sordid tale, so hearts tremble when they hear the name Sylgiz. Besides, could be one of us puts a child in her, and she can rebirth her tribe!” They got off their horses, laughing the while. One held the lantern over my head. Finally, I saw their faces.
“You lucked out, girl,” the third rider said as he pulled his pants down. “You’ll have a gentleman like me taking your flower, not one of these two degenerates.”
The three looked up, like they saw someone behind me. Fear filled their eyes, and then those eyes flew in the air, along with their heads, atop fountains of blood erupting from their necks.
The heads landed around my feet. I didn’t scream. I was stuck like prey. Even the horses fled, whinnying the while.
Diyne put her trembling arms around me. I turned my head and looked at the man walking toward us.
It was him, the stranger from the forest. He dallied over, as if enjoying a moonlight stroll. Then he bent down next to me, a book in hand.
“They burned it, along with your yurt,” he said. “The flower book. Such a shame.”
What did that matter? Grandpa…he’d stilled some time ago, and I hadn’t even noticed. Disha had stilled immediately, a burnt, bloody hole where her cheek should’ve been.
“In the end, Khagan Pashang couldn’t protect you. Tsk-tsk. He’s probably the reason your tribe is dead. You bet on the wrong horse, I’m afraid. Khagan Cihan is far cleverer. The battle was a good one, though the victor was obvious from the start.”
There’d been a battle the night of the wedding?
The strange man took off his tulip cloak and put it around Diyne. I hadn’t noticed the night’s chill with how frozen I was within. I could feel my tears now, gushing hot down my cheeks.
“I never told you my name,” he said. “Not as pretty as yours, I’m afraid. I’m Marot.”
Marot flipped through the book. He settled on a page which, like the others, had a blood painting. It resembled a sun rising above a vast lake…the ocean, perhaps.
The first time I’d touched that book, it had taught me letters and languages. What would it do for me, now? I raised my hand, but fear kept me from touching the page.
“Nora-Nora-Nora — it’s like a pleasant stroll for the tongue,” he said. “There was a woman who lived here, long ago, before the river dried. She watched her family die, too. But unlike you,” he brushed my hair, “she was rather powerful. A sorceress to fear, and a student of mine, though she never knew I was her teacher.”
Why was he telling me this?
“Nora,” the man continued, “this won’t bring you happiness. It’ll only add to your pain. But by it, you’ll become something to fear. You’ll become her. And then, you can avenge your tribe. These sins,” he gestured at the pillars of fire behind us, “should be repaid.”
Oncoming riders shook the earth. More Sylgiz. My sister’s trembles turned unbearable, and my tears burned on my chin. Was this the end of my hopes, my dreams? My tribe, my family?
“I wanted to see where the flowers grow,” I told Marot as I hugged my sister. “You wrote about such wonderful places. Have you really been to them all?” I don’t know why I asked him such a thing in this horrific moment, but I’d wanted to know since reading the flower book this morning.
He chuckled. “Dear girl, this isn’t the time. But if you must know — yes, I’ve been to all those places. And one day, you both might travel to some, too.” He sighed, sharp and sad. “But not if you die today.”
“You know, I was so stuck inside the book that I never read its cover.”
“Cover?” Marot smiled with warmth. “Well, what do you think it ought to be called?”
I blurted out, “How about Melody of Flowers…because it was like a flute, whistling in my heart.”
Marot nodded with a chuckle. “Melody of Flowers…I rather like that. So it shall be.” He snapped his fingers.
I kissed my wailing sister. Marot was right. I had to protect her. If I gained whatever power he was promising, perhaps we could go together to see the flowers, wherever they grew, all across the world. What other path did I have?
“Did you read about the red tulips?” Marot asked as the riders came into sight, their torches raised and fierce. “I’ve seen them growing in the gardens of the Shah of Alanya. Would you like me to take you there?” He held the book in front of his face.
I nodded and swallowed tears. As the riders surrounded us, I pushed my trembling hand forward and down onto the page.
31
Zedra
Behind the clop-clop of charging horses and the pop-pop of guns, the battle sounded like a long sigh. Kissing steel, arrow rain, bomb blasts — I heard it all. I cradled my son the whole time, nuzzling his forehead as he cried. Thank Lat none of the cannon shots hit our house — Pashang didn’t have the exact location, after all — though they’d exploded stone and glass around us. Once the battle had passed, I went downstairs, carefully stepping over jagged shards to where Kato waited.
If the battle was a long sigh, then it was Kato’s. Sweat, soot, and blood decorated his golden armor.
“Sultana,” he said, voice cracking from tiredness, “Shah Kyars has ordered you and the heir to depart the city. I’m to guard you on the journey.” Seemed he was a glorified sentry, after all.
I no longer had the spirit to resist Kyars’ decisions, so I nodded and asked, my throat sorer than it’d ever been, “Where will we go?”
I was tired of running, but what other course was there? Nowhere in this city was safe, and I was, in appearance, just a girl with an infant son.
“We’ll go west to Dorud — Grand Vizier Barkam and Prince Faris are there. It’s the safest place, sultana.”
How formal. Half a dozen other gholam stood in the room — my escort — and they were Kyars’ own, so I understood why he watched his words.
Kato leaned against the wall and slid until he was sitting. “You and your Crucian handmaid,” he huffed, “should be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”
“She won’t be coming.”
“Why is that?”
I swallowed a lemon. “She’s not here. I sent her home.”
Kato raised an eyebrow. “You sent her…to Crucis?”
I hadn’t been carefully crafting my lies. I nodded. “I asked a rider to take her out of the city, to the nearest port with a ship bound for Crucis.”
Kato’s bewildered face showed he wasn’t swallowing it. “All right, if you say so. Be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m ready now. I’d rather not wait a moment longer.” I kissed my son’s forehead as he cooed. “Let’s go.”
Outside, in the plaza of shattered glass, only the statue of that saint, whose name I could never remember, stood unbroken. A troop of Archers of the Eye stood in a line, wearing white dresses that only reached their knees. Among them, to my surprise, was Sadie — dressed normally, in chainmail and a cheap blue and rose caftan.
“Are they coming?” I asked Kato.
“We’ll leave an Archer every quarter mile to form an array,” Kato said. “Kyars wants messages on the hour, and we’re not taking the obvious road to Dorud.” He whispered, “Don’t want those horse fuckers lying in wait.”
Once Sadie noticed me, she pushed past the Archers and gholam in the plaza to my front.
“Where’s Celene?” she asked. Just what I feared.
“I sent her home. With a rider. Bound for the first port with a ship to Crucis.”
Kato gazed away from my lie as Sadie shook her head.
“No you didn’t. I’ve been standing out here for hours. I would�
��ve seen it.” Her eyes went wide. “Is she…did you…”
She must’ve read the guilt on my face. Oh, if only she could let me lie.
I didn’t stop her from marching into the house. While waiting, carriages and riders formed up. Kato escorted his two mistresses and two children into a carriage. They’d be coming with us to safety. He then went about the plaza, inspecting his men and barking orders.
Sadie returned. In her arms, she held Celene, who breathed in the slow rhythm of the sleep I’d left her in.
In the end…I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cut into her the way I’d cut Cyra. Couldn’t sacrifice her to my vengeance, like I’d done with Vera. Couldn’t kill another daughter for power, like how Seluq killed mine.
“Why won’t she wake?” Sadie shouted. “What did you do to her?”
After lying to Celene, after telling her I was sending her home, how could I face her? I was a danger to her — had always been — and if she stayed with me, I’d be tempted…
“Sadie, she’ll wake in a few hours,” I said. “Take her and go. Go far from here. As far as you can. Get her back to Crucis. Get yourself back to Sirm. Be with your families. Because one day…death is going to separate you. They’ll be in one world, and you’ll be in another, and it’ll be impossible to cross that threshold. Until that day…spend every moment you can, with them.”
Sadie just stood there, tears in her eyes as she held Celene.
“Take her home!” I shouted. “And you…you go home! I’d trade this whole kingdom for a single second more with my family. But no trade can bring them back. So you…you and Celene need to be happy…for me, all right?”
She just stood there, holding her.
“Not for me, then. Truth is, I don’t deserve even that. For yourselves, be with those you love. Even if it’s hard, make it work, and always remind yourself that it could be much worse. That, at least, you have them, and they have you.”
She just stood there, holding her.
“Am I speaking Paramic? Do you hear me, Sadie?”
Sadie nodded. “All right. I’ll take her home.” She sobbed. “I’ll get her to Hyperion. On my life.”
“No — your life is as precious as hers. You’ll get her home, and then you’ll go home, too. You’ll kiss your mother and father and you’ll tell them how much you love them, and you’ll spend the rest of your days in their company, whether or not they or you like it. You’ll learn to like it, no matter what. Take an old woman’s wisdom. No more running, understood?”
I helped Sadie tie Celene to her back and get on a Kashanese mare. The gholam wouldn’t open the city gate until they’d scouted ahead for Jotrids, so I waited in my carriage with my son and a young Kashanese handmaid from the harem. Skin the color of a walnut, big eyes, and thick, wavy eyebrows. Hayda was her name. I stared out the window at the sunbaked hovels of the commoners, as we made our way to the northwestern gate.
“Goodbye, Qandbajar,” I whispered, feeling no affection for this awful, heaping pile of mud and lies. I wished I could say goodbye to the bitter remorse that stirred in my veins and poisoned my core. What awful things I’d done…only to fail because the forces against me were so onerous, mighty, and cruel.
I didn’t want to think on it. I wanted distance for my son and myself. I’d watched him come out of me and so knew he was the only real thing. The only thing attaching me to this world, to this time, to this place. The only one worth fighting for. I’d have to protect him. I’d have to, no matter what.
But I wouldn’t do it by hurting the weak. I wouldn’t be like those who murdered my family. My soul couldn’t take it. No more. There had to be a better way.
Men heaved and metal grinded — they were finally raising the portcullis, content that the way was safe, that Jotrids didn’t lie in wait. Sadie and Celene could go home, and I could go away from this miserable war I’d started.
I watched as Sadie, sleeping Celene tied to her back, rode past my carriage, the clop-clop of her mare’s hooves on the pavement getting fainter as she galloped through the gate and away. Thank Lat. Celene’s blood…angel’s blood…that rune I was seconds from slitting her neck for…it would have done something truly awful. Something that nothing could undo, for all of time.
I shuddered, not wanting to imagine it. Not wanting to imagine anything except a safe place for my son and me. I wouldn’t do what Father Chisti asked, not anymore. I trusted him because he’d saved me, but now…I didn’t know what he truly wanted. Because that rune he wanted me to paint…it would have won the war, but it wouldn’t have done anyone any good, least of all my son and myself.
I handed my son to my Kashanese handmaid, intent on closing my eyes for a while. A long carriage ride awaited, requiring stops at several caravansaries along the way. Perhaps I’d feel better with distance. Once we got moving and passed the gate, I enjoyed a feathery relief across my shoulders.
Gasps sounded throughout the caravan, behind which was the cacophony of stone exploding. A rumble shook the carriage. I gazed out the window at the distant dust plume that had replaced the Tower of Wisdom. Finally.
That relief let me drift into sleep as the carriage rolled on the pavement.
Kato shook me awake. “Zed, we’re surrounded. And they’re asking for you.”
Before addressing him, I looked toward my baby. The Kashanese girl held him gently in sleep.
“What do you mean ‘surrounded?’”
“A spy must’ve tipped them off. The Jotrids. They were lying in wait along the route, jaws wide open.”
I gasped. How could this be? How could Kato be so foolish? “What are you saying? I thought you scouted ahead!”
“Fuckers were hiding behind a mountain.” He gestured to the dry and sandy peak outside the window. “Only a bird could’ve seen them. Hours ago, scouts reported they’d sent near half their force in a different direction, toward the Waste. I assumed it to be a sign that the Sylgiz were entering this mess, striking at the Jotrids. Seemed that was a ruse, and they doubled back here.” He sighed, tense and heavy. “From what I can tell, they’ve many times our number and the high ground. I’ve already sent a message to the palace, through the Archers. We need only delay till help arrives.”
Outside the window, mounted gholam formed up across the road and in the scrub beside it. Spears, bows, guns, swords, hand bombs — they didn’t lack for war’s instruments. Men and women with dirty faces passed by, lugging sacks and holding children. We weren’t the only ones absconding from Qandbajar into the enemy’s jaw.
“Delay?” I said. “They want to kill me and my son, Kato. They want to end Kyars, perhaps end the dynasty, even.”
Kato wiped his sweaty, soot-stained eyebrows with a kerchief. He’d just fought one battle and now another threatened. “Cyra is with them, as is Pashang, as is Eshe, the Himyarite sorcerer. They claim to just want to talk with you. So talk to them for as long as you can. Meanwhile, Kyars will send all we’ve got, and we’ll smash them, here — under the open sky — where they can’t cower behind the good city folk. We’ll turn this desert into a Jotrid shrine. End this war today.”
I gulped. Why me? Could he not see how weak I was? “I have nothing to say to them. Can’t you go negotiate?”
“Zed, you’re the best talker I’ve ever met. You could make a rat think he’s a bird. So make them think they’ve won. Make them let down their guard. We won’t get another chance like this. The rats have taken the bait!”
I knew what he meant. I knew he’d not intended this. But I had to say, “My son and I are not bait. We are the future of this kingdom. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Listen, Zed.” By Lat, why was he shortening my name? “I can’t stall them forever. If you don’t go out there and talk-talk-talk, they’re going to smell blood. Your son’s, especially.”
“Kato…tell me…do you ever regret coming to Alanya? And everything you had to do, to get your position and keep it?”
“All the time. But so what? What’
s another fool with regrets?” He gestured to the carriage door.
Resigned, I took to my feet and went outside. Our caravan of horses and carriages and folks on foot spread into the distance toward Qandbajar. Puffy clouds provided shade from the declining sun, and a breeze drifted across the scrub. Along with Kato and twenty armored gholam, some holding shields and others matchlocks, I waited on the road just ahead of the caravan. A wall of mountains covered the landscape to my left, while to my right, an endless patchwork of grasses, dunes, and dreary fauna spread to the horizon, all settled on craggy, caked ground.
They came on horseback: Cyra, Eshe, Pashang, and a few Jotrid ilk. Were we really going to negotiate in the middle of the road?
Cyra, Pashang, and Eshe dismounted and walked the rest of the way. Meanwhile, Kato said, “Zedra, it’ll be the two of us and the three of them.”
No. I wanted to speak plainly. “I’ll speak with them alone.”
Kato shook his head. “Alone? That’s not what I meant when—”
“Just shut up. They asked for me, so let me do this.”
He rubbed sand from his beard, then nodded. Three gholam approached their group first, patting each down to ensure they weren’t concealing anything deadly, though they seemed shy to touch Cyra in certain spots. Afterward, the gholam guarding me stood aside, and I walked down the road to where they waited.
To my surprise, Cyra stepped forward, alone. We met in the middle, away from everyone’s ears.
That eyepatch…was she going to wear it forever? Hide what she was, like I did? Perhaps I ought to share my wisdom: you can only hide for so long. Truth would claw its way out of the grave and expose you.
Now face to face, I waited for her to speak. This meeting was her idea, so what did she want? I resolved to delay by pausing, speaking slowly, and letting silences linger.
“It’s just us,” she finally said. “Do you have nothing to say?”
“Last we spoke, I told you to die. I said it all then.”
