Daughter of the Salt King

by A. S. Thornton

  “Go,” the King said as he pushed me off his lap, his nails pinching my skin. “Speak with your muhami.”

  Qadir stiffly guided me to an unoccupied part of the room.

  “You are the most appealing woman here,” he said, his manner affected, just as Aashiq’s had been when we met for the first time. Qadir’s eyes raked me from top to bottom, seeing me as an ahira now that I was not sitting atop my father’s lap. I looked behind him at the guards placed around the room. Hoping that the jinni lurked nearby, I peered at each face closely. But there were none like him, no unearthly shimmer in the air.

  “Am I displeasing?” Qadir said, his voice sharp. The change in tone snapped my attention back to him.

  “No, it is quite the opposite,” I said in a rush, bowing forward. “You unsettle me by your presence. Your prosperous reputation precedes you. I am intimidated.”

  He seemed appeased, so we talked of frivolous things. Qadir found any excuse to lay his hands upon me—caressing my neck, touching the jewels on my bodice, the bangles on my wrists, feigning to brush a mosquito from my thigh or sand from my cheek.

  “Emel,” he said, taking my hand. “You fascinate me.”

  “You are generous with your flattery,” I demurred. “I confess, I am the one who is enchanted.”

  “Let us go to your father.” He began to lead me toward the King.

  No.

  I did not want to be chosen that day, to see the muhami that night. I wished desperately to see the jinni instead. If he could offer me another way out, one that didn’t bind me in marriage . . .

  At once, Qadir dropped my hand and walked toward Raheemah. I stood suddenly alone, nonplussed as I peered at my sisters, a few watching with expressions I am sure mirrored mine. What had just happened?

  My father shot me a violent glance when Qadir informed him that he was choosing Raheemah in my stead.

  I fell in line behind the rest of my sisters as we were escorted back home, still trying to understand Qadir’s sudden decision, when I felt a hot wind rush at my back.

  “Were you looking for me?” A quiet, deep voice rumbled behind me.

  I jolted and whipped around. The jinni stood behind me, undisguised and wholly himself. He towered above me, the almost-golden skin of his chest gleaming in the filtered sun. His eyes twinkled with curiosity.

  I turned back to my sisters, eager to see what they thought of the jinni who now stood amongst us. None of them had turned. They continued to walk away.

  “What . . . ?” I pointed to my sisters’ retreating backs.

  “They won’t notice me, not if I don’t want them to.” There was a thinly veiled conceit.

  I looked back to them. One by one, they went into another room until we were the only two standing in the hall. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “They won’t hear you, you don’t have to whisper.” He grasped the golden cuff on his wrist, his fingers absently moving over the place where the metal seemed to melt into his hand. “I have come for you. Unless I am mistaken, you were looking for me.”

  “How did you know?” I thought back to the courting. Had it been so obvious?

  “When I am released, a vague connection is formed between me and my master. I can feel the tenor of all your desires, but I feel the most strongly when you desire my presence. It is how the jinni knows to come to his master should they be apart.”

  I widened my eyes, immediately uncomfortable. What else did he sense?

  “I am not privy to your thoughts, Emel. I do not know what you are thinking.”

  I squinted at him, not sure if I trusted his answer.

  “What I sense from you is indistinct at best. This afternoon, I felt you wish for me.”

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking?”

  “No. I am here because you sought me. Have you a wish?”

  “I do.” I knew what I wanted, and perhaps he did, too, but first, I had to make sure of one thing. “You said I do not have to fear you, that you are to be trusted.”

  He nodded.

  “I wish for you to prove it.”

  The jinni cocked his head to the side. A smile slowly stretched across his face.

  “Will that be your first wish, then?”

  I shifted. Perhaps my wish was foolish. Was he laughing at me? But I thought of my father and all the men who took advantage of a sparkling, submissive ahira. I thought of the tales that told of guileful jinn. I needed to know that Saalim would not be the same.

  “It is my wish.”

  Standing before me was the same man I had seen two moons ago, but in that moment, the jinni looked different. Eyes alight with flaming gold, shoulders back and chest up, instead of defeated, he looked hopeful.

  Then, the ground slipped from beneath my feet.

  Chapter Seven

  The unmoving, stifling heat of the palace tents was gone. The air felt open, and a breeze touched my face. It was hot but it did not cling like it did under the blanketed tents. The strained sunlight I had been walking under moments before had darkened. I was in a shaded place.

  I opened my eyes.

  In the distance was a cluster of browns, reds, and blues distorted by the waves of heat rising up from the ground. It was isolated but massive, spilling into the surrounding expanse of sand as if it consumed it. Bright, white peaks emerged from the heart of the colors, and I understood. I stared at my settlement. So then, where was I?

  Several dozen, tightly huddled trees—some palms, others broad and leafy—collided above me. The coos and chirps of birds streamed from branches that cast welcome shadows over a small, sandy area. At the center was a shining blue pool. The sand seeping into my slippers was cool.

  “You are smart,” the jinni said.

  I turned to him.

  “To ask me to reveal my intentions, to prove I am someone you can trust. It is a clever wish. You see, I am but a conduit for Masira’s will. I do not have control over the outcome of a desire. She will fulfill wishes however She sees fit, so long as it honors the wish truthfully.”

  So he was not a god himself, but he was near to one. Watching the light glint off of the water, I thought of what it meant to be speaking with someone so close to the goddess. Did I want that closeness to a deity? It seemed it could bring great fortune or terrible destruction.

  He continued, “She is fickle.”

  I knew this, so I did not understand why he was explaining it to me.

  “If my intention were to hurt you or to reveal what you’ve done to the King, you would see that now, even if I did not want it to be shown. Masira will always honor a wish, but the more specific you are, the more clear your intention, the less creative She can be.”

  “Is it magic, what you do?”

  “Some call it magic, but it is the providence of the goddess. If She wills it, then how can it be otherwise?”

  His words came out as though he’d been waiting to tell them to me. I looked unhurriedly at his large, carved frame as he spoke. The jinni’s skin seemed, unbelievably, to shine even brighter in the shade of the trees. My eyes lingered on his broad chest, narrow hips, and finally, his face. His eyes were set under a heavy brow that cast deep shadows. His nose was long and straight and led my eyes down to a wide mouth that was almost hidden within his beard. His sharp cheekbones reminded me of the royal men and women I saw woven in the tapestries hanging in my father’s halls. He was beautiful in a divine sort of way, and upon realizing it, I felt absurdly self-conscious as one does when they hope they are, or fear they are not, regarded in kind.

  Heat flooded my cheeks, and I ran my fingers through the leafy bushes as I examined them. “You have brought me to my father’s oasis.”

  “I have.”

  “Why?”

  “It is the safest place there is, without straying too far from your home.”

  The nervous flutter that started when the jinni had whisked me from the hallway now frenzied against my chest as I realized I really was away from the settlemen
t. For the first time in my life. I briefly wondered if a guard standing at the perimeter would see my shadow amongst the trees, but I knew he could not. No one could see me, no one could hear me. None but the jinni.

  It was an even greater freedom than being out in the village. I felt giddy, and a child-like smile spread across my face. I wanted to run around and jump from stone to stone and dive into the cool water. To frolic with the untethered feeling of being away from my home. But I also wanted to sit and comb through all of my questions that had tangled together since I’d first met the jinni.

  “So I can trust you, really?” I asked, still not looking at him.

  “My word is Masira’s will, my promises unbreakable.”

  I raised an eyebrow and met his gaze. “Well, then I wish for one thousand wishes.”

  The corner of his lip lifted. “Granted.”

  A pleasant tingle crawled down my spine.

  “Did my father find you here?”

  “He did.”

  I nodded, unsurprised. So those rumors were true; that the oasis was a magical place was not wrong. I looked around the refuge, wondering where my father stood when he came upon the glass vessel filled with golden smoke. How did he feel when the jinni told him he would grant his desires?

  “And you are the reason that he amassed so much wealth.”

  “I am.” He watched me as I spun, looking at the trees and sand and water and rocks. He added, “The reason the dunes don’t swallow the settlement. The reason no challenger can defeat your father . . .”

  Yes, that all made sense now. I waited to hear what else he had done, but he did not continue. “Do others know about you?”

  The jinni considered the question, then said, “I am sure they do not. Your father is very secret and very proud of his reputation. If people knew he had a jinni, it would destroy the illusion. It would also bring great conflict. People easily kill to possess something that grants wishes, something that promises fortune.”

  I thought of Matin and his soldiers. They killed without that knowledge, I could not imagine what would happen should the desert know of the jinni.

  “But you can’t grant every wish,” I said, remembering Aashiq.

  A shadow crossed his face. “No, I cannot.” He did not elaborate, and I did not want to unbury the memories.

  “What did my father wish for, to become what he is?”

  “Why? Do you plan to wish for the same?” He sat on a smooth stone and did not wait for me to answer. “Your father is wise. Instead of asking to be the most powerful man or the wealthiest man, both of which can be interpreted as Masira sees fit, he wished to possess that which would make him the most formidable King in the desert.”

  “So She gave him salt.”

  The jinni nodded. “It changed everything.”

  Moving toward the pool at the heart of the trees, I thought of gods and jinn and my father’s salt. I knelt and dipped my fingers in the pool. The water was cool, and I longed to bathe in it. I imagined lying in the water, my ivory clothes billowing up toward the surface around me, returning home soaking wet.

  I spun. “Sons, I have to go back! Take me back!” In my awe at being in the oasis, I had forgotten about home. “Sabra! She will see me missing. She will tell my father!” I yelled the words at him, my heart slamming against my ribs. My fingers were clasped to his arms, attempting to drag him back to the village.

  The jinni raised his hands, pulling his arms from my grasp.

  “It is okay. Time does not move forward there. They won’t know. They’re frozen in their steps.”

  Confused, I looked at the trees above me, their quivering leaves. The ripples in the water traveling to the opposite shore.

  “Time is stilled there?” I pointed to the village behind me.

  “Just there. Here,” he said and indicated around us, “time will seem to move forward, but to the world, we are the only two alive in the endless span between the beats of a heart.”

  That gave me pause. I took deep breaths, and my pulse slowed. I sat by the pool and stared into the bright blue water. I saw the jinni’s reflection on its surface. His eyes found mine. I looked away and asked, “Do you come here often?”

  “Not as often as I would like. But I must confess that this was my favorite resting place of all that I’ve had.”

  “Where else have you been?”

  “Everywhere in this desert. Once in the open sand underneath the burning sun. Another time in the home of a dissatisfied man who made miserable those with whom he interacted.”

  “Are you aware of what happens around you when you’re in your . . .”

  “My home? My prison? Somewhat. I can feel the energy of the people or places around me. I felt uncomfortable and lethargic in the desert sands, sad and miserable in the man’s home. Here,” his hands fanned around him, “I was relaxed and as content as one could be living in a glass prison.” His words hinted at the lingering sorrow I sensed was always with him, like smoke above a flame.

  “Similar to how you can feel my thoughts, because I am your master?”

  He nodded. “I suppose, yes. But, Emel, you are no longer my master since you thought it wise to leave my vessel behind.” He looked at me pointedly when he said this. “My master is whomever has last released me from my vessel, and your father soon became my master again.”

  “Oh.” A prick of disappointment. “Then how did you feel my wishing for you earlier?”

  “I can feel the desires of any master I’ve had—though only you and your father are the masters I’ve had who still live. Even if I were across the desert, I could feel your want, I just don’t have to respond to it.”

  “When do you have to respond?”

  “When a wish is spoken aloud, Masira hears it and will grant it. But if you think it, it does not have to be.”

  I asked, “My wish will be granted even if I am not your master?”

  “I have promised you wishes, so that means that I—Masira—will grant them if you speak them.”

  So the power was in the words I said aloud.

  Satisfied with my limited understanding of his magic, I turned to my more pressing question. “If you’ve been all over the desert, are you familiar with it? With the trade routes?”

  “Trade routes? What do you care of caravans’ paths?”

  I told him about Rafal’s map and proudly drew it for him in the sand, showing him the settlements I had already identified. Even more than Aashiq, he was amused by my fascination with the map. Too, he seemed almost impressed. Warmth slid down to my toes, and I bit my lip to hide my gratified smile.

  He pointed to the paths and pursed his lips. “But these all point to your settlement.”

  I nodded saying of course they did, my father had all the salt. “Is it wrong?”

  He was silent, staring sadly at the lines in the sand. “No.”

  I brushed the map away.

  “Why do the legends of jinn say that you only grant three wishes?”

  “It is what I—and maybe others—”

  “Other jinn?” I blurted, wide-eyed.

  He shrugged and stared at the swept ground, gaze clouded. “I assume there are others. By saying I only grant three wishes, I hope it will limit the time I spend with my master. So many are starved for power and wealth. Wicked people whose souls I cannot stand to be near. Sometimes I was lucky, and Masira would separate me from my master with their wish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If their wish caused a big rift or sent them to a land far from where we were, my master would go and I would stay behind with the vessel.”

  My mouth dropped open. I had never heard of that happening in the legends. “They would lose you?”

  He nodded, and I thought of how terrifying it would be to be sent far away without anyone or anything familiar. Without even magic to return home.

  “What about my father?” Masira had not separated him from the jinni.

  He winced. “Like all, I told him
he had only three wishes.”

  “I assume he has already used them?”

  “He has.”

  “But then, why do you stay with him? Can’t you leave? Aren’t you free?”

  “Those questions are many, and their answers would take much time for me to tell. I am not free, no. I have already said that your father is a smart man. So many of the men before him assumed I was useless after the third wish. They endeavored to hide me, jealous of the next to find me and profit from their desires made real. So I would stay in my glass home, sometimes for several lifetimes, before another would find and free me. Your father did no such thing. After his third wish, he asked for a fourth.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I granted it.” Seeing my bewilderment, he continued. “You see, I offer people three wishes, but I am a slave to my master, and there is no end to what I do so long as my master desires it.”

  “But can’t you walk away? Can’t you leave?”

  “No.” Sadness was heavy in his voice. “I am bound to my home. If I am not contained within it, I can stray, but if my master calls me back, I must return.”

  “Why not freeze time in the village like you have done now and leave? Then he can’t call you back.”

  “To live a life only to return to where it began when I grow tired? No, that would be impossible to endure. Even if my master is vile, he offers me change. I cannot endure a lifetime of sameness, of being alone.” He looked from me to the village. “With change, at least, there is hope.”

  Yes, that was true.

  I marveled at the ease with which I spoke with the jinni. Despite his being a stranger, he seemed safe. Perhaps it was his honesty. Or maybe it was our shared condition. After all, he was a jinni, bound to my father as I was. Or perhaps it was that in his words, I saw that he was more human than magic. Whatever the reason, I gravitated toward that feeling, toward him.

  Our eyes met. “You didn’t tell me I had three.”

  He looked away. “I did not.”

  “How did you know who I was? You knew my name, that the King was my father.”

  Saalim smiled and slid onto the sand on the other side of the pool. “I thought that was apparent the afternoon I saw you at the King’s address.”