Daughter of the Salt King

by A. S. Thornton

  “Nassar,” the King said tiredly, “retrieve my whip.” The vizier scurried from the tent and was back within moments carrying the iron-handled weapon, a long, leather strap wrapped around it. In his other hand was coiled rope.

  I closed my eyes and prayed. Eiqab, show my father that I see how I’ve erred.

  “Daughters, I have brought you here to remind you of your role in my palace,” he began as he took the whip and rope from Nassar. “In her vanity, Emel has demonstrated blatant disregard for my rule. She has disrespected me, her mother, and all of you. She cares not for my generosity—the bed I provide, the food I give, the shelter I offer. Therefore, for her punishment,” he paused and took a drink, “she will be imprisoned for one complete cycle of the moon, and she will receive thirty lashes.”

  My sisters gasped. My breath caught. For the King to be willing to scar one of his ahiran, to ruin my future with a suitor by marks of disobedience . . . and thirty times. There would be no future with a muhami now. None would choose a marked wife. The sand threatened to swallow me whole as my knees weakened, desperate to collapse.

  “Bring her to me,” the Salt King commanded the guards holding me. He held out the rope. “Bind her.”

  Desperate, I shoved my elbow into the chest of one of the guards while my other hand pushed at the face of the second. A heavy blow landed against the side of my head. Black bloomed in my vision, and pain radiated down my neck and spine. I fell onto the ground. I was hoisted upright, my hands and feet bound. The coarse fibers splintered against my skin as the rope was tightened.

  Please Eiqab. Please. I begged, closing my eyes. I will burn in the desert for you. I will never step into the shade again.

  My father stepped slowly behind me, making no sound save the whisper of his sirwal with each step. The afternoon sun burned into the tent. Sweat dripped down my neck and fell into the beaded ivory of my bodice.

  Eiqab, guide my father, save me from this. I prayed and prayed, repeating the entreaties over and over.

  Until it began.

  The first sharp slice of the whip fell onto the skin between my neck and shoulder, tender flesh deeply cut by the leather strap. I cried out at the sharp sting, tears filling my eyes. I wanted to be strong, to be silent. But I fell to my knees, and I cried.

  “One,” said the King.

  I had been abandoned by my god, so I turned back to the jinni. Please, I thought, please come. Help me. Please. I thought the words so fiercely, I almost spoke them aloud. He had to hear my pleas.

  I wish for safety, Saalim. I wish for you to save me. I wish to be away from here. I wish to be in the oasis. I wish to be in my bed. I wish to start today again, to make different decisions. I wished for every possible thing as the whip carved down my back over and over again.

  My eyes squeezed shut as I bent forward on my knees, back exposed and stretched. I fell to my side, but the guards pushed me up again. Blood dripped from my back to my neck. My face tight in agony. I focused all of my attention on what I wanted, needed. I hoped it would be enough to call the attention of the jinni.

  He did not come.

  The King fatigued midway through. The time between the lashes longer, the bites less sharp. He complained of cramping in his shoulder, his aching neck.

  My sisters suffered, too, as they watched me crumple. Many cried as they listened to the King’s count. Some jumped in surprise with each snap of the lash while others stood silently and trembled. Maybe some thought sadly of the scars that would be left on my beautiful skin, while others thanked Eiqab secretly for my punishment: perhaps now they would have a better chance with the next suitor. I knew they imagined themselves in my place but found relief that it would never be. They were not such fools to break rules as their willful sister did. I know they felt shame for those private thoughts. They would not soon forget the depraved feeling of being a voyeur to their sister’s abuse while they thought idly of the wedding bed and my bad behavior. I knew all of this because I would have thought the same.

  I bit my lip as I waited for each lash, my teeth cutting into my skin with each crack of the whip.

  My thoughts rambled in a thick fog of delirium, and I thought of Aashiq’s burial. How the King’s guards had dragged the bodies of the dead into the desert and thrown them in two piles. Matin’s men, they lit to flame. They burned like the wounds on my back. The smell of scorched flesh had hung thick over the settlement for the rest of the day.

  Aashiq’s robes were unbelievably bright that day. How could a color be so vivid when there was no life to leaven it? Soon, a vulture had circled overhead. Then another and another. They grew in numbers, just like the lashes. The first vulture dove and landed on Aashiq. The others followed. They devoured him, devoured all of the King’s men, piece by piece. Masira’s feast. Just as I felt to be a feast for Masira now.

  The King’s men sang the melancholy song of the committal of the sky when the birds began, one after another, tearing the flesh from the earth and carrying it into the heavens. No one was singing for me now.

  That day, I had cried first with relief, and then in sadness, because oh, how I wished to follow him there. But now, I was Aashiq, each lash a bird’s beak ripping my flesh.

  Then, I was a bird flying low over a village being pelted by sharp rocks.

  I was a goat with my limbs tied to a spit, the greedy flames licking my spine.

  I was a cloud in the sky, the strike of lightning singeing my fleece.

  The King declared the thirtieth lash with enervated triumph. He barked at my sisters about the lesson they had learned that afternoon.

  On my side, I shivered with pain. The air was like cold fire on my flayed back. Sabra was still beside my horrified sisters. Her eyes met mine briefly. I saw no remorse, but she had paled.

  The King walked near, and I flinched, curling into myself, my lashed skin shrieking in agony at the movement. His tunic was tucked behind the articles at his belt, and that was when I saw it. The glass vessel.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and curled my hands into tight fists. I wanted to scream, to beat the floor in my frustration.

  Within the vessel, golden smoke swirled in a frenzy. The jinni was locked in his gilded home, blind to the world around him.

  “It brings me pain that I must punish your sister so,” the King continued his self-indulgent speech of which I heard little. The forged compassion might have repulsed me, but I was so tired. “I trust this has been a lesson to you all. Now,” he continued, “your lesson is not through.”

  My eyes shot open. A gust of horror swept through me like a storm. I choked on it, a wet breath rattling in my chest as I inhaled. My sisters’ expressions mirrored mine. What else could the King have for me? Even Sabra looked appalled. I wanted to scramble up to her and claw her face, wanted to scream at her for her betrayal. But the energy was not there, nor the spirit.

  “Emel has faced the beginning of her punishment for her disobedience, and it will continue in the prison. But,” the King stepped slowly toward the eldest ahira, “Sabra, you have not yet faced yours. Nassar, please.” The King held out his bloodied weapon to his vizier, who stepped forward to take the whip. “Sabra, you will receive ten lashes. For being a rat.”

  Chapter Nine

  My seventh morning as prisoner was markedly cooler, and the normal yellow light of the morning sun was a soft gray. My blanket, usually twisted and kicked to the other side of the tent, was wrapped tightly around my shoulders.

  I awoke later than normal, too. The comfortable, cool darkness of the morning allowing me extra sleep. The metallic lidded pot was already sitting at the entrance of my tent, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t woken when it arrived. My day’s rations, unfailingly delivered every morning. I sat up slowly, wincing from the slowly healing wounds on my neck and back.

  I was glad to have much time left before returning home. Enough to figure out how I would navigate returning to my sisters. I did not know how I would face Sabra again. My fury at her betrayal c
onsumed me until I was exhausted by it. Then I would think of Father, and what he did to me. How scarred would I be? There was no chance for me as an ahira now. Aashiq had been my last.

  Men murmured outside. I strained to listen.

  “They found two more by the circling of the birds,” one said. “Dead for some time.”

  “Another message?”

  “Similar. About the old desert, the trade.”

  One of the men moaned sadly. “They must want the salt. Explains why they kill those that guard it.”

  I rubbed my eyes and slowly crawled to the entrance of the tent to hear more. My knee knocked the pot, and the metal lid clanked loudly against its base. The conversation stopped abruptly.

  “It is a beautiful morning, Emel,” a man said through the tent.

  I smiled despite myself. “Lateef, I am happy to hear your voice.” My only full brother was guarding my prison tent again. While he did not give me any more allowances than the others, he was at least kind. Peering into the canister of food, I grunted. A large handful of olives, several thick pieces of meat, and many slices of plain flatbread soaked in oil. I chewed the greasy bread and a piece of meat slowly. The rations were similar to those I received at home. I knew how to savor them.

  Hunching was almost unbearable, the stretching wounds across my back ripping apart the little threads of skin that had managed to stitch together overnight, so I was eager to stand.

  “May I come out?” I said softly, and almost immediately, Lateef pulled open the tent.

  “You might want to bring your blanket. It is a cold morning.”

  Wind rushed into the tent bringing with it the smell of impending rain. Shivering, I inhaled deeply. Wet, metallic earth. Moving carefully, I collected my blanket in one hand, the clay pot in the other, and walked outside.

  I stepped out to an infinite horizon—flat like the palm of a hand with only a few dunes breaking up the expanse. The sky was a soft gray muddle of fluffy clouds. At the horizon, dark clouds bore rain.

  Rumors of the prison’s horridness—the isolation, boredom, starvation—were not what they seemed. When I arrived, in pain and so weak I had to be carried to the tent, I thought I understood. The prison was a cluster of small, ill-maintained tents at the village’s edge. Its perimeter was lined with so many scowling guards, there could be no escape. But then, I found the isolation comforting. Hurting and tired, I curled up on my mat. Alone, no one asked me questions I did not want to answer. When I closed my eyes, there was no youthful chatter distracting me from sleep.

  I was even more surprised the next morning when food waited for me.

  “How long is this to last?” I asked my guard, scared to hear his answer.

  “The entire day,” he said. “Conserve it.”

  If I had the energy, I would have laughed aloud. It was not much less than I received at home.

  Some food and a quiet place to sleep? This was not so bad.

  “You empty your pot yourself,” the guard said, more gently, as though he were sorry he told this to the King’s daughter. “You tell me when you’re ready to come out.”

  I did and was let outside. Moving slowly, I stepped out of the tent and into the sun, the open air. I marveled at my allowance to go outside, walk freely to the settlement’s edge that before I had to sneak to, but I hid my contentment. When I walked back, the guard stopped me. “You will not be let out again until midday, and then once before at night, so plan accordingly.” It was unbelievable. Those who whispered to the ahiran the horrors in these isolated tents must not have realized that the King’s daughters were just as imprisoned: unable to go outside the palace, equally underfed, and isolated in our own way.

  That cloudy day, I walked several paces from the tent, Lateef monitoring from behind. No prisoner was daft enough to flee into the desert unless he sought death—if not from lack of water and food, then surely from the insanity of illusions that rose up from the sand, the whispering hatif, and being unguided amidst shifting dunes.

  Dunes that were held away from my village by the jinni’s magical hands.

  I thought of the jinni often, wondering where he was, if he thought of me, if he knew what happened. I was sure he did. Still, I didn’t understand what happened that afternoon. He said he granted my wish, but here I was.

  My knees pressed into the ground as I dumped the pot into a hole. A strong gust of wind blew, and I wrapped the blanket more tightly around my shoulders, wincing as it scratched against the wounds on my back.

  A loud yelp rose up from behind me. I turned back, alarmed by the fear in the cry. Two guards pulled a man out from his tent and dragged him toward the village. By his dark clothes, I could tell he was one of the soldiers from Matin’s army. Nearly every day, he was taken from the tents, and, at dusk, he came back mumbling incoherently. Though sometimes I understood his words—something about a missing king, about Wahir and water, about returning things as they were. Every day he was tortured, the King’s men trying to pry his secrets from him like I had pried seeds from the pomegranate. My heart ached for him, especially when he cried for his home and his family, but then I would remember what his people had done to my family, what they’d done to my future.

  Finding a small slope of sand, I sat down and stared out at the shadowed desert. Coaxed by the wind, clouds rolled overhead. The graceful silhouettes of twin vultures circled above. The line where the land met the sky seemed impossibly far away. Was there an end to the desert as the legends said? As Rafal claimed? I tried to imagine water that spoke and salt that shimmered on stone, but I could not.

  “Come back, Emel,” Lateef called. I rose as quickly as I could, the wind whipping my hair above me.

  We nodded to each other, his head and face uncovered as he, too, enjoyed the weather.

  “And Mama?” I asked as I passed him.

  “I haven’t seen her yet, but I promise I’ll give her your message once I do,” Lateef murmured as he closed the tent. It was not so easy for sons to see their mothers. They could not walk into the harem as I could.

  I lay back, willing myself to think of anything but Sabra. The sun had a long journey before sleep would come again, so I found the loose threads at the base of the tent. I braided them, pulled them loose, then braided them again. I once tried to talk to my neighbor through the fabric walls, but my guard—it was not Lateef—screamed at me, warning me against doing so in the future. I would not make that mistake again.

  The pat pat of rain tapped the tent above me, so I rolled onto my back to see the wet spots shining brightly. Rain, finally. There was nothing more miraculous in the desert. Had I been home, I would have heard shouts of rapture, squeals of glee, as people abandoned whatever they did to run out and taste the divine gift.

  The dull, wet sound slowly increased in frequency until it battered loudly, obscuring all other sound. The smell of dirt and metal rose up at the downpour. I closed my eyes, relishing the scent and sound, the coolness of the air that permeated the tent. The deluge so strong that drops of water leaked through the poorly oiled goat-hair tent and dropped around me.

  A warmth crept up my arms, and through the scent of rain, there was something familiar. My eyes shot open expectantly, but it was only my tin of rations and waste pot in the tent with me. My shoulders sagged. I began to pull the blanket over my legs when I felt the warmth again. This time, I saw golden dust coalescing in the air before me.

  I gasped. “Oh!”

  Soon, the jinni was inside my tent. Even kneeling, his tremendous form made the space feel even smaller. I scrambled to pull the blanket over my bare legs, wincing through the movements.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked quietly.

  He looked me over intensely: his eyes scanning my face, arms, and shoulders. His expression bordered on despair.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” I rose to my knees, starting to panic.

  “Nothing,” he said. His shoulders eased and face softened. The rain pounded the tents, hiding
our voices from the guard outside. “Nothing has happened. I wanted to see if you were okay. I am sorry I did not come sooner.” He leaned forward, reaching his hands out as if to touch me but hesitated and pulled them back to his side. “I could feel your agony that afternoon.” He spoke like the words were heavy to lift. “I could feel the strength of your desire. It pulled on me but I could do nothing about it.” He clenched his fists tightly. “I am so sorry.”

  The strength of his remorse and the urgency with which he made his confession surprised me.

  “There is nothing to apologize for. Nothing was your fault.” He was so defeated, I felt a strong urge to comfort him. “I am fine.”

  “All of this is my fault.” He smiled somberly. “If I had better explained the cunning of Masira . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you your father was a smart man. That the wishes he crafted were specific enough to propel him to power without having to deal with unforeseen consequences. I did not tell you that he learned this for himself.”

  “Then tell me now,” I said, pulling the blanket up to cover my arms, now wet with rainwater.

  The jinni crossed his legs beneath him, still appearing too large for the small space.

  “When he found me in the oasis, he first wished for a meal. It was simple, it was granted. I think it was a test—just like yours. He ate silently, surely thinking of the possibilities, of my potential. He did not think of Masira’s. After some time, he told me his second wish: ‘to be the lone desert ruler.’ Do you see how this could be interpreted by a guileful god?”

  I did not. There were so many desert rulers, it made sense for a power-hungry man to wish to be the only one.

  “Masira did not think to make him the only ruler in the desert as your father wanted. When his wish was made, a keening shriek erupted from outside the oasis. Your father jumped to his feet, looking back to the caravan. He ran, urgent with concern. He had recognized that scream. When he arrived, he found the people he traveled with surrounding a woman on the ground. His lover, his wife.”