Daughter of the Salt King

by A. S. Thornton

  Wife? He was not married when he found the oasis. At least, none of the tales mentioned a bride.

  “You must understand, she was his entire life—the reason he sought the edge of the desert, why he wanted to be a powerful ruler. The cause for everything he did. He wanted to be the source of her comfort, her happiness. He wanted to give her everything.

  “When he saw her, he panicked. He squeezed her arms, slapped her cheeks. He screamed at her to wake up, to be well again. He yelled at the villagers, begging someone to explain what had happened, looking for someone to blame, someone to help him. But your father arrived too late. She was lifeless in his hands, white foam spilling from her mouth.

  “He tried to save her. I felt his desperate desire, strong like a storm of sand. I felt how he loved her. I felt his tearful wishes that she be revived, that she live. I also felt how he wished for his child—still warm in the womb of his dead wife—to be alive, to be born so that he could have at least that part of the one he loved. But it could not be. He was too late. As you know, you cannot wish for the return of life once it has been surrendered to the vulture goddess. Masira guards her souls with wings stretched wide. He lost his wife and his unborn child that day. He lost everything. With a single wish.”

  I was stunned. The rain poured.

  “Masira granted his wish, you see. He was already a ruler, though not a very powerful one. She granted him the isolation he had unintentionally wished for. He became the only ruler in the desert who had no one.”

  “How have I never heard this tale?”

  “When a wish is granted that causes an impossible rift—an unexplainable, subtle, or momentous change in our lives—the memories of all that saw are taken. Those that would have no other explanation than magic won’t remember anything. But memories are like a spider’s web, and their removal can sometimes leave a sticky trail behind. Only the one who wished and the jinni who granted it will truly remember what was before. It preserves the secret of the magic, you see. It prevents the disturbance that a wish could cause. Your father did not yet understand what had happened, that it was his wish that had caused the deaths. He lashed out, killed two of the nomads in a rage. But no one confessed, and they all grieved genuinely. The villagers loved her almost as much as he did.

  “Once his dead wife and child were taken to the sky, people began forgetting they ever existed, treating him as though he had always been alone. Soon, no one remembered the family he lost. He thought he was mad until finally, he asked me. I told him of Masira’s volatility, of his intention when he makes a wish. Had he an argument with his wife that day? Was he frustrated with her and had the foolish thought that he’d be better without her? Don’t we all indulge in fantasies when we know they would not bring us true joy? I did not ask your father these things—his guilt already burning through him. The consequence of his wish, the reality that he was the cause of his wife’s death, was a heavy burden. And he would carry it alone, share his memories with none.

  “He was never the same man again. He shed his grief and past like a snake’s skin, and in its place, he wore the thickest armor. Having nothing more to lose, he wished and wished again. He became the Salt King.

  “Emel,” he continued, “do you understand why I tell you this?”

  I shook my head.

  “When I saw you last, you wished to not yet return home. Do you remember?”

  I remembered my wish. I did not remember my thoughts that day, how my words and how I felt led me here, but I understood what the jinni meant. And I understood how a single wish, seemingly so simple, could be so dangerous. “It is as I wished. I have not yet returned home,” I whispered.

  “I should have better warned you.”

  “Even if you had, it was a mistake I would have to learn myself.” A terrifying mistake. What else could I have asked for that could have led to worse? Where would a wish for freedom lead? Suddenly, Masira’s magic seemed too volatile, too risky. Did I want to bargain with a fickle goddess? I shivered.

  The rain slowed slightly.

  “Are you okay here?” His words were quiet under the battering of rain.

  I shrugged. “I am. Truly,” I added, seeing his doubtful expression. “Do you know of my mother? Is she okay?”

  He rubbed the cuffs on his wrists. “Yes. Your father told her what happened.”

  My eyes widened as I imagined how that conversation carried through the walls, shrieking how my misdeeds were her fault from all the poison she siphoned into my ear.

  “Is she okay?”

  “She is. Though she mourns for you. She will be relieved when she sees you again. You have dealt with this much better than I expected, than I am sure any of your family expect. I will give word to your mother and sisters that I have seen you and that you fare well.” He saw my confusion. “As a guard, of course.”

  “And what of Sabra?” I asked, fixating on my fingers.

  He sighed. “I can’t pretend to know how she feels. But I have spent a long time around people, knowing what they feel and watching what they do. While she carries much pain from her own punishment, I think the weight of her guilt is greater.”

  “That, I doubt.”

  “She is in a dark place, but even she would not wish harm upon you. Not really. She does not understand your father like you do. Whether that is willful blindness or self-protection, I don’t know.”

  Hearing him defend Sabra when I was lashed and scarred and imprisoned because of her was too much. I could admit I knew she did not want me to receive my punishment, because I knew no matter how much I loathed her, I wouldn’t want her to experience the same. But I could not forgive that she let her fears and jealousy alter my fate—destroy my future. It was unforgivable.

  As if sensing my frustration, he said, “Can I see your back? Your face is healing well.”

  I touched the raised crescent on my temple left by my father’s ring.

  “Why?” I was sure I wanted no more of his sympathy.

  “I can ease the pain.”

  With my back to him, I pulled my hair over my shoulders. He exhaled at the sight of my crusted, raised flesh that extended up my neck beyond my plain fustan. “I will trace the path of the wounds. Like before.” Before, when he had cleaned the blood from my face and hands.

  “Okay.”

  With the slightest touch, he traced over the visible wounds. I winced, waiting for pain, but immediately, an itch spread across the scabbed wounds that soon gave way to intense relief. I reached up to my neck. My skin was smooth, painless.

  “Sons,” I breathed.

  “If you want me to take care of the rest, you will have to let me see them.”

  I wrapped the blanket around my hips and pulled the dress over my head. When the cold air and raindrops touched my back, I tensed, my arms curling up to cover my chest. The jinni murmured something quietly to himself, then took the tendrils of hair from my back and draped them over my shoulder. He placed his hands and mercifully traced the wounds, erasing the pain. The heat went deeper than the wounds, and soon, my entire body felt warm, as if I were sitting in front of a smoldering fire in wintertime. The rain chilled me no longer. I sighed.

  “I must leave behind scars. If I don’t, it will look suspicious.”

  “That’s okay,” I said but felt a flicker of chagrin. My future would be better served without them. I pulled my dress over my head, the relief from the pain so liberating I laughed.

  When I turned to face him, our knees almost touched.

  “How are you able to do what you choose with the magic?” My gaze dropped to his hands resting in his lap, and I reached for him, curious. When we touched, heat rushed through me like water. I met his gaze, his eyes sparking like flames.

  “Masira’s will and mine are intertwined. Because I am her conduit, I can act on her behalf. I can do what I please, with limitations.”

  “So, she wanted my wounds healed?”

  Deep lines stretched across his palm, and I traced them with
my fingers. A drop of rain fell into his open hand, and I placed mine over it.

  “No. I wanted that for you.” He folded his fingers over mine and held my hand tightly, the drop of water pressed between us. I held my breath. It was so chaste. It was so intimate.

  “I will not forget this,” I said, nearly inaudible. I hoped he could feel the intensity of my gratitude in my touch, my thoughts.

  He lifted my hand to his mouth and lightly kissed my knuckles. A deep, forbidden longing bloomed in my core.

  “I am sorry,” he said, seeing me still like stone. “I should not have. I will leave.”

  The edges of him started to blur, fine golden dust swirling off of his shoulders.

  “No. Wait!” I cried, too loudly. I slapped my hand over my mouth. The jinni stopped abruptly, appearing whole once again.

  “Emel?” Lateef shouted over the rain. “Did you say something?”

  “Ah, I . . . was sleeping,” I shouted back. “Perhaps a dream.”

  The jinni and I stared at each other in silence, waiting for Lateef’s attention to drift elsewhere. Under his gaze, I was suddenly aware of my unwashed face, unclean hair, and my blood-stained, filthy dress. He studied me carefully, appearing intrigued. I studied him in return, admiring that though he seemed so hard and severe, he had a gentle softness to him. I imagined myself in his arms. He smiled, and I frantically looked away, brushing at invisible sand on my knee.

  “How did you get away from my father?” I said, eager to change the direction of my thoughts.

  “He is still sleeping in his room, as he is wont to do after a night’s heavy drinking. I was guarding his tent. I simply asked another guard to take my place for a bit. I told him my wife was ill and I was to check on her.” He looked impish.

  “Then you should be leaving soon,” I replied.

  “Yes, I should.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  I began. “Saalim . . .”

  His smile widened. “Yes?”

  “I’d like it if you came back to see me.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. If you’d want to, that is.”

  “Of course. I will return when I can.”

  I rose onto my knees. This jinni, I liked. I did not understand him nor his motives but I knew I could trust him.

  Leaning toward him, I felt the heat radiate off him in waves. I brushed my lips across his bearded cheek, feeling shy and foolish. He lowered his eyes, a small nod of acknowledgement, and perhaps appreciation. Then, as the rain slowed to a sprinkle, the jinni was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  Leaning against the center post, I stretched out my legs. It was hot again, the cool weather gone with the rain, but I was grateful that summer had passed. Autumn was still warm but at least sweat did not pool at my elbows and knees.

  The sloppy remains of sliced fruit was on a platter at my side. My eyes trailed over the wood beams framing my tent—dented with whorls and little bows from bored fingers that left behind desperate drawings—until I looked again at Saalim.

  He sat across from me, chin resting on his hands, elbows on his knees. He had visited often since the rainstorm. Each time was rigid, fragile. Like we were both tiptoeing around something unacknowledged. Typically, he came to provide me with food. Mostly exotic fruit and usually in quantities in excess of my appetite. He felt responsible for my imprisonment, so he never wanted to stay long. I think he did not like the reminder of where I was. He only came to ask after me and ensure I was well. Even though I knew this, I couldn’t resist drawing him into conversation, pestering him with question after question or asking him for tales to keep him there longer. I was desperate for company, and he always obliged.

  “You are nearly done with your imprisonment. The moon waxes,” he said. We no longer had the rain to disguise our conversation, so he used his magic to mute our words to others.

  “Only a day or two more now.” I pushed my nails into the post, creating a trail of undulations that arced up the wood.

  “You don’t seem happy.”

  I shook my head. “I am happy. Of course, I miss my sisters, but I will miss the quiet here and seeing out there without having to sneak or bribe my way out.” I hesitated, then gestured between us. “And I will miss this, you know.”

  “I’ll bring you fruit whenever you desire it.”

  I said, “That is very nice. But it isn’t just that.”

  He waited.

  “We won’t see each other like we do now, and I won’t be able to leave the palace. Not with Sabra around.” And really, I just didn’t want to see Sabra again. Nor my father.

  “You don’t know that. Maybe she feels—”

  “I won’t risk it.”

  “And when the caravans come?” He smirked. Twice, a caravan had arrived. The first time he told me, I threw a tantrum like a child. I almost asked that he magic me a way out so that I could go, anxious about all the blanks on my map. Though I was more composed the second time, still, he saw me blink away tears.

  I groaned. “Not fair.”

  “What is it you find so interesting about them?”

  “Everything,” I breathed. My smile was so broad, even Saalim grinned. “They carry so much life on the backs of those camels. I love seeing what they’ve made, the food they cook, and if I’m lucky, hear stories about what their homes are like.”

  I told him about Rafal and his tales. “He’s traveled all over the desert, like you.”

  “I’ve told you about many of the places I’ve been—”

  “No, you haven’t. You’ve told me fairy tales and legends.”

  “If you say so,” he smirked. “But I can tell you about all the other places I’ve been, if you want.”

  Empathic, I pressed my hands together. “Tell me everything.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now. If you have time.”

  He leaned back onto his hands, saying he did indeed. What did I want to hear of first? The north, I said, telling him what Rafal had said about the desert’s edge.

  “Is it really like that?”

  Saalim grew serious again, and he suddenly felt unreachable. He pursed his lips as if trying to remember. “Yes.” I waited for him to tell me more, to elaborate, but he didn’t say anything for a long time, so I didn’t press.

  It was only the space of two hands that separated us, but it felt much farther. The chasm between us grew deeper and more treacherous each day that passed. I did not want to be the first to traverse it, unsure of our intimate exchange the first morning and where that left us now.

  Silence settled between us, and I worried he would leave. I did not know when I would see him again. “I am scared to see my father again.”

  “I can imagine why.”

  “Do you think he’ll act differently toward me?”

  “I don’t. Your father lives moment to moment and thinks little of the past. Whether that is by choice or due to drink, I cannot say. I have seen him mete out many punishments, but never have I seen him consider them later. At least, not aloud.”

  “Does he normally talk to you about things?”

  “Absolutely not.” His words were heavy, and anger darkened his eyes.

  I fumbled with a small piece of fruit stuck to the tray.

  After watching me attempt to grab a slippery sliver of honeydew for the third time, he said, “What I mean is that you cannot forget I am a slave to your father. He does not treat me as you do. He does not interact with me beyond what he needs. His relationship with me is different from yours.”

  I raised my eyes, curious. “And what is our relationship?”

  “Perhaps it is you that should answer that question.”

  “I would call you my friend.”

  The jinni smiled, but it was a smile that guarded something. He rubbed at the hammered gold that shackled his wrists. While I had grown more comfortable with the strange jinni, he had only just begun to shed his guard with me. I knew very little of his
life.

  “I would say the same.” His fingers trailing along the edges of the metal until they vanished into his hands.

  “Can you take those off?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, his voice strained. “They mark me for what I am. They cannot be removed, see?” He held out his wrists. I tentatively touched the cuff, dragging my finger along the metal until it softened into his skin. I peered at the golden veins. “I can hide those,” he said, referring to the paths twisting down to his hands. “When I am disguised as a slave. But I cannot hide the cuffs. Those are always there.”

  “Are they uncomfortable?”

  “They are heavy.”

  Another story I felt was not my privilege to hear, so I grasped the honeydew I had been fishing for and held it in front of me. “Do you ever eat?” I popped the fruit in my mouth.

  Saalim laughed, sounding relieved. He shook his head. “No. I do not need to eat. It holds no interest for me.”

  “Really? That is too bad. This is delicious,” I said as I licked the juice off of my fingertips, smiling. “You are quite good at choosing excellent food, for not knowing anything about it.”

  “I did not say I knew nothing about it. I have tasted food before. I remember it quite fondly.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “So you can eat then? Why don’t you now?”

  He lay back onto the sand. “It was another lifetime. Before I was who I am now.”

  Suddenly, I was again an ahira, tailoring my words for a desired outcome. I drew slow circles in the sand with my finger. “Do you mean, before you were a jinni?”

  “Yes. When I was human.”

  My mouth fell open as dozens of questions flung themselves at me in a frenzied attempt to find their answers. “How?”

  “I was changed. I remember some things from when I was human. They are from long ago, but I still remember the pleasures of food.”

  I wanted to ask him so many things, to press him further. I was so eager to glean some understanding of this jinni—this man?—sitting with me. But I knew he was not ready to share those things, nor was I ready to know them. “Do you miss it?”