Daughter of the Salt King

by A. S. Thornton

  “Firoz! About time,” one shouted. The people called to him, then turned their cheery faces to me in question.

  He greeted them and held his hand out to me. “This is . . .” he hesitated.

  “Isra,” I said uncertainly. Firoz did not normally introduce me to other people.

  They welcomed me like an old friend and scooted their dusty cushions until there was a space between them. Next to Firoz was a handsome man who grabbed two cushions for us and introduced himself as Rashid. He and Firoz seemed very close, mumbling to each other about things I could not hear. There was a handful of others whose names I forgot as quickly as they said them. They all talked more loudly than the next in an effort to be heard, slamming their cups on the table when making particularly important points. I did not understand half of what they spoke of, but all the same, I was filled with warmth at being included amongst them.

  Across from me was a quiet couple. The woman leaned lazily into the man whose arm was around her shoulder. They did not say much but laughed at the others or nodded at opinions. The woman’s eyes were a striking green, bright against her skin. Her eyes met mine, and I flushed. But she smiled, and it was sincere.

  I did not want to stare, but I could not tear my gaze from the couple. The man dotingly pressed his lips to her veiled hair every few moments. I watched his fingers clutch her shoulder with intention, how he seemed to orient around her and she him. It was beautiful, and I ached with envy.

  I imagined leaning against Saalim, yearning for that easiness, that closeness. How freeing it must be to walk hand in hand together in a village that swarmed with activity, pulling each other to and from the shops. Perhaps they even shared a home together. When I considered this, the ache grew. It would never be with Saalim and me, not in a world where he was a jinni and I an ahira. Perhaps if his magic could change the desert, his magic could change us. I had thought so much about my freedom, but what about his? The thought chilled me when I thought of how Masira might interpret freeing a jinni.

  There was so much causing me to turn away from Saalim—that our relationship could not be what I dreamed, that I owed allegiance first to my father and family. But Saalim had been right, and I owed my father nothing. Just because things with Saalim were not like love stories shared around fires, it did not mean I had to turn from him. Even if it was just a moment, if we could make each other happy, wasn’t it worth it? I stared at the wooden table, splintered and bowing from age, and thought of him—of how much I wanted him beside me that moment. I regretted everything I said the night I saw Omar.

  I want you back, Saalim.

  “. . . executed. King’s orders,” Firoz said. My attention was pulled back to the group.

  “He knew it would happen,” the man named Rashid said, and the others nodded sadly.

  “This has to end,” the green-eyed woman added, grasping her lover’s hand. “The violence is disgusting, and the King won’t stop until he is the last one standing. We know that.”

  A man spoke. “There are rumors there may be one who will do it.”

  “Do what?” I interjected, both desperate to know and terrified to hear. They all turned to me, then looked to Firoz, alarmed.

  “It’s fine,” he said, and looked sharply at me. “You can trust her.”

  The man explained. “Steal back the jinni, so that we can change the desert.”

  We can change it? I bristled. “You think the jinni is real then?” I asked, my hands shaking.

  They laughed, and my neck warmed. “Oh yes,” the lover said, unwrapping his arm from the woman and leaning forward. “That, we know for sure. The King has too many impossible things, and there are a few who believe they’ve seen the jinni with their own eyes.”

  Him? My whole body quaked.

  “What is this better desert like?” I asked. The people again looked at Firoz like I was daft. Like he was daft for bringing me there.

  Rashid sighed. “Salt can be traded all over the desert, like it was long ago. Wealth is earned from hard work, not from magic. Rulers are benevolent, they listen to their people.” He placed his hand on his chest and clutched something beneath his robes. “We’re getting close, I know it. We’ll get what we want soon. There are too many of us here, too many signs. We already outnumber the guards. The King can’t keep the jinni from us forever.” He put his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his hands. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” He nudged Firoz, grinning. “North, yeah?”

  Firoz beamed back and nodded. “It will be a spectacular journey. We’ll leave, and we won’t look back.”

  I leaned away, feeling more and more apart from these people, from my best friend. Won’t look back? Firoz, what about me? With stunning clarity, I realized that Firoz had a larger life than the one I saw. He loomed so large in mine, I had not realized I was just a very small part of his, perhaps the least important part of it. The betrayal I felt was stoked by the embarrassment that as much as Firoz meant to me, I was not his equivalent. But beyond that, how could Firoz align himself with these rebels, these people who killed for greed and myth? After they killed Aashiq?

  It felt dangerous sitting amongst them. I glanced to the tents around us and wondered who lived there, and who shouldn’t be listening to these words.

  “I don’t understand why people think a jinni is the answer,” I said, irritated by their gullibility—surely I would have been more skeptical before I met Saalim—but more so because, understanding Saalim’s magic, I could not deny they were right. If anyone could change the desert, he could.

  Rashid’s face softened. “We know this because of the legend, of course.”

  My frustration dissipated. I remembered Rafal mentioning something about a legend.

  “What does it say?”

  Behind me a man shouted, “What are you doing back here?” I jolted, and the people at the table stiffened.

  A guard I recognized strode into the clearing. I had seen him on a few occasions talking with Kadri—he was one of her brothers. Rarely around the ahiran, he would not recognize me.

  “Sympathizers?” He said, narrowing his eyes at us. I looked again to the surrounding tents. Who had told the guard? Fear shook me, and I thought of what my father would do to me if I were caught amongst them. And then I thought of Firoz, and his friends—surely, they would be killed. I could not allow that.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come!” I squeaked, getting up from the cushion. “Yes, there are sympathizers!” Firoz’s friends grumbled behind me as I ran to the soldier. “I spoke with a guard about it. Bahir, I think his name was?” I thought of my half-brother whose gloat was too big for his ghutra. “He must have got the message wrong.”

  The guard looked perplexed. “That is not what—”

  “Yes, I’m sure he did.” I pointed in the direction of the baytahira, explaining I had heard rebel talk that way. “I told him if he needed to find me, I’d be here. Surely that’s why you’ve been led here. Like I said, he got the message wrong.”

  “It was not Bahir who spoke to me.”

  “Probably sent the message through others. He seemed uninterested in what I told him. But I’m so grateful that you have taken it seriously.” I bowed. “Thank you for everything you do to protect us. It is your bravery and selflessness that brings me peace.” I let my voice crack the last words, feigning tears. I straightened up, dabbing under my eyes. “Shall I take you to where I heard those vile people?”

  The guard leaned back, fearful of the tears. Stepping away, he shook his head and said, “I know where to go.” He turned and left the clearing as quickly as he’d come.

  My heart raced, and I swayed, dizzy with my defiance.

  I’d stood up to a guard. I’d lied to a guard.

  When I turned around, Firoz was behind me, beaming from ear to ear. “I think your acting might be better than mine.” He pulled me into an enormous hug, and even though I was angry at him, I could not help it, I laughed and listened to his friends cheer for Isra.
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  I said, “I need to go.” It was too dangerous to be seen with his friends.

  “Promise you’ll come find me again tomorrow.”

  He looked so hopeful, so pleased with me, that I could not resist. I nodded.

  “Of course, we still have much to see.”

  “Dance with me!” Firoz yelled over the music a few days later, pulling me into the crowd of people, light on their feet.

  The sun was high. Each morning, Firoz sold his coconut juice so quickly that I did not have to wait for him long. We were always celebrating by the midday horn.

  “I don’t—know this—dance,” I panted as I bounced on my toes, watching the feet around me and trying to mirror their movements.

  Firoz locked his arm in mine and spun me in the direction opposite the other pairs. Laughing, we made ourselves fools.

  We skipped away to other parts of the bazaar, and I’d search carefully down each lane. I carried with me a small bag of salt, just in case I saw Sabra, just in case she changed her mind. But I never had the chance to ask. I never saw her in the market.

  Our fortunes were read by oracles, and though none mentioned lovers of gold, I kept hoping they would.

  A man changed a woman into a grasshopper with the clap of his hands. I shrieked, and Firoz nearly collapsed onto the sand cackling.

  We saw a monster in a cage with no eyes to see and no tongue to speak.

  “It looks like a child,” I said quietly of the pale creature the handler fastidiously kept in shade.

  Firoz peered at it closely, his nose scrunched. The monster hit the metal box it clutched against the cage bars, a loud clang ringing in our ears. The black-robed handler turned to us and screamed that we get away from it. We scurried from them, biting our tongues until we were out of reach, then laughed until we cried.

  A man played a pipe, and a snake rose at its song.

  “Unbelievable!” I exclaimed.

  “It’s magic,” Firoz said.

  I thought of Saalim as I watched the pipe player. Was he amongst us, or was he at my father’s side? I felt a pang of guilt that I was having so much fun when Saalim was stuffed in the palace, shackled to his King. It wasn’t fair. What if it were him I walked beside or danced with? I looked at Firoz and imagined Saalim as a man instead of a jinni, laughing and dancing and doing whatever he pleased because he was simply a human enjoying human things. If I ever saw him again, I resolved that I would ask if he could be freed. Was it possible, or was his future an eternity of servitude? Perhaps it would be my gift to him after all that he had given me.

  “We’re so alive, Emel,” Firoz said through a wild grin.

  “You’re drunk.” I shook my head, smiling.

  “You’re different.” His face was close to mine as he stepped in front of me. I could smell the liquor on him.

  Walking around him, I continued our stroll. “So are you. I’m sure the wine has something to do with it.” We stopped and looked at jewelry from the South. Bracelets made with the same glass beads and cowries I gambled with, thick beaded necklaces the same color green as the girl’s eyes. “How are your friends?”

  He looked at me, confused. “Can’t say. I haven’t seen them since we were there together. Why?”

  I stared at the sand as we walked from the shop. “You seem like you are all close.”

  “We’re friends, but not that close. Not like I am with you.” He pushed his shoulder against me.

  My belly tingled with happiness. “Really?”

  He laughed and again, looked baffled. “Yes really. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, still staring at the ground. “You and Rashid talked of leaving . . .”

  “Emel,” he stopped and held me in front of him. “If I ever leave and you haven’t already gone from here on your own, I’m strapping you to my back and taking you with me. You’re my best friend, and I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  Even if the words were just air that blew away as soon as they were spoken, they held me up like a home’s wooden posts. Someone, finally, I could lean against, assured that I was not alone in this desert. Firoz, I could rely on.

  I wrapped my arm around his waist and walked with him. I could not speak for a while, worried that my voice would betray my overflowing emotions. “Well, we at least agree on that.”

  We stopped at another shop where villagers crowded. A foreign man was selling small tastes of pomegranate wine. I convinced Firoz that we must try it, and he agreed when I dumped the scoop of salt into his palm.

  He drank the wine in one gulp and looked at me excitedly, “Emel, I’m in love.”

  “It is delicious,” I said, sipping mine.

  “No, Emel. I mean with someone. I am in love!” he said smiling widely.

  My heart pounded. “Oh . . . you are?” I asked shakily, leaning away from him. This was not a conversation I wanted to have.

  He spread his arms wide. “I am!” he yelled, then spun in a circle. When he saw my face, he laughed. “Not with you, you fool!”

  And then I laughed, too. Relieved.

  “But you, Emel. What has changed?”

  My cheeks were sore from beaming as I thought of what was different. From the outside, everything was the same, life exactly as it was. Yet on the inside, everything was new. I was in control. “This is what feels right.” Then I thought of Saalim. Almost right.

  Finally, the festival was at its close. It was the night of the King’s private party and, though I was sad to see the end to the village merrymaking that had offered some relief from the worries of the Altamaruq, I hoped that finally, I might see Saalim. The ahiran walked in a crowded line through the narrow halls smelling like sugared flowers.

  The party commenced when the sun began its fall from the sky. I could hear the rhythmic music bleeding through the walls as we were led through the palace. Our clothes hissed and chinked as we walked—the sounds becoming more muffled with each step we took toward the vast entertaining tents.

  Though the ahiran went to every one of my father’s private parties that ended the winter and summer festivals, the decadence always astonished us. We strode into the behemoth of a white tent and slowed our steps as we gazed at the room, completely transformed from when my father addressed his people those many moons ago. Deep cobalt swaths of fabric twisted above my head, reminiscent of a cold wind. Thick, newly woven rugs of similar blue hues were piled on the ground. Between the chilly twilight and the blue surrounding me, I felt I had waded into the cool, sapphire pool of the oasis.

  The tent’s sides were strung open to the unblemished desert, letting in the wintry wind to cool the revelers. The sky was a deep orange as sunset began, the ground set aflame from the light. Though I saw none, I knew guards were stationed outside.

  The loud music from the musicians scattered throughout the room drowned out the nervous patter of my heart, and I gazed at the partygoers around me. I hoped would find a way to blend in with them that night, that I would find Saalim. Sons, were there a lot of people. Hundreds gathered in the two tents that stood side by side. Robes of vermillion, jade, cerulean, ivory, and rose blurred across my vision as the men and woman circulated through.

  More slaves than I had ever seen roamed the halls holding goblets and decanters of wine, arak, and other spirits. I stepped to the center of the room toward a large banquet piled with food. My eyes roamed over the offerings: small dumplings wrapped in leaves, flaky pastries dusted with sugar and nuts, steaming piles of roasted meat, stacks of fresh flat bread.

  “If you lose me tonight, you’ll know where I’ll be,” Tavi mumbled beside me, staring at the tiered trays.

  “I’ll be right alongside you,” I said.

  “It counts if I kiss my dinner, right? I promise I’ll use my tongue.”

  Guests murmured as we spread ourselves through the room. Soon, the rowdy crowd was hollering in delight, some already flinging coins at their favorite ahira. The Salt King, sitting atop a silver chair on a small stage, called
for the attention of the crowd. Silence poured over us, and all merry faces turned toward him.

  He stood slowly, leaning against his wives for support. He wore silver and navy colored robes that matched the great tent. His blue turban, studded almost entirely with diamonds, resembled a heavily starred night sky.

  “My friends,” he said. “Thank you for coming to my winter celebration!” The people yipped and hooted in delight. “My beautiful daughters have arrived.” He gestured to us, brightly colored and scantily clad. “Now the party can begin. Praise Eiqab for his mercy this winter, and play nice with my girls!” He laughed loudly to himself and downed his drink. Guests holding goblets followed suit.

  We were released into the party to mingle, flirt, and tease. It was our role that night: partygoers could caress and kiss as they desired so long as they could pay. After shoveling two pastries into my mouth, I sauntered slowly through the crowd, matching the beat of the music. Compliments were purred for my breasts, my hips, my eyes, my hair, but I barely acknowledged them. My father’s game was not one I wanted to play anymore.

  Before long, a middle-aged man approached. “A dha for the first kiss, my dear?” I could not refuse outright, the man might complain to a guard or Nassar. But I could resist, just a little.

  “One dha only?” I raised an eyebrow. “I am worth far more.”

  He reached into his purse and pulled out three.

  I dropped my chin, and the man handed me three golden coins. I slipped them behind the fabric covering my breasts. He grabbed my neck and pressed his mouth against mine quickly, a chaste kiss. I tasted the arak on his lips. The surrounding crowd clapped and laughed in approval, and before long, a line of people waited for their turn.

  “That man looks like he may offer me more, I choose him,” I’d say to a handful of people, turning from them toward a man who looked kinder.

  “I like the look of that woman’s purse,” I’d say, nodding toward a woman who walked away from me.

  When I was alone with a guest, it was harder to say no, but when a crowd wanted attention, it was easy to deflect. The more coy I played, the easier it became to say no. I tingled with pleasure at each refusal, each assertion of my choice. In previous years, I offered guests whatever they wanted so long as they paid something. It was what was expected of us. For the first time, I dictated how the night went: how much they paid, how they touched me, whether or not they were allowed to kiss me. They happily listened, because, I realized, they relished the chase. And I thrilled at being in control.