Daughter of the Salt King

by A. S. Thornton

  The stench in the room was thick—the sour, foul smell of unclean bodies, liquor, and smoke. Though little time had passed, the Salt King was already sprawled on a large mat at the room’s center, two wives curled beside him. All appeared as corpses in the preternatural stillness.

  I surveyed the room curiously, noting the things that my father treasured. Trunks of salt pressed to the edges of the room, more than I realized he possessed. Baskets of glittering jewels and sparkling dha and fid. Another table strewn with arcing swords and delicate knives, some gleaming, others tarnished. Large, ornate tapestries depicting lovers hung from the crossbeams of the tent, lining the walls with vivid colors that glowed orange from the torch fire. A large armoire against another wall, door hanging open with robes spilling out of its cavernous mouth. Books stacked haphazardly throughout the room.

  I thought of what I wanted and needed and how it wouldn’t affect my father, wouldn’t impair him. My heart beat loudly as I waited for the fire to suddenly flicker, for chests to rise. Quickly, I searched through the scattered things beside my father’s bed, through the soft piles of robes near the armoire, through the objects on the tables. After failing to find what I sought amongst the trinkets and robes that were strewn about the room, I looked back to my father.

  Saalim watched me, fists clenched. I did not know if he was already fighting to keep the world still or if he worried he would be overpowered by Masira as I did.

  I crawled onto the mat, exceedingly careful not to touch the bodies that lay there. I pressed my knee in a soft part of the bed, and one of his wives rolled toward me, her eerily warm skin touching my calf. I nearly yelped but remained focused as I knelt beside my father, heart beating thunderously against my chest.

  There was a hiss of breath, and I did yelp before slamming my hand to my mouth and frantically inspected the room for signs of life. But everything was frozen still. It must have just been Saalim.

  “What happened?” Saalim said, approaching me.

  Pushing my hand to my brow, I said, “It was nothing.”

  Like a trespasser, I felt around my father’s hips and waist. His skin felt like mine, his flesh soft and weak as anybody’s. He was not invincible. His face was pinched, as though pained. It was strange, touching him and realizing that he, too, was human. He seemed so small. I continued feeling around, reaching into his pockets, until finally, I heard the telltale clink of metal against glass. I lifted the robe from his protruding belly and found Saalim’s prison. It was empty, fastened to the King’s waist by a braided leather belt.

  I am no threat to the Salt King, I mean him no harm.

  I unbound the vessel and took it into my hands. The clink of the metal chain hitting the glass wall was the only sound in the room to accompany my ragged, uneven breaths as I stepped off of the mat.

  We waited, and still the world was unchanged. I relaxed. Now, it was time to act.

  “Emel,” Saalim said cautiously.

  I closed my eyes, steeling myself. Though time did not move, it moved too fast. My time with Saalim disappearing like sand through an hourglass. The agony chased me, desperate to sink its claws in my back.

  I inhaled . . . exhaled . . . opened my eyes.

  “Before you do anything, tell me what is it you are planning to do.” He stepped toward me, pleading.

  “I will tell you everything. But first, take me back to the oasis. It is not safe here.”

  His hands quivered like leaves in the wind as he pulled me into his chest.

  We were back where we had been moments before. The world was still, as though everything that was happening would never exist at all. The trees above us were immobile, the water at the heart of the oasis like glass. Everything stood at a standstill while I, at the mercy of Masira, decided my fate.

  “Saalim,” I whispered, mostly to myself. Silent tears rolled down my face at his name, at what was to come.

  He eyed the vessel in my hand, wary.

  “Saalim,” I said again, louder this time. “I won’t let this be your life. You cannot continue to be a slave to every man who finds you. I love you too much.”

  “Emel, stop this.” He grasped my shoulders tightly, fear etched onto his face. “I have told you this. I don’t want my freedom. I don’t want it.” He spun away and walked out into the desert.

  “Wait!” I called after him, my tears slowing as my resolve hardened to iron. “Listen to me. We must restore your home. You must return to Madinat Almulihi as its leader because I love the people in this desert.”

  He turned around, returning to me with a shaking head. “No. I do not want it. I do not want anything without you in it.” His hands reached up to my face, his thumbs tracing over my drying tears. I stared at his chest, not daring to look in his eyes to see the pain I heard and could feel.

  “No, Emel,” he whispered. “I do not want my life back if it means that I am to forget you. I can’t leave you here in the village at the mercy of your father. I can’t let you do that.”

  “You misunderstand me.”

  He paused. I looked up to him to see hope breaking through the fear on his face like a sun through clouds. “You mean, you will ask for your freedom?” He sounded so relieved.

  I began to pace back and forth in front of him, clutching his vessel tightly in my hand. I fought to string words together to explain. “You made a bargain, and it will be fulfilled.”

  “I don’t understand.” His hope was gone. “What are you saying?”

  “I have agonized over what I would do about us, thinking it to be an impossible choice. How do I choose between the freedom of a man I love—a man who will become a king and return the desert to what it deserves—and the freedom of myself, an unknown future promised by Masira? How can I choose, knowing that we could lose us in the process? I misunderstood the entire time, Saalim. Perhaps just like you.

  “It does not have to be one or the other. We do not have to be lost. We can both be free, together.” And I felt it then, I believed it with every thread of who I was.

  In his eyes, I saw that he felt the same thing I did—the promise of possibility.

  I stopped pacing and stood before him.

  “Because I am marked, Saalim, everything changes. I will choose us, Saalim.” I took a deep breath. “But first, I must choose myself.” I continued. “You speak of bravery when one faces an enemy head-on, knowing they are doomed to fail. I do not think it brave. Had you run out onto those steps and fought those soldiers only to die, it would have been a foolish sacrifice. You gave the enchantress everything to save your home. Running from battle to seek her help did not make you a coward. You were smart.

  “The tales we tell in my village would paint me to be selfish for my choice. For first choosing myself over a great civilization and King. Or they would say I was a coward for wishing for my freedom rather than earning it with cunning or sword. But I am no fool. To choose to fight my father? I would die. And that is a fate I am not ready for.

  “So if I have only the choice to run or fall, I must choose to run. So I will run from here, Saalim.” I grasped his hands in mine. “If Masira is generous and allows you to go with me, then I will free you, too. But if we are separated . . . if we are a world away from each other—”

  Saalim opened his mouth as if to object.

  I did not let him speak. “We have to prepare for that possibility.” I gripped his hands more tightly. “If you aren’t with me, I will come back, because I will join the Dalmur. I will fight for you. Forever. Because I am making my choice for you, for me, and for us.

  “All of the people who carry your mark are waiting, Saalim. They are looking for their king. And when I am free, I will join their hunt, because I understand now that I am the only one who can succeed.

  “Because I will be the one who wishes, and you are the one who grants it, we will still have our memories of each other. It will be just like you said. And so no matter what happens, we will always be linked. And you will feel me when I call to y
ou. You can find me, so you will help me, right? We will circle each other like vultures in the sky.”

  He nodded, smiling with understanding. “I will do everything I can.” Hope was there again, bright and shining.

  “I promise you I will set you and this desert free.” The more I spoke, the stronger I felt.

  Saalim pulled me to him and clasped me as tight as he could, breathing me in.

  “You are as fierce as a hawk,” he murmured into my ear. “So go and be free of your cage.” He brushed his fingers against the fabric covering my chest. “Everywhere you are, I am. I trust you, my love, and I will wait for you always.”

  And so this was it. Tears fell from my face anew as we held each other for the last time. Then I stepped back and opened his vessel.

  “Saalim, I wish for you to return to your vessel.” If I was going to wish for my freedom, I was going to be the master of Masira’s magic, not just a recipient of the goddess’ fickle generosity.

  The jinni looked up at me, eyes full of sad hope, as he disappeared into a cloud of dust that slowly fell into the sand.

  The wind blew, the leaves rustled. At the return of the jinni into his prison, time could no longer be held at bay.

  I clutched the vessel, now closed and filled with swirling golden smoke, and pressed my mouth to it. “I love you,” I whispered, hoping he felt my devotion.

  Then, I opened the jinni’s prison.

  I did not know that it would be for the last time.

  I did not know that nothing would go as planned, that Masira could be so devious.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The golden smoke bloomed out into the oasis until it slowly coalesced down into the shape of the jinni. Seeing him like that, with his head bowed and shoulders curved forward, I wavered. Would it be better to free him? Could I live another day knowing he was still a slave to Masira, to his master, trapped in his prison?

  “Emel,” he said quietly, breaking through my doubt, “have you a wish?”

  I sucked in a shaking breath. I hoped that I was not wrong, misled. I hoped I would still have him with me when freed, but if not, I hoped I would find him. Only the one who wished will remember what was before. The one who wished and the jinni who granted it. Saalim had told me so long ago. I was relying on that truth.

  “Emel?” Saalim asked, sensing my reluctance. He looked up. “You must do it. You must be free.”

  I looked into his eyes and saw his heartbreak, his hope, his fear. I ran to him, tossing his vessel into the sand beside us, and fell into his arms.

  “I hope—” I began.

  “It will work,” he assured me.

  “If we are apart, I will miss you. However long it takes for me to find you, I will miss you every moment.” My tears came again. “I hope I find you,” I whispered, and I felt Saalim pull me even closer to him.

  I was sure I would be sent far from my home—how else would I reach my freedom? I did not dare to hope that I would be freed and still within reach of the vessel. That would be much too simple, and Masira was not so generous. Would Saalim and his prison be left in the oasis? Surely he would be found by someone else. Would it be the Salt King again, Nassar, or someone else entirely? I only hoped it was someone kinder than the King, so that while I joined the Dalmur’s hunt, he did not suffer.

  “I love you,” he said to me. I heard the aching sadness in his voice.

  Finally, I pulled my head back and looked into Saalim’s agonized face, his glistening golden eyes. I held his face in my hands and mouthed, I love you. I kissed him, just once, on his cheek.

  Masira did not care about small sacrifices of water and salt. She heard real sacrifice. So I would sacrifice everything I had, just like Saalim had once done—my family, my home, my love. Take it all from me, Masira, if it means you will listen. I hoped She heard. I hoped She would deliver. I soaked in everything I wanted to come from this wish, let it saturate me—my hopes for Saalim, for myself, for my home and sisters. And I couldn’t resist, I thought of my father. That one day, Masira would give him everything he had given us.

  With indisputable resolve, I leaned to Saalim’s ear. “Saalim, I wish for freedom from the Salt King.” My words were simple but my heart said so much more.

  Had his mouth not been near my ear, I would have missed his words. “Master, I obey.”

  Still holding the jinni, I waited to feel something—a tingling in my chest or my toes or my fingers. But I felt nothing.

  Suddenly, Saalim’s back arched. A gut-wrenching scream ripped from him, and he clung to me as though I were an anchor to a world that he was being washed from. He roared a single broken no.

  “Saalim?!” I shrieked, pushing away from him.

  “Emel!” He cried, staring at his hands.

  It was the last word he would speak to me, and it echoed into the desert for only a moment before it was snuffed out like a flame.

  The jinni held his arms before him, looking with terror at the changes in his body. The gold of his skin was leeched from his body into the golden, petaled manacles. And when they had swallowed all, they fell from his wrists and dropped dully onto the ground.

  “No, no, no!” I yelled. “What is happening?! I didn’t wish for this! This isn’t what I wanted!”

  Saalim could not respond. His hands, then arms, feet, then legs, began to swirl violently with a hot wind that seemed to tear him apart, removing him one grain at a time. His extremities disintegrated into dust, swirling wildly around him. Saalim spared his limbs only a moment’s glance before he looked back to me, a tortured expression on his face.

  I tried to grab him, prevent the magic from taking him away. But when he was only dust and wind, there was nothing I could take hold of. I screamed, tormented as I watched Saalim being pulled apart, as I watched him splinter into dust.

  I couldn’t make sense of it. I had not yet wished for his freedom. It couldn’t happen yet. How would we find each other?

  “Saalim!” I cried again and again until there was nothing left of him. The golden ash fell without a sound, leaving not a single trace.

  Had I misspoken? Had I said your freedom?

  As I gazed at the empty place where Saalim used to be, I began to understand implication of what I had done. I felt like a fool. I had been so confident, so sure that I was doing the right thing. That my fate was in my hands when I held Saalim’s vessel.

  I was so wrong. My fate was in the hands of Masira, and She was a fickle goddess. She might listen, She might hear, but She would do as She pleased. Like the card games with my sisters, unless I held the strongest card, I could never be sure to win. Masira would always have that card. Why did I let myself forget it?

  Enormous regret crushed me, and I collapsed onto the ground where Saalim had fallen, clawing at the earth to find some part of him that proved to me that he was not gone. I found his vessel, and when I saw that it was empty, I sobbed.

  I looked down at my clothes, the same clothes I had worn when I saw Ibrahim. They were unchanged. My fingernails were the same, my black hair still long. I looked up to my village, also unchanged. Still a massive huddle of tents with a white palace at its center.

  Saalim was gone, and I was still an ahira. I would never be able to find him. I would never see him again. And I would be sent to Omar to live the rest of my life as his whore.

  I scooped the sand where he had fallen into his empty vessel, apologizing to him through my cries for my foolishness, that I had done wrong, that I had misjudged everything. I clung to the golden manacles that lay unmoving on the ground, still hot from his skin. I pulled it all into my chest as I curled into myself.

  When I had no tears left, when I was filled only with dry, aching grief, I rose from the ground, covered in sand. I winced in pain. How long had I lain on the desert floor? My muscles were cramped, my shoulders tired, my skin rubbed raw from the sand.

  But that was nothing compared to the agony in my chest.

  With a small glimmer of hope, it occur
red to me that if Saalim was no longer a jinni, perhaps he had returned to his home. Did Madinat Almulihi stand once again? But I could not get there. I would not be able to find him. I had no camel, no direction-telling bawsal, no caravan to take me.

  The desert had not changed. There was no new sand beneath my feet, no great rumble that brought forth a kinder desert from beneath the one I knew. Saalim was gone.

  Fear began to rise. If time was moving forward, if I was still an ahira, I would soon be missed. I considered the amount of time that had passed. The sun dropped from the high point in the sky. Dusk would arrive soon, and I would be delivered to Ibrahim.

  I found the broken soldier toy stowed beside the rock. Staring at the small carvings a knife long ago had made, I touched the planes of his face, the hilt of his sword, holding it like it was the most delicate thing in the world. It was. The hammered gold that had encircled Saalim’s wrists was now cold, and again, I felt the visceral ache of grief. The pain all lovers dread—the mourning pang of a forever goodbye.

  If Masira would not allow it, then I would find my freedom another way. I would not return home. I would not return to my father. I would either find somewhere to live uncaged or let Eiqab turn me to dust.

  Holding everything that remained of Saalim to my chest, I took several measured steps toward the emptiness that waited on the other side of the trees. I could run. I could be free.

  Then, I saw smoke from the depths of the desert. It startled me back to reality, and I stared at it. A narrow, billowing cloud rose up from beside a dune. Then, a blur of black emerged, the dust it kicked up rising like a specter.

  Someone on horseback, I realized. Probably a runner, as they were the few who used horses. My heart raced as my gaze flashed from the approaching runner back to my village. Runners always approached the oasis, and Nassar always came out to meet them. I could not linger. I had to move. I glanced once more at the empty horizon behind me—did I walk into its yawning jaws? Let it take me forever?