Twelve Kings in Sharakhai Read online

Çeda eyed the way ahead, squinting against the brightness of the sun as it glinted against the flowing river. “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Why did your mother go to the blooming fields?”

  Emre was being sly. He had wanted to know for a good many years now, but he’d waited until they were halfway to the blooming fields to ask her again.

  It worked, too. Çeda reckoned it wasn’t fair of her to keep it from him any longer. “She came for the blooms.”

  “I know. But why?”

  She wasn’t surprised that he’d guessed about the blooms—what else could she be going all that way for, after all?—but she was embarrassed that she knew so very little about her mother’s life. Surely Ahya had planned to tell her one day: about the petals, why she collected them, what she meant for Çeda to do with them. She’d merely been caught before she’d had a chance to do it. Çeda had made the mistake of asking Dardzada about it a few months back. He’d not only refused to answer, he’d barked at her never to ask of it again. When she had asked a second time he’d beaten her for it and locked her in her room to think about how badly she’d disappointed him. He’d kept her there until the following evening, bringing her only bits of bread and water, telling her it was worlds better then she’d get from the House of Kings if they ever caught her.

  She hadn’t asked him about it again—she was no fool—but his actions had done nothing to quench the fire within her. If anything, it had thrown fuel upon it. She’d left it alone for far too long already.

  She’d made plans with Emre over the following weeks for this very outing, planning when they would go, how she would sneak away from the apothecary, what they would bring. The only thing she hadn’t worked out was how to tell Dardzada when she returned. She knew he’d be angry—knew he’d be a good deal more than angry, in fact—but she was nearly thirteen. She would make him see that she was becoming her own woman and that he could neither hide her from the world nor the world from her.

  “She gave me the blooms sometimes,” she told Emre while hopping along a series of rounded river rocks. “She’d take them herself, as well.”

  Emre tried to follow in her footsteps, but slipped and splashed in the water, twisting his ankle along the way. “When?” he asked, hissing and limping the injury away with embarrassment.

  “On holy days, but rarely those the Kings prescribe, only the days the desert tribes celebrate the gods or the making of the desert.”

  “But why give you petals, the very thing the Kings love most?” He caught up to her along a wide bank of smooth river stones. Ahead, the river ran straight until it curved to the right around a rocky promontory upon which an abandoned tower sat sulking like a long-forgotten grave. “Why take adichara blooms, like the Maidens?”

  This was a question Çeda had been struggling with for a long while, even before her mother’s death. She’d asked, but had never been answered, at least not to her satisfaction. “I think she took them because the Kings would deny them to her. She gave them to me for the same reason. That which the Kings forbade, she did. That was her way.”

  “Was she one of the Moonless Host?”

  “No,” she said immediately. “She didn’t agree with their ways. She thought them too brutal.”

  “But if she meant to kill the Kings—”

  “I don’t know if she meant to kill them.”

  “But her death . . .”

  “Yes, I know, but I think she’d been caught off-guard. Maybe she meant to take something from them.”

  Emre scoffed. “You don’t believe that.”

  “No, not really, but it might have been. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know.”

  Emre paused, and when he spoke again, it was with a quiet intensity. “Then why not leave it all alone?”

  Çeda looked at him, aghast. “Because they killed her.”

  “I know. But people die every day, Çeda.”

  Çeda stopped in her tracks, waiting until Emre stopped as well and faced her. “Go back if you don’t want to help. I’m fine on my own.”

  “No,” he said. “I want to go.”

  “You just said you want me to stop!”

  “No, I didn’t.” Emre looked completely confused, and more than a little scared. “It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  Emre didn’t respond. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore but over her shoulder. When Çeda stared at him, confused, he jutted his chin at something behind her.

  She turned and saw a wolf’s head, just above the riverbank. It approached until it was standing at the very edge, looking down at them. It was little more than a pup, and by Rhia’s kind fortune, it was white. Its muzzle was gray—as were the tufts of darker hair along the mane covering its withers—but the rest of it was snow white.

  She’d never seen such a thing. Never even heard of such a thing.

  Emre had picked up a rock to throw at it, but Çeda grabbed his wrist. “No!”

  “They’re mangy,” Emre said.

  “They’re beautiful.” She took out one of the lengths of smoked venison she’d stolen from Dardzada’s larder.

  “Don’t feed it.”

  “Why not?” she asked as she tossed it up to the embankment.

  No sooner had it landed than another maned wolf came padding up to the edge of the bank, this one the normal tawny color with a blackened mane and muzzle. Another followed, and another after that, and more, until there were eight in all. These were adult wolves, each standing every bit as tall as Çeda.

  Despite her words, despite her feeling that these were noble creatures, Çeda’s hands and arms quivered like a newborn’s. Her teeth began to chatter. She had no idea why. She wasn’t scared. Not really. They were just so wondrous.

  Two more pups came, the same size as the shorter white pup, which was as tall as Çeda’s waist.

  Emre reached for his knife, but Çeda hissed at him. “Don’t. They’re smart, Emre.”

  One of the wolves was itching to leap down. It ranged back and forth along the riverbank, looking down toward the rocky ground below. Another snapped up the venison and chewed, its head jerking forward as it swallowed. The rest, hackles rising, watched the two hapless humans, as if each were waiting for the next to attack.

  The white wolf, though, didn’t appear to be paying much attention to the pair of them at all. It nipped at one of the adults’ legs, then harder until the larger one reached back and bit it on the snout. Immediately the white one turned and loped off. The adult let out a strange yelp, almost like the cry of a yearling child, and then ran off after the pup. The others soon followed, leaving the one that was keen to leap down. This one—a beast with many black scars around its head and withers—lowered its head and growled, teeth bared, then it too turned and galloped after its brood.

  “We were stupid to bring only knives,” Emre said softly.

  “What would we have done with swords against a bloody pack of them?”

  “A far sight better than anything I could do with a rat sticker like this.” Emre held up his knife, staring at it as if he’d just realized how short it was. “Gods, what just happened?”

  “I don’t know, but Bakhi has clearly smiled upon us. Let’s not make him a fool.”

  She started to head upriver, but Emre grabbed her wrist. “We’re not ready for this.”

  “I am.” And she yanked her arm away and kept walking.

  She didn’t hear Emre following, and for a moment she thought it might be better if he did head back to Sharakhai, but when she heard the crunch of the stones as he followed her, she was glad. As eager as she was to see the blooming fields, she didn’t want to see them alone.

  They continued well beyond midday, following the river several leagues out into the desert. They were sheltered from the oppressive heat by the river, which was cool along the banks, and when they grew
too hot, they’d stop and splash water on themselves, cup water into their mouths until they were no longer thirsty, and then continue on. They came to a fork, where a small stream fed the River Haddah. Çeda chose to follow the stream, reasoning that it might make for easier walking as they came closer to the blooming fields.

  They followed it for several hours more.

  “Where do we stop?” Emre asked.

  “There,” Çeda said, pointing to a tamarisk tree in the distance. “They’ve got to be close. We’ll climb the tree and look for them.”

  The broad-trunked tree was some distance from the stream, so they drank their fill, topped off the waterskins in their packs, and left the streambed, making a beeline for the tree. When they reached it, Çeda unslung her pack and handed it to Emre. After a quick climb she was able to see far along the amber sands. To the east, she spotted the white sails of ships moving in the distance: a caravan, drifting over the sands to some distant port—who knew where? Çeda might not want to leave the desert, but she would love to ride aboard a sandship one day, travel the Great Desert and see the wonders she’d heard and read so much about.

  Northward, wavering in the desert heat, she thought she saw a smudge of black. There was another west of it: The blooming fields.

  Her fingers tingled. She’d never been, but she’d imagined so many things, and she wondered if reality would be anything like her dreams. A part of her was nervous about seeing them, but another part was glad this day had finally come.

  When she climbed down, she paused, noticing a flat stone nearly swallowed by the roots on either side of it. The stone was the size of her hands placed side-by-side, and engraved upon its surface was a complex sigil.

  “What is it?” Emre asked.

  “No idea,” Çeda replied, squatting down and trying to wrest it free. She had no luck, and they quickly moved on, heading for the nearest of the fields. As the sun lowered, throwing splashes of color against the cloudy western sky, they crested a low dune and saw a mass of trees spread out before them. When viewed from afar it was clear the trees were laid out in a very rough line—southwest to northeast—but as they trudged closer, they could see how erratic the spacing was. Like an island of black stone in the desert, inlets and islets and lakes of sand were hidden within the twisted groves.

  Small forms like hummingbirds flitted to and fro above the adichara, and several flew toward them.

  They were the açal. Rattlewings. Beetles as big as Çeda’s thumb with wings as wide as the spread of her hand. Their shells were iridescent black, and their wings were a glimmering shade of purple, but the wickedly curved mandibles were a muddy, bloody red—a color that marked many insects in the desert as poisonous.

  Many flew past before circling around and coming toward them once more. Then one landed on Çeda’s arm and bit her.

  She screamed in fright and pain and flung her hand at the beetle, but it had already flown up and away. Another came toward her. She swatted it away as one of them bit Emre.

  The two of them retreated, but more of the rattlewings were now swinging past them. A veritable cloud of them floated in the air ahead, swinging back and forth, effectively blocking their way.

  It was when Çeda turned back to look for an escape route that she noticed the carcass. Within the fields of adichara was the body of an oryx. She could see its distinctive black stripe running along its length, its white underbelly and its long ribbed horns. Much of the creature was wrapped tight in the arms of a tree, as if it had wandered into the grove and been strangled to death.

  As she and Emre backed away from the rattlers, swatting at them when they came near, Çeda spotted two other oryx among the adichara, beetles swarming out from within their dead carcasses.

  “Stop backing up!” she shouted. Gods, the thought of being slowly eaten by them, of becoming a home in which the rattlewings could lay their eggs and multiply. “They’re herding us toward the trees!”

  Emre glanced back, eyes wide with fear. Whether he understood or not, she didn’t know. But he took his pack and held it before him like a shield. Several of the beetles attacked it instead of him, but more swept in and stung him on the thigh and shoulder. He swatted them and took a step back as the cloud continued to thicken. “What are we going to do?”

  Çeda slipped her pack off and aimed it toward the beetles as Emre had done. “This way!” she said, trying to run to her left, but the buzzing black insects were quick to block her path. Another swept in and stung Çeda’s ankle. The arm where she’d been stung first was in terrible pain.

  Emre shouted again and swatted maniacally. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Çeda caught Emre’s expression, a perfect mirror of her own. He was terrified, frightened for his life. As was she. Her breath came rapidly now, the poison already beginning to spread through her arm, causing a deep aching sensation when she tried to swat the beetles. They couldn’t go on like this, and they both knew it.

  Hands shaking, his movements jerky and erratic, Emre pulled a blanket from inside his pack. He was crying with pain now, shouting at each new bite.

  After one last desperate look at Çeda, he threw the blanket over his head and shoulders. Holding the pack before him, the blanket blinding him, he screamed and sprinted away across the sand.

  The rattlers attacked, swooping in, many getting caught against the blanket. But many slipped beneath the blanket, stinging him over and over again. She didn’t know if Emre had meant for it to happen, but most of the rattlewings followed him, leaving a thinner cloud with her.

  “Leave him alone!” she yelled, running after Emre. “Leave him alone!” Tears streaming down her face.

  The beetles ignored her cries and came for her, though not nearly in the same numbers as for Emre.

  The sun had set, and the desert was cooling which, more than anything else, may have made the rattlewings peel off, one by one, and drift like dark clouds back toward the adichara. Emre didn’t care, though. Either that or he didn’t notice. He kept running, now screaming more from pain than fright. And Çeda followed, feeling small and foolish over the sacrifice Emre had made for her.

  Eventually all the beetles were gone, and still Emre ran, though it was now more of a limp, a strangled gait that barely kept him from falling to the sands.

  “Emre, stop!” she called. “They’re gone.”

  She didn’t know whether he heard her or not, for soon after he simply collapsed, the sand billowing where he fell. She dropped to his side and pulled the blanket away.

  And saw the travesty the beetles had made of his skin.

  Dozens of bites marked his face, arms, and legs. His torso and back, thank the gods for small favors, were blessedly free of the puckered wounds, but the rest . . . Dear gods, they might be enough to kill him.

  She’d never seen the rattlewings before and had heard of them only once or twice in passing—Dardzada talking with a client, perhaps, or maybe it had been Ibrahim the storyteller, or Davud, the annoying boy in the bazaar who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Her own wounds felt painful enough—her skin was swollen and reddened—but that in itself wouldn’t kill. It was the constriction against her heart that worried her most; it felt as if it were being pressed inside a box too small to contain it, and if her heart felt sluggish, what would Emre’s be like?

  “Emre?”

  He moaned, opened his eyes, fixed them on her with something akin to recognition. “Did I scare them off?”

  A bark of nervous laughter escaped her. She brushed his hair to one side, then got her waterskin out and gave him some of it. The rest she used to wash his wounds. Then she applied a salve meant to help against sunburns. She had no idea if either would help, but they might, and right now, easing the effects of the poison was more important than preserving their water. It was clear, though, that they would need more. And there was no way tha
t Emre would be able to walk. Not like this.

  By the time she was done, it was nearly dark. The stars were out. Only a strip of gauzy violet light still hung in the west. She needed to get back to the stream. There was water there, and she’d seen Sweet Anna along the way, and goldenthread, too. She could make a poultice from them.

  “Emre, can you hear me?” She wrapped both blankets around him and left the strap of his waterskin wrapped around his right wrist, left the pack open near his left in case he grew hungry, then she leaned forward and spoke softly in his ear, “I’m going to get some help, Emre.”

  “From your mother?”

  She almost cried. “No, Emre. My mother’s dead.” She stood and regarded him one last time.

  “Tell her I miss her.”

  “I will,” she replied, and then turned and loped toward the stream.

  THE MORNING AFTER SPEAKING WITH OSMAN, Çeda went to Emre’s room to change his bandages and found him sitting up, trying to pull on his boots. “No!” she snapped, rushing to his bed. “You’ve already pulled some stitches, Emre.”

  “I can’t stay in this bed any longer, Çeda.”

  “Emre, you’ve been out too often.” By Rhia’s bright eyes he was pale, even after a week of Dardzada’s remedies. “Lie down.”

  When he didn’t, she took him by the shoulders and forced him back onto the bed. His skin was clammy. She thought he’d taken a turn for the worse—an infection, perhaps, or the less threatening loss of blood and dehydration. But when she was finally able to pull back the bandages, his wounds looked much better.

  As Emre rested and drank more water, his color returned, but the look on his face was still grave. Something in him still seemed deeply pained. In his heart, she knew, not his body. “What is it, Emre?”

  He took a sharp breath, wincing from the pain of it, and said, “What day is it?”

  “Devahndi. Nine days since Beht Zha’ir. Why?”

  He shrugged. “It all still feels so real, like it happened just last night.”

  “That’s natural,” Çeda said.