A Desert Torn Asunder Read online

  In the battle’s closing moments, Çeda is nearly killed by the fearsome ehrekh, Guhldrathen. Guhldrathen, however, is swept up by Rümayesh and destroyed. This frees the path for Çeda to kill King Onur, which she does in single combat.

  Beneath the Twisted Trees

  Sharakhai was sorely weakened after the Battle of Blackspear, the intense conflict that saw King Onur die and the thirteenth tribe narrowly escape the royal navy and the Sharakhani Kings. Sensing that Sharakhai is ripe for conquest, the kingdoms of Malasan and Mirea sail hard across the Shangazi Desert, each planning to take the city for their own.

  Unbeknownst to all, Queen Meryam sent Kiral, King of Kings, to die in the Battle of Blackspear, while putting Hamzakiir, disguised with her blood magic, in his place. To further secure her power, she forces Hamzakiir, in his guise as Kiral, to marry her, thus cementing her place as a queen of Sharakhai. Their nuptials are interrupted by the goddess, Yerinde, who demands that the Kings kill Nalamae, her sister goddess, who has remained in the shadows for centuries but who Yerinde fears may interfere with her plans. Knowing Yerinde could undo all they’ve worked for, the Kings agree and a hunt for Nalamae begins.

  Çeda, meanwhile, searches for a way to liberate the asirim from the curse placed on them by the desert gods. She frees a family of asirim that, against all odds, has remained together since Beht Ihman four centuries earlier. Çeda discovers a way for the asirim to bond with her handpicked warriors, the Shieldwives, which helps them to resist their compulsion to obey the Kings.

  Using a legendary bird known as a sickletail, the Kings find Çeda in the desert and attack, but she and those with her are saved when Nalamae suddenly returns. While escaping, they take a lone prisoner, none other than Husamettín, King of Swords. Nalamae was wounded in the battle, however, and is in desperate need of a safe haven, so Çeda sends her to a valley where the bulk of the thirteenth tribe hides.

  Çeda, meanwhile, along with Sümeya, Melis, and the asirim, sneak into Sharakhai and corner her former sister in the Blade Maidens, the famed Kameyl. Çeda explains to Kameyl the Kings’ betrayal of the thirteenth tribe on Beht Ihman, the enslavement of the asirim, their deceptions to hide their crimes. Kameyl is unconvinced until Çeda tricks Husamettín into revealing many of his long-held secrets. Realizing it’s all true, Kameyl helps Çeda, Sümeya, and Melis to steal into Sharakhai’s uppermost palace, Eventide, and free Sehid-Alaz, King of the thirteenth tribe, from imprisonment.

  In the process, they’re nearly captured, but King Ihsan has been working behind the scenes to forestall the gods’ plans. After reading a prophetic entry in the Blue Journals—of Çeda’s freeing Sehid-Alaz—Ihsan helps her and the others to escape but is captured by King Emir of Malasan, who has begun his invasion of Sharakhai. King Emir’s father, Surrahdi the Mad King, was long thought dead but is revealed when Ihsan arrives in the Malasani war camp. Surrahdi created hundreds of golems for the assault on Sharakhai but was driven mad in the process. On seeing Ihsan, Surrahdi cuts out Ihsan’s tongue, robbing him of his magical voice and its power to command others.

  Emre has been traveling to the southern tribes on a mission for Macide. He hopes to form an alliance among all thirteen tribes to act as a unified force not only against Sharakhai, but Mirea and Malasan as well. Emre hopes to secure peace with the Malasani King, but when King Emir makes it clear that any accord will entail the desert tribes’ bowing to the will of Malasan, Emre is certain he’s failed.

  Queen Meryam, forced to deal directly with the looming threat of Mirea, goes with Sharakhai’s navy and confronts them on the sand. The Mireans have managed to entice an ehrekh, Rümayesh, to work with them. Rümayesh has a servant, Brama, who eventually sympathizes with the Mireans when a plague is introduced into their ranks. The plague is voracious, but Brama finds a way to nullify it with the help of Rümayesh, thus saving a good portion of the Mirean fleet.

  After her near capture in Eventide, Çeda returns to the desert and works to free King Sehid-Alaz, finally succeeding when she realizes that Husamettín’s own sword, Night’s Kiss, can be used to kill and rejuvenate. Sehid-Alaz, his chains broken at last, frees the rest of the asirim. This momentous event occurs just as Meryam is throwing the might of Sharakhai’s royal navy against the weakened Mirean fleet. Things look to be going Meryam’s way, but when the asirim all flee at Sehid-Alaz’s bidding, the tide turns and the royal navy is forced to retreat toward Sharakhai. The Mirean fleet, badly weakened, remains to lick its wounds in the desert.

  During the battle, Brama learns that Rümayesh has been trying to steal his soul. He stops her using a powerful artifact, the bone of Raamajit the Exalted, but Rümayesh manages to save herself by fusing her soul to Brama’s. Brama and Rümayesh are now inextricably linked, their souls sharing the same scarred body.

  King Emir, meanwhile, renews his assault on Sharakhai using the Malasani golems, an unstoppable force. But Ihsan, even though imprisoned and mute, is not powerless. He’s learned the reason for Surrahdi’s madness: the golems themselves, each of which required a splinter of Surrahdi’s soul, weigh on him, putting him on the very brink of insanity. Ihsan, using his gift of manipulation, convinces Haddad, a woman Surrahdi loves and respects, to force Surrahdi to face his misdeeds. Surrahdi becomes distraught and slips entirely into madness. The golems do too, and the entire Malasani assault is thrown into chaos.

  Davud the blood mage, Anila the necromancer, and Lord Ramahd Amansir of Qaimir are in similar circumstances: they’re on the run from the powers of the city. They join forces for mutual protection but are split up when King Sukru captures Anila and takes her back to his palace in the House of Kings. King Sukru wants the return of his brother, the blood magi known as the Sparrow, and he hopes Anila can help him using her power over the dead and the wondrous crystal beneath the city, which acts as a gateway to the farther fields. When her family is threatened, Anila agrees to help, but tricks Sukru in the end and then kills him when her brother is summoned from the dead.

  As the battle for Sharakhai reaches a fever pitch, Davud and Ramahd work to free Hamzakiir from Meryam’s imprisonment. They manage to do so in grand fashion, breaking the chains Meryam has placed on him and, in the process, revealing Meryam as a traitor to her own throne and to Sharakhai. Meryam, however, has allied with the children of the Sharakhani Kings to start a new order. With them, she overthrows the old power structure and takes a position of leadership among the new.

  Never abandoning the quest for Nalamae, King Beşir goes with a sizable force to conquer the thirteenth tribe in their mountain fastness. Çeda kills King Beşir and returns to the fort where she finds Yerinde standing over her wounded sister goddess, Nalamae. Çeda sneaks up on Yerinde and slays her with Night’s Kiss, a sword forged by the dark god, Goezhen. Nalamae, having been given a mortal wound by Yerinde, dies moments later.

  As the story closes, Emre frees King Ihsan in repayment for his help in saving the city. When Emre returns to the tribe, however, he’s intercepted by Hamid, a childhood friend of Emre’s and once a rising star in the Moonless Host. Hamid, both jealous of Emre and incensed by his actions, attacks Emre and buries him alive in the sand.

  King Ihsan, meanwhile, gets the Blue Journals from Queen Nayyan, planning to read them all to find a path to save Sharakhai.

  And in the valley, Çeda plants the acacia seed her mother left for her. The acacia tree begins to grow at an incredible rate. Knowing Nalamae would have been reborn, Çeda vows to find her in her new incarnation—Çeda is determined to learn the plans of the gods and stop them once and for all.

  When Jackals Storm the Walls

  Çeda’s quest to find Nalamae in her new incarnation leads her to the dusty streets of Sharakhai. After working with Queen Nayyan to secure access to King Yusam’s fabled mere, Çeda finds signs that the goddess will be found in King’s Harbor. Along with two former Blade Maidens, Sümeya and Kameyl, and the Shieldwife Jenise, Çeda finds and captures a sh
ipwright named Varal, who doesn’t yet realize she is the goddess reborn.

  In the desert, King Ihsan has been reading the Blue Journals, which contain prophecies penned by the deceased seer, King Yusam. The entries lead Ihsan to reconcile with Kings Husamettín and Cahil, who both fled Sharakhai after nearly being killed by Queen Meryam. Ihsan convinces them to kidnap King Zeheb, who is still mad from Ihsan’s command to listen to the whispers around him. He further convinces them that, for Zeheb to regain his sanity (and therefore his god-given abilities) Ihsan must be healed of his own affliction: his missing tongue. The restoration of Ihsan’s tongue does indeed allow him to lift Zeheb’s spell of insanity, but it comes at a cost. Zeheb escapes and returns to Sharakhai.

  When Ihsan, Husamettín, and Cahil return to Sharakhai, Zeheb himself finds them and leads them to their true quarry: Nalamae, who Ihsan is convinced is key to saving the city. In following her trail, they stumble across Çeda, who has secreted Nalamae away on the estate of Osman, the owner of the gladiatorial pits Çeda once fight in. In liberating Nalamae from Çeda and her friends, Osman is killed by King Cahil.

  Vowing revenge, Çeda goes to save Nalamae, only to find that Goezhen, god of chaos, is hunting for her as well. A hasty, unwilling alliance is formed between the Kings, Çeda, and her allies. They fight the dark god together, their combined might not inconsiderable. Even so, the god nearly destroys them. They’re saved when Nalamae awakens for the first time and Goezhen is forced to retreat under her surprisingly potent assault.

  Emre, meanwhile, has narrowly escaped death at the hands of his childhood friend, Hamid. He finds Hamid in the desert and challenges him to a duel to the death. With Frail Lemi’s unexpected help, Emre defeats Hamid, and Hamid flees into the desert. After securing an agreement from the three final tribes to join the tribal alliance, Emre sets sail for the valley to speak to Macide, Çeda’s uncle and shaikh of the thirteenth tribe.

  In the valley, Çeda and Emre are finally reunited, but their joy is short-lived. Nalamae, on seeing a prophetic vision from the magical acacia tree that Çeda herself planted, departs the valley, saying she must stop her brother and sister gods alone. Shortly after, the thirteenth tribe sets sail for Mazandir to broker peace with Queen Meryam, that their individual forces might concentrate on the desert’s invaders, the kingdoms of Mirea and Malasan.

  The tribe doesn’t realize that a dark plot is unfolding. Hamid has long coveted the role of shaikh, and Meryam has long sought revenge for Macide’s slaying of her sister, Yasmine. The two work together to betray Macide and set Hamid up as shaikh. Hamid, knowing that Sehid-Alaz, the ancient king of the asirim, could put a stop his plans, convinces him that Çeda has betrayed the tribe by allying with the Kings of Sharakhai. Though Sehid-Alaz loves Çeda like a granddaughter, his hatred of the ancient Kings is so great he reluctantly agrees to allow Hamid’s plans to unfold.

  So it is that a climactic battle takes place in Mazandir that sees Çeda and Macide taken by Queen Meryam, the thirteenth tribe torn in two, and Ramahd Amansir failing in his quest to capture Meryam and bring her to justice.

  In Sharakhai, Queen Meryam has been preparing a terrible ritual she hopes will rid the desert of the thirteenth tribe altogether. The ritual begins in the cavern below the Sun Palace, where a crystal fed by the adichara trees has slowly been growing in power over the last four centuries. Macide’s own blood is used to trigger the ritual, and it works, compelling those with blood of the thirteenth tribe to journey to the blooming fields and throw themselves to the twisted trees.

  What Meryam doesn’t realize is that the gods have been manipulating her. As the victims of the ritual die, their blood feeds the twisted trees, which in turn feeds the crystal. The crystal, unable to contain so much power, begins to crack. Soon it will shatter, creating a gateway to the farther fields, the very thing the young gods have been hoping for since making their dark bargain with the twelve Kings on the night of Beht Ihman four hundred years ago.

  Knowing the worst is about to happen, the necromancer, Anila, and the thief, Brama, use the fabled artifact, the bone of Raamajit the Exalted, to step through to the farther fields and hold the doorway closed. Nalamae, meanwhile, performs a ritual to prevent her brother and sister gods from approaching the city and interfering. She does so by using the heart of Goezhen, whom she slew on the edges of Mazandir.

  In the end, the crystal shatters, but the gateway formed isn’t wide enough for the young gods to step through. Ramahd captures Meryam and strips her magic from her in a ritual known as burning. The resulting chaos allows Queen Alansal of Mirea to sweep into Sharakhai and take it as her own, forcing the heroes to flee into the desert.

  As the story closes, the young gods, knowing they still have a chance gain the farther fields, find Meryam in Mazandir and free her from imprisonment. They give her Goezhen’s corpse and bid her to find the fallen elder god, Ashael, that she might regain the power she lost in Sharakhai. Seeing a glimmer of hope that the desert might still be hers, Meryam agrees.

  Chapter 1

  An age had passed since the elder gods left the world. In the time since, the goddess Tulathan had felt anger and resentment over her abandonment. She’d grieved, knowing she’d never again feel the touch of the first gods. Sometimes she’d lashed out, destroying that which the elders had wrought. Rarely had she felt anxious—for so long there had been nothing to be anxious about. As she floated through the air toward a misshapen hill of red sandstone, however, she found her chest tightening, her heart pounding.

  And why shouldn’t my soul be stirred? The decision I make this day will decide my fate.

  She alighted on a rock. As the sunbaked stone warmed her feet, a hot wind blew. It toyed with her long, silvery hair, throwing it about like gossamer. The wind’s scent, redolent of sandalwood and myrrh, was peculiar to this part of the desert and yet another reminder of the long-lost elders. The unique scent had been Raamajit’s doing. Tulathan had loved it once. Now she loathed it.

  Sailing in this part of the Great Shangazi was particularly dangerous. Stones plagued the sand. Many stood out starkly like foreboding sentinels and were easily avoided. But more lay just below the sand’s surface. Stones that could ruin a ship’s skis, or worse, shatter its struts. They were the very reason most ships avoided sailing in this part of the desert and, in a roundabout way, the reason King Ihsan, one of the Sharakhani Kings, was sailing these treacherous sands.

  In the distance, his ships, a trio of royal galleons, snaked their way through the towering stones, moving ever closer to their destination: one particular cove. Tulathan swung her gaze to her right to look upon it, a patch of hidden sand all but indistinguishable from thousands of others sprinkled throughout the desert—except this one had secrets buried within it, secrets the King had come to collect.

  What King Ihsan didn’t know was that a fleet of junks lay hidden beyond the cove’s craggy arms. The junks were owned and crewed by a Kundhuni warlord, and bore fierce grassland warriors. There were more besides—three full companies of Mirean infantry plus several qirin warriors—an indicator that Sharakhai’s conqueror, Queen Alansal, had a special interest in this particular mission.

  At a disturbance beside her, Tulathan turned to find her sister, Rhia, suddenly standing on the same sun-baked stone. Her flaxen hair was plaited. Her golden skin glittered beneath the sun. Her eyes were dreamy, half-lidded, an indication she was sifting through the sands of fate, searching for the bright grains that would reveal the path to the treasure they all sought.

  “Return to me, sister,” Tulathan said in the desert’s most ancient tongue. “I have need of you here. We all do.”

  Rhia blinked, then regarded Tulathan with a wounded expression. “I have much to attend to, even now.” Her eyes shifted to the royal galleons wending their way among the rocks, then the bay with the Kundhuni junks. Moments later, her gaze drifted beyond the horizon once more.

  Deciding to let
her be for the time being, Tulathan turned toward a colorful thread of light hovering in the air nearby as her brother, Bakhi, stepped through it. He wore high leather sandals, a belted chiton, and a laurel wreath. His beard was trim, his brown hair tousled. Of them all, he’d always been the most sanguine, but just then he looked as troubled as Tulathan felt.

  After a nod to Tulathan, Bakhi strode past dream-eyed Rhia and regarded the galleons. “So the Honey-tongued King has come at last.”

  There was a crunch of footsteps below. Rounding an outcropping of rock farther down the tilted landscape was the fourth of their number: Thaash, god of war. He had a bright shield strapped to his back. The golden sword given to him by Iri hung at his side. One could hardly look upon Thaash without thinking of war, an effect that was only enhanced by his bronze skin and coppery hair. He marched up the incline and came to stand beside them, silent and brooding as a golden roc.

  Despite Tulathan’s vow not to dwell on the past, their somber gathering was made all the more subdued by the absence of two. Four centuries earlier, when they’d begun their quest to reach the farther fields, none of them had been confident they would succeed, but each had been willing to gamble on it, thinking the worst that happened would be simple failure. None feared death, yet two of them had died. Yerinde had been slain by the mortal, Çedamihn, in the stronghold of the thirteenth tribe, using a sword forged by Goezhen. Goezhen had followed his sister into death mere months later. Fixated on the struggle between the Sharakhani Kings and Queen Meryam in Mazandir, Goezhen hadn’t sensed Nalamae’s approach. She had trapped Goezhen in a pool of water and used Yerinde’s adamantine spear to pierce his heart. The twist in fate had created a sort of ruinous chiaroscuro, the weapon of each being used to kill the other.