Somehow I gasp out,Buckleberry juice with ground apricot seed,but the toll of the poison makes my words a knobbed jumble.
The emperor slumps forward, a faint relief in his outward breath as he holds out the pot.
‘Correct.’
2
The first wife of the emperor is a wretched, hard woman. The next day, she wastes no time in seeking me out in the apothecary quarters where I recover on a floor-bed. It’s the sombre grey hour before sunrise, when other mortals bend forward in prayer and plead for mercy in the sacred dusk. But she must find that beneath her.
Dunya perches on a divan near my floor-bed, observing my recovery with thinly veiled interest. She orders away the palace physicians and tells them to let me suffer.
I am ready for her. I did not rest. In the long terrible night, as the winds screeched through the palace grounds, and my heart alongside it, I curled into myself, holding on to the mortal body I had almost left behind that day.Make yourself anew.That I could do.
I’d imagined cleaving parts of my soul, wedging the memories of my childhood on the steppes, into the darkest abyss of my being. I’d lifted a finger and channelled my affinity. Using my anguish, harnessing it, I stroked a flicker of nur that arose from my hand.
Then I turned my affinity against my heart, for it had become clear that in order to survive I had to be my own enemy. I instructed that cold cosmic light to shatter all that I knew of my past life – the bloodied memories, the painful folktales of the tribe and Babshah that haunted me.
And now, before dawn, I glance at the brass mirror on the wall opposite. I lift my hand and tear off my last reminder of my tribe: the tetragram-shaped cap. With that, I rip out all that made me who I was before.
For a second, my reflection in the mirror changes. For the barest moment, something plays into a shadow behind me. I place my handdown. My reflection in the mirror delays the movement, staring amusingly at me.
I jolt and my reflection is normal again. I unwind the dozen braids of my hair, reminding myself: I am not the daughter of the khan’s sister, apprentice of the chief folkteller.
I am a warrior of Azadniabad, Empire of the Heavenly Crane, eighth child of the Great Emperor Fatih, child of his fourth wife Aysenör.
And so, instead of cowering beneath Dunya, I match the gaze of the first wife of the emperor. Clench the waver from my jaw. Fist my shaking fingers tight.
‘Second-Uma.’ The title tastes as wrong as her black soul. ‘The emperor must know it was you and Zhasna behind the poison. I will not bow beneath you. Poison as you must. I swallowed it. I live.’
She waves her hand. ‘Stupid child, you cannot even walk properly from your wounds. I did you a favour.’
I grip the hem of my qaftan, nails tearing a hole in the blue mulberry cloth. Behind her, the brass mirror reflects our positions, her on one end and I on the other.
‘Azadniabad is the symbol of the Heavenly Crane – we are one with our sibling, Brother-Nature. Even in violence, we act as the crane, deceptive but with grace.’ She smiles with teeth. ‘So you see, the poison wouldn’t have killed you. If I wanted to be done with you quickly, I’d have used a faster-acting venom. My dear little bird, this was a warning. The opportunity to run. Take this as a sign to flee back to the snivelling shepherds who grasp the horses, walk with your nature and speak to the wind. Listen to how you talk in that brutish accent; you butcher the refinement of our tones. The emperor is mortified by your presence, so much so, he had you stowed for three days in the monastery with the senile old monks. An empire is not fit for the likes of your wild kind.’
‘Second-Uma, what of your kind then, the type to poison unsuspecting girls?’
‘Yes.’ She is brazen. She stands and paces the length of the apothecary, her silver earrings, woven with white jasmine flowers, swinging with the momentum, incense billowing around her. Her fingers brush veins of plants crawling along the patterned niches of the marbled wall, juniper and cherry puckering the stems. The tang of medicinal herbs with fruit makes my head hurt.
‘You’ve already wasted your chance in gaining the emperor’s favour. It’s best you return to whatever remains of your uma’s tribe. Or do you want another taste of my poisons?’
It’s the easiest answer yet. This ismyfather’s court, not Dunya’s. I refuse to lose another home – another family. I will choose a clan and it will be this one. I’ve seen worse monsters than a mere poison.
After Dunya departs, I retch into a clay pot, my stomach spasming from the remnants of the poison. I wonder if I’ve truly lost my only chance to call this palace my home. I place down the pot.No.
Waving down a passing attendant, I order them to bring me the clothes of the Zahr clansmen, for I have the emperor to convince in my favour.
With the attendant’s aid, I prepare myself. Under a conical wool cap, my curly hair is loose and oiled, one thin plait woven with tassels of crane feathers and jasmine flowers. My raw silk qaftan is buttoned, the hem embroidered in gold flora, matching the younger clansmen. I tighten a bronze velvet waist-sash, a pale cape falling down my back.
I stalk from the apothecary into the palace corridors, roiling with cold-faced guards and slaving officers barking orders. I find a hall of steep ivory cloisters winding up to the administrative complex of the palace. On each side, carved openings bestow great views of the palace grounds below me.
The capital is a series of fertile lowlands ribbed by the carcasses of green mountains, bringing a clash of chilling wet and fog. Rising from the clouds, the ziggurats are closely set within the palace grounds, constructed of limestone bricks, painted in blue embossed glyphs that trail in whorled circles, portraying Azadnian history: battles of ancient beasts, angels flying to aid humanity, and the Heavenly Crane leading the first Azadnian tribes to thwart malicious jinn.
Two aži, the winged serpents, slumber inside deep moats surrounding the imperial quarters. Open sehans bisect the pomegranate and poppy gardens, surrounded by towering geometric walls, with a blue axis pond at the centre of each private courtyard. Even in the far distance, the sun beams down on the city interface of tightly stacked sandstone homes, unlike the scarce stone villages of the Camel Road.
At last, I reach a pair of inner gates under a vaulted dome, with an inscription of silver calligraphy across the blue tiling, as if the cosmoswere laid bare above me. I do not know my letters. I ask the guards if this entrance leads to the throne room.
‘Yes, Master Zahr.’ They bow, and I shift uncomfortably at the action.
