The emperor glances down at his parchments. ‘I proposed marrying him to you, to secure an alliance.’
Eliyas stiffens beside me. I brace my hand against the spruce desk, blinking once, twice.
‘Marriage?’
‘It’s a diplomatic strategy I used for my eldest daughter Bavsag. I married her to the prefect of Arsduq, in the south-east. Over four years, she poisoned her husband slowly, until he was bedridden, so she became governess. With the warlords coming under Akashun’s influence, they are all attempting to defy me. Bavsag is not strong enough yet to turn against seven other prefectures for my sake. For that, we need Izur to consolidate our eastern prefectures – the bulk of trade routes out of Azadniabad.’
I draw forward on the cushion. It’s not a terrible strategy. Still, my chest thumps like a restless steed. I ask carefully, ‘Does he have another wife?’
‘We will set the condition that he dismisses his other wives. I know you; you would be able to do away with him and take over Izur’s affairs.’
‘What about my affinity? He is not a fool. He is young. Hungry. He is a snake who murdered his father for power. He called me your dog. We...’ I falter at the emperor’s darkening expression. The ominous warning isn’t missed, snapping me into place. Behind him stirs the blackness of the room’s corners, and there, like always, a shadow stares at me. As it smiles, I spot jagged teeth.
Hyat Uncle simply sighs from behind my father before reaching across the desk and grabbing my elbow.
‘Reconsider, my Emperor.’ He rattles my arm. ‘She is the firstEajizfrom amongst your children; an unprecedented opportunity to infiltrate Sajamistan’s military institute through a kinsman you can trust. That is better for us than a marriage alliance.’
My head snaps to my uncle. ‘Me? Spy in Sajamistan?’
The emperor glares at him and their words lull to a back and forth too low for my ears. With a firm shake of his head, the emperor affirms, ‘No,’ without looking at me. ‘I’ve decided to wed her, in due time. For now, we need her resistant. To this.’ The emperor withdraws a white nephrite pot from beneath the low-table, a finger-span wide. He faces me again. ‘Eliyas will use this in your poison training.’
‘What is that?’
‘Jinn-poison. These are substances from the Unseen world, different from human poisons.’ The emperor lifts the lid of the pot, a greyish, pungent powder appearing like little more than rot inside. ‘There are thousands of jinn-poisons harvested from Sajamistani monks in the jinn city of Za’skar. This particular poison, when injected, allows the youngest of jinn to possess your throat. They control your tongue, slur your speech and command your thoughts. If the monks do not exorcise it with an antidote, eventually it causes you to rip out your own throat.’
Eliyas pales. Beneath the low-table, he reaches for my hand, squeezing it tight. I do not understand his concern.
‘My poison testers have been unable to master jinn-poisons as fast as I’d like. But you are young; you’ve grown resistant to human poisons. As an Eajiz, your soul has a relationship with the Unseen world, so you can master jinn-poisons. You will train slowly. Will you do this for me, child?’
‘Of course, my Emperor,’ I say eagerly.
He looks to my brother. ‘Eliyas, you will train her, secretly, as you have trained her mind and body. Harder than ever before. And you must bring drops of her blood in the monastery, to measure her resistance. I will await your reports.’
After we are dismissed, the emperor stops me by replacing Hyat’s grip on my elbow. Leaning down, his voice is harsh in my ear. ‘Do not defy my decision again.’
‘Yes.’ I hurriedly bow, my shawl sagging against my shoulders as if broken down, too, under his glare. But an ache plumbs through my chest; it’s like his long cold fingers clutch my heart instead of my arm.
5
years 510–512 after nuh’s great flood, era of the heavenly birds
In the mornings, I drink diluted doses of the slow-acting jinn-poison. The first type consists of the bones of horned beasts. Eliyas takes the powder provided by the emperor: ground karkadann hooves.
By the end of morning lessons, Eliyas scribes any effects of the jinn-poison. At noon, he raises the potency by brewing it in tea. I taste my way through breads and broths and more teas.
By eve, the jinn-poison fully kicks in, racking me in sweats and hearing strange whispers. Some nights I perceive a familiar shadow at the corner of my floor-bed, a pair of milky eyes watching me. Eliyas exorcises the poison through a bath of blessed olive oil. He questions me about my symptoms and collects blood drops. I tell him everything except about the strange shadow, since I had seen it before I began mastering jinn-poisons.It is not real, I always chant to myself.
With more poison exposure, my symptoms lessen over time until the night terrors disappear, though the shadow does not.
But the shadow is not the only strange happening.
In the next eighteen months, the emperor becomes absent; he spends his resources fighting melees across the northern and western prefectures. He recalls his kin from the autumn and winter capital Yalon, returning them to his stronghold in Navia. I am rarely permitted to leave the palace grounds. With scarce cattle from the steppe-borderlands raided by Sajamistan, and the shortage of white wheat from Yalon due to border incursions, Eliyas becomes more creative in diluting poisons in my meals.
During one morning of jinn-poison training, Eliyas holds out a clay bowl.
My tongue dips into the yakhni stewed from a skinny rooster. The backs of my feet are blistered from endless scratching. With a practised motion, I heave the poison out of my body into an empty clay pot. We’ve moved on to poisons derived from the feathers of aži.
‘No more,’ I whisper. Eliyas takes the bowl with a troubled look. I take note of a smattering of bruises under his jaw as he helps me lay on the floor-bed. He forces rosehip tea down my throat with a dollop of walnut oil and whisks me with cedar branches to return feeling to my limbs.
