Chapter 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 nūr 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 hand down. 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 Aysenor.
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 is my father’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 a?i, 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 cosmos were 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.
‘This is the holy eighth gate of obedience, in the Central Ziggurat, reserved for attendants and bureaucrats,’ a female guard explains before nodding me in.
Inside, on the left side of the corridor, the emperor is before the gates of the throne room, walking in with his advisers.
‘Dada,’ I call out, tripping over the cape of my qaftan.
He pauses at the low entrance but does not face me.
‘My Emperor, please. Bless me with another chance.’ I reach for his hand but he bats it away.
‘You broke your first promise. Why should I believe you?’
‘I did not understand before. But I understand now.’
Poison was the court’s weapon. Yet there were more frightful things than envious children and sadistic wives.
I recall the enemy’s sword poised above Uma.
The raider pinning me to the dirt, pawing his hands all over me.
The famine that dwindled us into a shell of our glory.
The aftermath of a pillaged tribe. I shake those reminders away.
‘Test me, my Emperor,’ I croak. ‘I made myself anew.’
His head inclines slightly, taking in my clan attire.
Without pause, the emperor turns and summons the attendants for food from the palace kitchens. They return with a tray of soups, and flatbreads stuffed to the brim with minced meat and potato. It smells enticing. A test.
Inside the throne room, we bow and fold on to kilim, the brass tray of food between us on the rug. A cage of cranes rustles behind the emperor.
On the tray, his calloused hands slice the crescent-shaped flatbread into fourths. He passes me one piece.
Poison. This is a better, kinder enemy, I accept. So I take the bread.
My tongue prods at it before I have a bite.
Chewing, I study the emperor. His brows are drawn together with crease lines on his sandy skin, earned from years of rule.
The tense posture of his body is a taut bow, eager for release.
I roll the bread over my tongue, reducing it to mush, recalling the poisons I’d studied for three days under the emperor.
His patience worn thin with my silence, he opens his mouth.
‘Wait!’ I plead. ‘I think I’ve figured it out.’
Clenching his jaw, his gaze touches mine briefly. ‘You think, or you know?’
His words are a test. I must choose my next ones carefully. ‘I know, Emperor.’
Bending forward on the kilim, the frayed sunburst of threads providing a slight buffer against the cold stone of the floor, he assesses me. An unmasking gaze chipping away at any strength.
‘Choose as if it’s a matter of life or death, daughter.’
Choice, a fickle concept; an illusion served on a golden platter. Sweat pools against my neck despite the chill. Thin slivers of red, raised skin from raking my nails across my skin are etched against the column of my neck.
Blood trickling down your chest; bile searing your tongue mixed with buckleberry poison, your limbs slackening—
My neck quivers at the memory. My fingers ache to itch my scabs. But no victory is achieved without pain, I know this well.
‘Choose,’ the emperor snaps, the past and present winding into his tone.
I spit the bread on to the tray. ‘There is barley, millet and rock salt.’ I pause.
He waits.
‘But there is also knapweed ground with red scorpion poison.’
Outside the wind roars, rattling the throne room, as if Brother-Nature is warning me not to provoke the emperor’s wrath.
For a tense moment, he stares, aloof. His obsidian eyes suck any courage from my soul.
He’s watching for any hesitation – any weakness – to reprimand.
A heartbeat passes before his face suddenly breaks.
‘Correct.’
Before relief can kick in, he passes me a bowl of yakhni, then another flatbread and a stuffed pastry.
I chew and regurgitate it all. I stammer through naming the poisons laced in the food, the same ones he had me study in my first days after arriving.
It’s a simple circumstance. A small mercy. He wants to bestow me another chance.
Eventually, the throbbing ache in my head dulls. The emperor’s tests end. He reclines back on his cushion, considering me in a new light. His voice drops tartly. ‘Do you finally understand the consequences of failing?’
‘I would die.’
‘By whose hand?’ He raises a brow.
My second hesitation. ‘Y-your enemies.’
‘No. Your enemies.’ He drums his fingers against the tray. ‘Tell me, who poisoned you?’
‘What?’
Now his brows furrow. ‘Last evening. Do you recall who poisoned you?’
My mind recedes into the jaws of that memory, while my body remains in his grip, panic in my heart.
It returns in fragments. Amongst it, wisps of Zhasna beside me, warm.
And that is it. The emperor ordered me to make myself anew.
All the gruesomeness, gone in a second. I think I’m forgetting how it felt to be poisoned by my own kin.
I . . . I do not remember. And I am relieved.
‘I cannot remember. And that is better.’ I bow my head.
‘You truly do not recall? Perhaps it’s the effect of the poison.
Though I’ve never seen this happen.’ He pinches and lifts my chin, exposing my thin pale throat, veined and bruised.
His finger brushes the scabs tenderly. ‘My suspicion is Dunya and Zhasna. I have no proof. We all ate from the same platters of food, tasted by the poison testers.’
‘Does Dunya suspect . . .’ my voice lowers, ‘that I’m an Eajīz . . . and wield nūr?’
‘Let us pray not. Or else, she wouldn’t hesitate to outright kill you, as many of our kin have done to others out of jealousy.
’ His shoulders shake at the musings as if it is all one great jest. ‘If you are to survive my courts, you must gain Dunya’s affection.
She is my first wife; my children with her are my best warriors.
Our eldest daughter is a powerful governess in the south-east, groomed to be my heir.
You will suffer as Dunya’s enemy. But as her ally, you will live blissfully.
’ He brushes his hand against my cheek. ‘But you also have mightier enemies to contend with.’
‘Like who?’ I say thickly.
‘The clans who raided your uma’s tribe. They are loyal to Sajamistan, the Empire of the Heavenly Raven.
Sajamistan has many armies. But their most powerful military is an Eajīz battalion, recruits trained by their oldest martial arts schools.
An entire elite army of warriors like you, blessed by the Heavens.
Leading them is the strongest Eajīz: the Sepāhbad-vizier, a general of generals.
’ His eyes recede as if gazing out at the future.
‘That is who you will train to be. Not equal to our enemy. Instead, more powerful.’
‘I vow it.’ I drop my head.
‘Go rest. Tomorrow begins your real training – constant training. I’ve not the time to teach you. But the monks will. Remember what I’ve said. You must earn this clan’s loyalty.’
He dismisses me. I loosen my clenched fingers and press my hands to my face. As the memories of the poisoned meal come howling back, I wonder: do children in this palace swallow poisons as I must?