Chapter 15
Quick overview of the four pantheons of Shawafa
(plus a note about elementals):
Green: The pantheon of Rabia, associated with earth energies—nature, growth, restoration and fertility—most commonly manifests as Shifa (healer) or Hadaiq (gardener).
Silver: The pantheon of Iman, associated with air energy—communication, expression, transformation, and travel—most commonly manifests as Waswas (whisperer) or Mutahawil (shifter).
Red: The pantheon of Noor, associated with fire energy—strength, illumination, defense, and lust—most commonly manifests as Batal (champion) and Hamsa (shield).
Blue: The pantheon of Rasha, associated with water energy—calm, flexibility, wisdom, and balance—most commonly manifests as Ghaib (concealer) or Taqs (weather caster).
Note that element manipulators, known as Jinnamin, can manifest in any of the above pantheons and are able to create, shape, and control one of the four elements.
—excerpt from Harnessing the Flow: A Compendium of Feminine Magic
Shay can't find her remembrance beads. She's thoroughly searched her sleeping room, the kitchen, the salon, and the washroom. The cottage is not so large that there are copious places to look. If Hammu laid his sticky fingers on them …
Soft thumps and sounds of shuffling come from the bone-eaters’ sleeping room.
Since the brothers have left for the night, Shay surmises Khawla musts be in there.
She would assume the maid is cleaning, since that is what maids generally do, but in the first quarters of Khawla's employment, she has shown scant domestic proclivity, spending more time doodling in notebooks that leave her side of their shared room a bin of pencil shavings. With her penchant for conversation and a rather delightful ability to impersonate the brothers’ speech and mannerisms, she's been more of a distraction for Shay than anything. Although by no means an unwanted one.
“Khawla, have you seen—”
A cast of silver shines from between Khawla's fingers as she holds up the hjabat, about to slip the heavy ring onto her other hand. She pauses, looking over at Shay, her face brightening. “Look what I found hidden away in Aidi's wardrobe!”
Thoughts of the missing beads fall away, and feelings of mistrust rise in their place. Shay swallows tightly, but experience has shown her not to ignore her suspicions. “Why would you open a box that doesn't belong to you?”
“It's not like I'm planning to keep it,” Khawla says with an easy smile, as if that makes her actions permissible. “I just like being nosy.”
“Well, don't put that on.” Shay hastens closer and stops herself a breath away from snatching the ring. “Just—put it back where you found it.”
Khawla lowers her hand. She tilts her head. “Why are you so upset? Is it yours?”
Shay almost says no—that would be safer. But the longer Khawla is here, the more accustomed to her presence Shay becomes. Her growing attachment will only make it harder when the maid inevitably learns the truth and consequently abandons her.
“Yes.” Shay sighs with all her chest. She squats down on the closest sleeping pallet—Deebi's if the knotted blankets, scattered crumbs, and pillows puddled thick with drool are any indication. “Please don't ask me to explain. It will be so much better if you can just put the hjabat away.”
“What did you call it?” Khawla stares at the ring with a new glint in her eyes, before turning that gaze and its ferocity on Shay. “You have to tell me now.”
The maid plops down in front of Shay on the floor. A wiser seating choice, come to think of it. Shay scoots off the pallet and joins her there. She wrings her hands. “Alright. I'll tell you. But give me the ring first.”
Khawla cradles the talisman in her palm and brings it level with her nose. She regards it with squinted eyes. “But it's not a ring, is it?”
“The hjabat,” Shay reluctantly amends, holding out her upturned palm. Her heart sinks to the pit of her stomach. Somehow, her mother is still managing to ruin her life even while being completely absent from it. “Please, give me the hjabat.”
“Wakha, wakha.” Khawla relents, placing the ring in the cup of Shay's hand. The maid peers at her steadily. “I understand if you don't know me well enough to trust me. But I assure you, your secrets are safe with me. Should you choose to confide them.”
She has no idea about the magnitude of what she's asking. And yet … Shay gets the impression that even though Khawla really wants to know, the maid won't continue pushing her if Shay denies her request. It softens her defenses.
“It was all a huge misunderstanding,” Shay explains, picking her words with care. The ring sits heavy in her hand, as if it has accumulated the weight of all her sorrows. “And now I'm wanted for arrest, even though I didn't actually do anything. I'm almost sure I've been set up.”
Understanding flashes over Khawla's face. The maid nods. “Someone betrayed you.”
Shay tells her then, about being reunited with her birth mother only to discover the woman was in debt.
As she speaks, a pressure she didn't know she held inside her deflates, like a cooking pot releasing steam.
She talks about how she was tricked into wearing the hjabat, lost consciousness, and awakened in the forest. About how she stumbled upon the bloodsucker's house and was rescued by the bone-eaters.
About the posters the brothers described to her after seeing them in the medina.
Everything but the fact that her mother is an addict, that her own blood is tainted with magic. That she has the ability to … what exactly? To form a mental connection with animals, she thinks.
Khawla touches Shay's shoulder. “You've been through a lot.”
Shay prickles unexpectedly, though the words are kind. She wants Khawla to see her as an equal who could be her friend, not as someone she should pity. “I'm sure others have had it much worse.”
“That's true. Many others, in fact.” Khawla drops her hand to her lap.
Hesitation flickers in her eyes, and then they bloom with something more intense.
“What if I told you there was a way to ease the pain of so many who suffer needlessly? And that the talisman you possess might be the key to returning the world to the state of peace and justice that once existed?”
“Didn't you hear anything I said?” Shay squeezes the ring in frustration, its sharp facets digging into her skin.
“The ring is dangerous. Even if it did whatever it was supposed to do, I could still be hanged for having it. And all it did do was make me have a nonsensical dream about some strange women.”
“Now that is interesting.” Khawla taps a finger to her lips, which twitch with the promise of a smile. “How much do you remember about this dream, Shay? Can you describe the women?”
“I don't know.” Shay opens her fist and peers at the hjabat, trying to remember.
She convinced herself the vision was a hallucination brought on by hunger or disorientation or the forest itself, but Khawla's current expression causes her to question this conclusion.
“There were four of them. I couldn't see them at all, but their voices were what I can only describe as … otherworldly.”
Khawla releases the full breadth of her smile. “I know who they are, Shay, and they are our last and greatest hope.”
As much as Shay wants to know what exactly Khawla knows that she doesn't, she's slightly more concerned with how she knows it.
Bracing herself, she asks the question she's been dreading the answer to.
“What are you really doing here, Khawla?
And don't tell me you're a maid. I've watched you walk right over piles of dirty clothes on multiple occasions, and only yesterday I found unwashed glasses tucked inside the cupboard.”
“That's fair.” Khawla chews her lower lip. She runs her palms down her thighs. “I'm Khawla El Fessi, and I think you may already suspect this, but I'm part of the rebellion.”
Shay's shoulders slump. But she knew this was coming. Knew how ridiculous it was to hope she was wrong. At least she had the foresight to be selective about which parts of her history she revealed. “You're a Naturalist.”
“What?” Khawla blinks rapidly. “No. Not them.
CNM see the truth about Al-Mukhtar and are more than justified in wanting to overthrow them, but their ideology is deeply misguided.
They can't entirely be blamed for that. So much history has been rewritten, but my faction has preserved many original texts that would otherwise be lost.”
Shay's brow pinches. She swallows, her throat dry. “Your faction?”
“Yes.” Khawla puffs her chest, a gleam of pride evident in her eyes. “The Sisterhood of the Keepers.”
Shay sets the ring on her thigh. She smooths her fingers over her cheeks, remembering to breathe.
The world was already complicated, truth and lies hard enough to separate, five beakers ago when, to her knowledge, this conflict had only two sides.
“Wakha. And what does this have to do with me? With the hjabat? The bone-eaters?”
“Everything,” Khawla says, and the excitement on her face would surely be contagious if Shay weren't far too tired to engage in it.
“The truth is, I've had dealings with the bone-eaters for a while.
Mostly buying jewelry off Hammu. I usually clean and resell it, but it's also one way for me to keep my eye out for a talisman like this one.
I did think it was strange when they first asked me to pretend to be their maid, but they told me about you, explained how they felt you needed a companion, and offered me some heirloom pieces that could feed my family for moons.
“Being we don't get many human newcomers this side of the forest, I'll admit I may also have wanted to meet you and make sure you weren't a spy for the establishment—just erring on the side of caution.”
Shay should be offended at the insinuation, but the false pretense irks her more. “You were hired to spend time with me?”