Chapter 17 #2
“Or, a Ghaibmin, like me?” Labiba squeals. “We're a rare type from the blue pantheon. I bet you've never seen a trick like this one.” She twirls her arms in front of her, and her fingertips emit a blue glow. Shay isn't sure what the touched one is doing until the outline of her body blurs.
Shay's breathing stills. Labiba's form grows lighter and lighter until the crowd becomes visible behind her.
For a beaker, she disappears, long enough for Shay to glance around, making sure she hasn't hidden herself behind a vendor's cart or passerby.
Labiba reappears just as gradually, transparent at first and growing solid bit by bit.
“That's amazing.” Shay turns wide-eyed to Khawla, but the rebel girl seems unimpressed. On any other night, such a public display would surely cause a scene, but on Jou Boulka, no one blinks an eye.
The woman shrugs one shoulder. “I get that a lot.”
“I'd like to see you roast a chicken,” her companion scoffs.
“I can't.” The woman shakes her head, the heavy jaw of her mask jiggling. “But I can steal one right out of the coup.”
“True.” Arbia brings the bottle of Snow closer to Shay and twists it in her fingers.
The amber liquid inside glistens. Shay imagines what she could do if her animal bond multiplied, what great hordes she could summon, what wild beasts she could tame. Though, in all honesty, she'd be content to just hear the animals around her more clearly. To understand her own gift better.
She doesn't realize she's wrapped her fingers around the bottle until she hears Khawla's soft gasp beside her. Arbia smiles at Shay, her too-red lips curving up from either side of her beak.
A sudden clatter, and something cold splashes around Shay's ankles.
“What in the devil's armpit is going on?” Shadi stands there, a muscle razoring along his jaw.
Glass shards gleam amid a foaming puddle of fizzy lemon drink spilled across the cobblestones.
He snatches the bottle from Shay's hand and shoves it back toward Arbia.
“Take this before I smash it on the street next.”
The women promptly depart, presumably seeking some other young girls to corrupt. Shadi ushers Shay away from the broken glass, and then he rounds on Khawla. “What would have happened if I hadn't shown up?”
Khawla drops her gaze for only a moment. When she lifts her head, her eyes glint iron and fire. “I make it a practice not to determine other people's choices for them.”
“Shay obviously isn't in the proper frame of mind to do so.” Shadi runs an exasperated hand over his face and points a finger at her. “Of anyone, you should know that.”
“Shay is standing right here.” Shay's voice comes out more level than she feels. The strength of it grounds her in the present, bringing her fully into her body.
Shadi swallows. He pinches the bridge of his nose and slowly meets Shay's eyes with an unflinching gaze. “I won't apologize for stopping you.”
Shay breathes in deep. The truth is, she's grateful. Her whole life might be different if someone had stepped in the first time Hind used. “No, I'm glad you did.”
He nods, then narrows his eyes toward Khawla, who shrugs.
“I'm sorry,” Shay says. The spirit of the night has been soured, and it's her fault. She covers her face, paint smearing beneath her fingertips—one more thing she's ruined. “I'm not comfortable here, honestly. I think perhaps festivals aren't suited to my tastes.”
“Understandable,” Khawla says, as they watch an inebriated man strut up to a nearby donkey.
He loudly declares it to be the prettiest woman he's seen all night and proceeds to invite the beast to accompany him home.
The trio breaks into laughter, and between their explosive bursts, Khawla tells Shadi, “I actually have something of importance to discuss. Can we move this to a more private location?”
Shadi grins, his eyes thoughtful. “I know just the place.”
“Alright, but no breaking in or trespassing now,” Khawla warns. “Shay needs to avoid drawing attention.”
“When have I ever engaged in such reprobate behavior?” Shadi asks incredulously. He quickly amends, “Don't answer that. Just trust me. You're going to love this. Both of you.”
The girls follow him away from the festivities to a quiet hilly area that borders the forest. Shay is beginning to think Shadi oversold the location, when from behind the scrubby ledge of a plateau, the toothless gap of a cave mouth appears.
It's not so large that she would have noticed it on her own, and the dark cleft of its opening doesn't exactly welcome solo exploration.
“Khwati.” Shadi bows toward the entrance. “Welcome to the best-kept secret in Nezjar.”
They duck inside an obsidian abyss. A long tunnel stretches ahead, and the only light comes in the form of a strange flickering at the end of it. The closer they move toward the light, the brighter it glows. Ribbons of red, blue, silver, and green dance along the curving walls.
The tunnel leads to an archway so narrow, they must squeeze through it one at a time. Shadi goes first. Shay steps next onto a ledge, pressing close to him to leave room for Khawla to come through last.
A wide, open cavern unfolds before them in a panorama of radiant color.
Glowing stalactites drip from the ceiling like melted jewels, reflecting off one another to kaleidoscopic effect.
From deep below, four towering stalagmites rise, adding an infinite layer to the brilliance.
One pillar is silver, the others blue, and red, and green.
Shadi sits on the ledge and lets his legs hang.
Shay sits in the middle, Khawla beside her.
Wresting her eyes from the display, Shay peeks at her companions, their peaceful faces flashing in a sequence of changing lights.
For their musical enjoyment, drops of water plink like wind bells in the rain.
Shadi catches Shay staring, which should be awkward but somehow isn't. “I'm telling you. It never gets old.”
“It's amazing,” Shay whispers, as if anything louder might break the spell. “I can't believe more people don't know this is here. How did you find it?”
Something painful spikes behind Shadi's eyes. Cuts into his brow. “Do you believe in the Creator, Shay?”
“Of course,” Shay answers reflexively. “How else would we be here?”
Shadi looks unsatisfied. “I mean, really believe, really understand that every time we stand and pray in the Old Tongue, He's right there, answering us back word for word. That it's more than worship. It's a conversation.”
Shay gives a slow nod. She's never thought of her prayers exactly that way before, but she does feel connected when she performs them.
Not just to the Creator, but to all creation.
At the same time, she also feels as if the rest of the world falls away, all the worry about what her place is in it.
Her past regrets and future concerns. Somehow, realizing how small you are in a vast universe can be the greatest form of freedom.
“Since when did you become a Marabout, Shadi?” Khawla quips.
Shadi rolls his eyes before going back to Shay's original question.
“I used to have doubts myself, especially after my family endured a period of loss.
I couldn't understand how God let terrible things happen. I thought about ending it all. One night, I prayed that God would give me a sign if I should keep living. Nothing happened. And so, I wandered out into the night, prepared to lose myself in Al-Ghaba Mayita.”
Shay sucks back a gasp. She's heard the stories.
Of people, overwhelmed with life's sorrows, venturing into the forest with no intention of coming out, whether that means being consumed by beasts or following a forest spirit off a cliff.
It's said Al-Ghaba Mayita will not refuse a willing sacrifice.
“But somehow, I ended up here instead.” Shadi waves his arm at the brilliance surrounding them. “I guess that was my sign, wouldn't you say?”
Shay stays quiet for a long moment. She's sure that story couldn't have been easy for Shadi to share, to live through, and she's glad he made it to the other side. Before she knows what she's doing, she lays her hand on top of his.
“What happened to your family?” In Shay's periphery, Khawla frantically shakes her head. Shay withdraws her hand. “I'm sorry … I understand if that's too personal.”
Shadi takes a deep breath and musters a wan smile. “I don't speak about it often, but I don't mind that you asked. There was a night raid on our home. My younger brother was taken from us. My sisters are afflicted with nightmares to this day.”
Shay's mind skips to Fatimazara and her grandson. The gallows rise in her mind once more, and with them, a tide of bile in her stomach. Even more than a distraction, the hangings are a fear tactic, a means by which Al-Mukhtar control the masses. “They arrested him?”
Shadi gives a dry laugh and jams his thumbs into the corner of his eyes. “Do you call it arrest when the ‘rebel’ is nine cycles old?”
This time, Shay can't restrain her gasp.
The bitterness in her stomach boils over her ribs, submerging her heart in acid until every chamber burns.
She doesn't know what to say, knows nothing she could say would make a difference.
Then she remembers the day of Khawla's arrival at the bone-eaters, when Shay told the maid about Tarik's attack.
“I'm sorry that happened.” Shay looks deep into Shadi's soulful brown eyes. Eyes that look bottomless in the most beautiful way. “There's nothing that could ever justify that.” And she hugs him, the same way Khawla hugged her.
But it doesn't feel the same.
Shadi feels solid in all the places Khawla is soft.
He relaxes in her embrace, his breath fanning her neck, his fingers fitting the notches of her spine like they're the keys of a flute.
His warmth seeps into her, spreads through her body and sinks to her deepest core, a place that answers with a searing blaze.
In the corner of her eye, Shay sees Khawla again, this time with a small smile bowing her lips. Shay stiffens. She shouldn't be feeling this way after Shadi shared something so horrible. The only heat she should feel is anger on his behalf.
Anger for Fatimazara. For every citizen taken by soldiers in the night to be brutally hanged the following day with no explanation of their crimes. She pulls back abruptly, slamming her back into the jagged slab of cave wall behind her.
Shadi looks stunned, then concerned. “Are you well, qalbi?”
Qalbi. My heart. No one has ever called Shay that before.
She winces. His look holds the same aching tenderness as the one he once gave her on the roof of her old apartment, as if he wanted to know her.
But that was long ago. She was a different person.
Who would want to know her now? “My mother is an addict.”
She blurts the admission, the words too soft and small in the vast space around them to ring as loud and heavy as they do inside her head. Inside her chest. Khawla grabs Shay's hand at her side and squeezes, and Shadi's hand glides to rest upon her other shoulder.
“I suspected as much,” he says gently, without judgement. “Between the gossip and the moon pepper. You look better now, by the way.”
“It's a hard thing, loving someone who is destroying themselves,” Khawla chimes in, giving Shay's hand another squeeze.
Between them, Shay feels almost safe, and though she knows the folly of hoping that such a feeling will be more than fleeting, she wants to try. She wants to give Shadi and Khawla the chance to prove to her that she can trust them.
Shay tugs the hjabat from her bodice and slips the cord over her head.
As soon as she holds it up for Shadi to see, one of the four pillars, the silver one, flares even brighter, bursting with radiance.
Shay shields her eyes as streaks like lightning reflect off its craters and contours.
Everything is bathed in the gleam of stardust.
“Um …” Khawla gawps at the dazzling display. “Has that ever happened before, Shadi?”
Shadi shakes his head, speechless. He looks at Shay, questions brimming in his eyes. She tells him what she already told Khawla about her vision in the forest. He listens intently, his gaze drifting more than once to the ring cradled in Shay's hand with an expression of wonderment.
When she's finished, he hesitates, swallowing. “Shay, I think Khawla is right about the hjabat's importance. How would you feel about coming with me to meet my mother?”
Shay's eyes pop wide. “Wh-what?”
Shadi side-eyes Khawla. He sighs. “You didn't tell her?”
“Oh, right.” Khawla grimaces, raising her palms by way of apology. “Shadi's mother is the Morchidat.”
“The who?” Shay doesn't know why the title causes dread to pool in her stomach, but something tells her the reaction is not unwarranted.
“Don't mind the scary-sounding designation. She's the leader of the Sisterhood of the Keepers,” Shadi clarifies. “And I'm sure she would be very interested in seeing the hjabat and hearing about your experience.”
Shadi is the son of their faction's leader?
Shay takes a moment to absorb that news before she considers what he's asking of her. It seems to Shay too big a step, one that could entail more than a simple meeting. Once she gets entangled with the resistance, it may be hard or even impossible to walk away from them.
Her thoughts rattle around like noisy ghosts. Just look at what she almost did earlier tonight when offered Snow. Her behavior wasn't exactly a sign of stellar judgement.
She needs time to think this through. “When do you want me to go?”
Shadi ducks into his shoulders and looks up at Shay through his dark lashes. “Now-ish? Would be good.”
Now.
If only there were somewhere Shay could go to seek good counsel.
She needs the advice of someone with a level head, with wisdom.
Someone without political loyalties. And the only person she can think of is the one she left behind without so much as a proper goodbye so she could chase some childish dream of a mother's love.
Ghita.
A sharp ache overtakes Shay's chest.
The midwife may not be perfect, but she is honorable.
“It's just that Mmi—the Morchidat—happens to be visiting Nezjar on business,” Shadi elaborates, hinting that the timing is a rare stroke of good luck.
Shay looks from Shadi's earnest face to Khawla's careful expression and down at the ring, as if the Lallat might spontaneously reappear with words of wisdom to impart.
She closes her eyes in a long blink before opening them.
“Do we have time for another stop first? There is someone else in Nezjar I must see.”
It's well past time she made things right.