Chapter 26 #3
Shay's body flashes with sudden cold—it tightens her chest and turns bitter in her stomach.
She sips her tea, concentrating on the warmth as it glides over her tongue and down her throat.
It seems like the Morchidat is saying all available teams are being directed to concentrate on their primary mission before this meteor shower.
That doesn't mean she can't help Khawla on her own.
“You will bring me the other three hjabats,” The Morchidat clarifies. She finishes her glass of tea and smacks her lips in satisfaction. “You have one moon to do so.”
“I …” Shay can't believe her ears. She thought Shadi said his mother would ask her to do something hard, not something impossible.
“Respectfully, we should rescue Khawla first; she has the affinity for finding things. Her gift as a hizoura is exactly what is needed for the mission you have proposed.”
The Morchidat raises a sleek eyebrow. “Are you changing your mind about your allegiance already?”
“What?” Shay backpedals. “No, absolutely not. I don't take this decision lightly at all, Sayeda.”
“Then I suggest you think about how the gift you possess may be of aid in your task.” The Morchidat reaches into a satchel belted around her waist. Shay is relieved when she doesn't withdraw another blade, at least until she sees the hjabat sparkling on the flat of her palm. “Put this on.”
All the fear of waking up in the forest alone and immobilized rushes back to Shay, but the memory pales in comparison to the dark future she envisions for Mekchaouen's women if the Sisterhood should fail.
If she should fail.
“Is it true that you saw them?” Yara asks. Though her voice is soft, Shay is startled she has spoken at all.
Reverence is thick in her voice, and Shay doesn't need to ask whom. “No,” she corrects. “I heard them.”
“They spoke to you? That is so amazing.” Yara doesn't give Shay time to explain that it was more like they were talking to one another than to her. “Mmi had me try on the ring. Not just me. A few of us. All it did was make us pass out. Why do you think it was different for you?”
Shay thinks that is a very good question. One better answered by someone with greater knowledge of how magic operates. But then she remembers what Deebi said about bloodsucker venom affecting some people more than others.
“It may be all the births I've attended,” she says, thinking out loud.
Wishing she could ask Ghita. Wishing, with a new wave of self-recrimination, she'd asked Hind when she had the chance.
“The time I've spent near the veil of life and death could have granted me a certain sensitivity.
Or maybe it's some other reason Hind has knowledge of.”
“We need to know where the other hjabats are, and we don't have time to ask your mother,” the Morchidat says, still holding out the ring. “Besides, she's hardly a reliable source.”
“Not like the Lallat,” Yara adds, the shine in her eyes less sad, more hopeful.
Shay takes a trembling breath. “What if I don't wake up?”
That's when Shadi, who must have been right outside the door, listening, rushes in. The Morchidat narrows her eyes, but makes no outward remark.
“I'm here,” he says to Shay, seeming to cross the room in a single bound to reach her. “I'll make sure you're safe and take the ring off if you're out for too long.”
“I don't think the issue of your safety is in question,” the Morchidat says with a cross between irritation and amusement. “Unless you decide not to put the ring on.”
“Mmi …” Shadi says, somehow managing to make the word sound like both a warning and plea. A look passes between Yara and Marjan.
“Do not address me as your mother unless this is a situation where you are prepared for me to address you as my son,” the Morchidat says. Her voice is calm, her face neutral as she stares at Shadi until his eyes dip, breaking contact.
“Of course I'm going to put it on,” Shay says, louder than she means to. She gives Shadi a quick smile and takes the hjabat from the Morchidat, fighting the unsettling feeling of history repeating itself.
Shadi and Yara help her into a more comfortable position, sitting her on the floor and wadding towels and sweaters into makeshift pillows, as if she's readying to give birth. Marjan offers a reluctant chin lift in her direction, as close to a vote of confidence as Shay could ask for.
Shay would feel better about putting the ring on if doing so were helping Khawla in some way.
But maybe if she can find out where the other hjabats are, it will earn her favor with the Morchidat and make her more receptive to Shay's suggestions.
Nothing about her demeanor, especially with Shadi, gives Shay reason to think that would be the case, but it's the only thought that comforts her as she slips the ring on her finger and peers nervously into its crystal face.
She waits for the spinning to start, the intractable downward pull.
That seeping darkness.
“Just close your eyes,” Shadi encourages. “Try to relax.”
“I don't think it's working …” Shay mumbles, realizing her words are slurring right as she feels the off-kilter slope of her body, the makeshift bedding rising to greet her.
Vertigo claims her, and her vision sparks—one bright burst of color before it all goes dim and a cloud of oblivion rolls over her.