Chapter 31 #2
“Wakha, anything.” Tarik nods eagerly. “The most important things to know: Al-Mukhtar used bloodsuckers’ blood to vanquish the Lallat.
When ingested by men, our blood makes new bloodsuckers, but if ingested by people who have Shawafa, our magic doesn't mix well with theirs. It has some unfortunate effects.”
“What happens?” Shay dangles her arm a little closer.
Tarik snaps his teeth.
“Uh-uh-uh,” Shay chides, snatching her arm away again. “Continue.”
“It turns them into crystal pillars. That's what happened to the Lallat. If the resistance were to gather all four of the talismans the Lallat left behind and take them to where the pillars stand, the spirits of the Lallat could be released from their stony prison.”
Shay's mind backtracks to the night of Jou Boulka. Shadi's secret cave materializes in her memory. The stalagmites. The way one of them exploded with light when she held up the hjabat. “By chance are these pillars in a hidden cavern in Nezjar?”
“Just another sip, little dove; I'm begging,” Tarik pleads. “I'm so very thirsty.”
“Tell me everything,” Shay demands.
“Yes, the last battle of the Time of Women happened in Nezjar. Toward the end, the Lallat hid themselves in a cave, but Al-Mukhtar found them. If their spirits were to be reawakened, natural magic could be returned to all women. In such an event, Al-Mukhtar would no longer stand a chance.”
Shay's spine tingles. She imagines a world where women have magic and don't need Snow to activate it. It would be a boundless resource. And a heavy responsibility.
“And where would your alliance be, if there were another war?”
“With whoever offers a more viable food source.” Tarik shrugs as though the answer couldn't be more obvious.
“Imagine, subsisting off table scraps; it takes a toll over time.
Forget the sun, I can hardly bear to stand in direct moonlight anymore.
Look at me, tied by mere ropes that I should be able to snap with ease.
I'm a shell of what I was, what I could be.
There is no creature as glorious as a well-fed bloodsucker.
Quench my thirst, and you'll see the difference for yourself.” Tarik licks his lips eagerly.
“Well, thank you. But no thank you.” Shay turns to Deebi, half-sick and half-giddy for what comes next. “Could you bring me some clover bean leaves? I need to bandage up this wound.”
“What's this?” Tarik frowns. “I've given you all the information you required.”
Shay ignores him until Deebi returns and her wound is covered.
“What are you doing?” Tarik whines. “Little dove?“
Due to Mukhtar Jawad's inaccessibility, she may not get an opportunity to avenge Ghita right away, but the creature who essentially took her mother's life to make a point—that point being that he felt slighted—is right here.
Right now. And the Vampiiruh Presidium won't do anything.
They basically give bloodsuckers free rein as long as they stick to their side of the forest.
“Kill him,” she says to Kabeer, holding out the knife for him to take.
Kabeer sets aside a sandwich and grins merrily. “As you wish, lallati.”
“No, don't turn around, little dove. Don't walk away,” Tarik calls after her.
“It's not me you want. It's not me who's truly responsible for all your sorrow.
I can help you get to him. You want my allegiance?
I'll do better than that. If you let me live, I'll help you get your revenge. I promise. Do you hear me, Shuika? ARE YOU LISTENING?”
She pauses. It's almost as if he read her mind. Shaking, Shay whirls back, interrupting Kabeer seconds before the blade takes its deadly plunge into Tarik's chest.
She leans over him, her hands clamped to his shoulders, her face in his, as if by getting as close as possible, she'll be able to assess his true intentions. “Who are you talking about?”
He swallows, trying, she can tell, not to stare at the vein that throbs along the side of her throat. “I know everything you have lost now, Shay. Glory to heaven, you feel things so strongly.”
It takes her a moment to realize the extent of her mistake. Memories. She got the information she wanted from Tarik, but she gave him information about herself in return. “And?”
“Ghita, Khawla, Hind.” Tarik recites their names slowly, and Shay almost imagines she sees her own unshed tears glistening in the dark pools of his eyes.
“There is one man responsible for all this.
Who kept your mother addicted to drugs all these cycles?
Broke into Ghita's home with his armed soldiers? And if he finds out Khawla is a hizoura …” He makes a sad click in the back of his throat.
“Well, you can imagine what he might do.”
Jawad. Shay's fingers fist in Tarik's shirt. She squeezes her eyes closed. Inhales.
“I can take care of my father myself,” Shay whispers, but the words are altogether weightless.
And Tarik knows it. He chuckles. “Listen, you're smart. The Sisterhood has their own agenda. They may be able to get you close to Mukhtar Jawad. Or they may not. You will be obliged to follow their orders. Me? I don't follow anyone's orders. Except yours, now. If you allow me.”
Shay pictures Najla sleeping upstairs. Tarik poses a threat to her, but what about their father? Is he not the bigger threat here? “And how will you get to him?”
“I may need time to come up with a plan, but I have great sway with the Vampiiruh Presidium. I can start by making things … disruptive.”
“I never want to see you within touching distance of my sister.
In fact, I don't want you to look at her.
Know what? Don't even think about her. Ever.” Shay sighs, glancing over to find Kabeer sulking.
She doesn't turn far enough to see the incredulity on the other brothers’ faces, but she feels it all the same. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Tarik nods emphatically. “Now, for the love of all that bleeds, please, untie me. My wrists are one of my most attractive features.”
Shay stares down at her nursing sister. Moonlight pours over her angelic face.
Staring right into her eyes, Najla reaches up and curls her tiny fingers into the hanging threads of Shay's hair.
Her heart swells until she thinks it could burst. This is it.
The feeling she's been looking for all her life.
The unconditional love she never thought she'd experience.
The funny part is, she didn't have to do anything to earn it.
There's a soft tap at the door.
“Is it alright to come in?” Shadi's voice drifts through a slight crack.
“Hold on.” Shay shifts the blanket covering her sister to hide her exposed breast. She resists the urge to jump up and greet him, not wishing to startle the baby after spending twenty beakers getting her to calm down.
Shadi sits on the floor next to her sleeping pallet.
He stares quietly through the window, his eyes reflecting prisms in the starlight.
Shay withholds the questions that bubble inside her, momentarily content to take in the contours and shadows of his profile.
The slope of his nose. The strength of his jawline.
The sweep of his brow. Even in the dark, he's as dazzling as any constellation could be.
“I'm deeply sorry about your mother,” he says softly. “I wish I had been here.”
Shay waits, wondering if the tears will come now. The force of a tidal wave bears down on her. But nothing falls. Maybe she's in shock. Maybe she cried too much while her mother was alive. Maybe she already spent every day of her life in mourning.
“Where have you been?” she asks, suddenly hit with the delayed sadness of his absence, this loss she's had to grapple with alone.
“Did Kabeer tell you I've been stopping by?” Shadi asks, a trace of annoyance making its way into his voice despite the measured expression on his face.
“No.” Shay makes a mental note that it's perhaps time for another “family” talk with the brothers, one hood-wearing brother in particular. “What did he say to you?”
“He told me you were resting, and to come back later.” His lips twitch as he fights to keep a straight face. “And when I came back, he told me you were still resting.”
Shay lowers her head, shaking it, her lips sliding toward a grin. “How did you get by him this time?”
“This time I went to the back door,” Shadi explains, and winks. “I bribed Hammu with a bag of shiny baubles.”
“Well, I'm glad you're here now.”
She adjusts her tunic under the blanket and tucks the edges of it around her sister's sleeping body, soaking in her dimples and pudge, imprinting this moment in her mind so she'll always remember why she must fight.
Why the Sisterhood must win.
Shadi leans forward, his eyes wide with awe. He smiles up at Shay. “She's beautiful.”
“Do you want to hold her?”
Before he can protest, Shay leans forward and takes his arm in her hand, guiding it around until the bundled infant is nestled in his elbow. He stares tensely at the baby for a few beakers before his shoulders relax.
“See?” Shay says approvingly. “It's not so hard.”
Shadi continues gazing at the baby for a while longer. Then he looks up at Shay with a new hesitation in his eyes. “You're beautiful.”
Heat fans up Shay's neck, and she's grateful for the cover of night. She's heard the words before, but those other times were unmemorable. This is the first time it's mattered. “I wish I saw what you see.”
“Shuika.” Shadi looks at her the way an astronomer might behold the mysteries of the heavens. “You're always thinking about other people, but I hope you know you're allowed to think about yourself sometimes.”
His words ring true, as if he can see into her soul, all the insecurities she clings to, the pieces of herself she gives away. As if he sees the parts of her even she doesn't fully know yet—not only who she is, but who she could become.
He lays Najla gently on Shay's sleeping pallet and takes both her hands in his. “What do you want?”
His fingers twined with hers are warm and firm in the darkness, their breaths mingling in the air between them. Shay doesn't have an ultimate answer to his question, but she has an immediate one.
If she cannot release her sorrow by crying, she'd like to feel something good, at least.
“This,” she whispers, and closes the gap. Their lips meet, merging like two candle flames in a surge of heat and radiance. Despite the certainty of danger and the uncertainty of everything else, Shadi's touch, his kiss, feels like safety. It's a feeling Shay wouldn't mind getting used to.
A sudden scratching at the window breaks their fledgling kiss, striking a cold spear down Shay's spine. She tenses and slowly pulls back from the sweet cocoon of Shadi's arms.
Tarik? No, the bloodsucker isn't going to bother her.
For now, they have an alliance. And Shay has to admit, she's relieved.
Whether or not he deserves to live is debatable, but that wasn't her decision to make.
She was lashing out, wanting to hurt someone else the way she was hurting.
Wanting to take back a little of the power that had been taken away from her.
And Tarik was … there. That wasn't justice, and she would have come to regret her rashness.
The bloodsucker was right. Shay isn't a killer.
But something is scratching at the window.
And it doesn't sound like a tree branch shaken by the wind.
The noises are too organized, purposeful, as if whatever is out there is desperately prying their nails under the pane, straining to lift it.
Her heart balloons into her throat, but as Shay inches toward the window and draws the curtains, she realizes she can sense the friendly, if annoyed, nature of her visitor.
Hellooo! Let me in!!
A face stares back at her, two black beady eyes like olive pits set inside a rind of dark fur. A glossy nose presses against the glass at the tip of a very recognizable white muzzle. The raccoon has somehow scaled the side of the cottage. Shay lifts the window.
The raccoon scrambles through and drops a shimmering object from its mouth onto the floor with a small clunk. The animal chitters, as if berating Shay for her delay in opening the window. When it has chastised her sufficiently, it sits back on its haunches.
Perplexed, Shay picks up the object—the hjabat!
Glory to heaven! Between caring for Najla and the situation with Tarik, she forgot it outside after hiding it beneath a rock.
It was absolutely careless of her. Perhaps understandable, considering she has to wake up a hundred times a night to feed a newborn now and can hardly be expected to function at a normal level of awareness, but still.
Imagine if she'd lost it. Good thing the raccoon brought it to her—
Wait …
The racoon brought it to her.
Judging by the mischievous sparkle of its eyes, Shay would have to guess it could have done that from the start if it wanted to. The tricky bandit was probably playing games with her all morning for the sheer enjoyment of prolonging their exercise.
She turns her gaze from the animal to Shadi, who has been watching all this unfold with a look of intense curiosity and some amusement.
“I had an idea the other day, of how we can get the remaining hjabats,” Shay explains. “It seemed like a long shot, but … I'm beginning to think it could actually work.”