Chapter 17 #2
I didn’t want to get Talal involved, but he might actually prove useful for this problem. He knew everyone in River and had a much better way to get information than I did—because the rest of the River Court actually liked him.
“I’m looking for a churail,” I said finally, with a resigned breath.
His eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Looking to curse someone? Not sure that will work on Reza, given his method of protection.” He tapped his chest in reference to the crown the Viceroy possessed, the one the Viceroy had melted into his damned skin so it couldn’t be removed.
I clenched my fists tighter. The River knew I wished the Viceroy didn’t have such control over us.
“And,” he continued, “there aren’t many witches left in River.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “When we fought in the pit together,” I said, referencing the fighting rings we’d grown up in, where we’d first tasted Salt soldier blood, and where we’d first planned to overthrow the authoritarian regime imposed by the Court of Salt, “there was a churail that Zafar would visit to prepare healing potions for him.”
“Taking lessons from Zafar now? Didn’t he get his insides sucked out by a Salt soldier in the pit? The potions he got from the churail can’t have helped very much.”
I rolled my eyes and kicked a stone at him.
“Regardless, I went with Zafar a few times to visit her. I’d hoped to see her at the bazaar today. She had strange eyes—black but like hot, glowing coals. And hair that reminded me of snakes.” I shuddered, remembering the wiry strings of her ever-moving mane coiling around her neck.
Talal smiled bright and wide, as if remembering a childhood dessert. “You mean Baghisha.”
* * *
Talal accompanied me to the edge of the city, away from the River, as we headed toward Baghisha’s hut on the other side of the woods.
It was a small house, with a smoking chimney, clay-packed walls, and a wild garden that grew in front of it, nearly obscuring the entrance of her house entirely.
I stroked the stalk of a bitter apple plant, calling forth my magic and using it to give encouragement to the roots.
It shot from the ground, growing riotously as it curled over the path and around the gate.
“Show-off,” muttered Talal, whose own magic was more concentrated with the thread of life in the earth itself, moving dirt and rocks and riverbeds.
I smirked at him as we went around the corner and up toward the door, knocking rapidly on the rotted wood.
There was no response, but the door opened a fraction as if it had been left ajar.
Talal and I cast a wary glance at one another before unsheathing our swords and slipping inside the witch’s cottage.
It was dark, with a smell that reminded me of wild garlic plants and an earthy bed of straw mushrooms.
“Baghisha?” I called out, uncertain if there was even anyone living here. The house felt cold, dark, and dead.
“So, the Prince who would return has decided to pay me a visit,” a rough voice came from the gloom.
I jerked backward, stepping on Tal’s foot as I did so. He bit off a curse and bashed into the door behind us.
“I thought you two were meant to be warriors? You haven’t changed from the long-limbed, filthy boys that used to come here.”
Baghisha stepped into the light of the doorway, her long snake-hair coiling around her head and moving like an ever-present nest of serpents. Her face was still youthful, looking no older than Tal or me, even though she’d been alive for much, much longer.
But her voice held that gravelly husk that spoke of age and wisdom and the regret of lost years.
“Baghisha,” Tal said smoothly, recovering from our inept entrance quicker than I. “We missed you.”
She harrumphed, but I was struck but how much she had changed from what I remembered. She still looked young, but lines around her eyes had begun to appear, and her skin was sallow. Her once-black hair was shot with gray, her blazing eyes dimmer.
She was ancient—I had no idea how old she was, but I knew the churails in River had been here for centuries though most of them left during the takeover.
We stepped farther into her hut and lamps along the walls illuminated the dark room.
Where it had once felt abandoned, the atmosphere switched like night into day. A fire blazed at the hearth, and several gharial jaws hung from the mantel, picked clean of their meat, the long, spiny teeth of the river crocodiles blackened with the smoke from the flames.
Jars filled with pixie heads and river slime sat on various shelves, and a very broken-in maroon-colored divan sat in the main room, covered in strands of Baghisha’s black-gray hair that still moved on their own like worms.
“Just as I remembered,” Tal said brightly before striding over to the divan and making himself comfortable, not looking twice at the writhing hairs on the cushions. “I feel right at home.”
I ignored Tal and turned towards Baghisha, not wanting to waste any time on pleasantries.
“Did you give a ring to two boys and tell them to come find me?” I narrowed my eyes, not forgetting she had called me a prince when I’d first walked in. There was no point in dancing around it.
She met my gaze solemnly, her coal eyes burning. “I did. Where are the little scamps?”
“Dead,” I returned, almost a snarl, remembering again the weight of their bodies, the whiteness of their hands when I’d stabbed them through the heart.
Tal stood at the tone of my voice, and the snap of his blade pulling free from its sheath sang through the room, though I didn’t glance in his direction.
The witch’s gaze didn’t change. “You killed them, then?”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“My boy, there are always choices. Resistance is an exercise in choices. Revolt? Hide? Protect? Live?” She took a step toward me, a vicious smile curling her lips. “We are, all of us, making choices to ensure the survival of our world.”
“And what was this?” I pulled the key from underneath my coat, the gleaming, ornate gold object incongruent with the muted colors of the room. “Why send them to me?”
“To see what sort of choice you would make, Prince.”
My eyes flickered to Tal then, but his face was blank, looking between me and Baghisha.
He knew who I was, who my family was, of course.
Most of the higher-ranking rebels in the Red Jasmine knew my real identity—it was the basis for forming the insurgence—to get the Court to rally behind a leader and free River from the brutal rule of Salt.
But while we were organized rebels, we still couldn’t fight Salt when they had magic protections preventing us from doing so.
“And did I make the right one?”
“It looks like you took the ring to the River, so I have to assume you did.”
“The key is for a door in River then? Is it a way to get into Tirich Mir?” I took a step toward her, excitement rising in my chest.
But the light in her eyes dulled, and she shook her head. “No, young Prince, it is not a way to break the curse on the Golden Palace.”
“You need to stop calling him that,” growled Tal. “If you don’t want Salt overhearing you and executing Kiyan at dawn for his royal blood.”
“Easy, Tal.” I held up a hand before swinging my gaze back to Baghisha. “What is the key for, then? Why risk giving it to me?”
“You don’t recognize the jasmine flower at the top? You modeled your entire revolution after her.”
“Queen Azari,” breathed Talal, his tone filled with reverence at the mention of the long-dead fae Queen responsible for erecting the wall next to the human lands and protecting all of Peristan from the darkness spreading to us.
I’d been thinking about her much more than usual after seeing her lost haath phool on the hand of that human girl.
Queen Azari was also the peri Queen responsible for the curse on Tirich Mir, trapping the royal family in the Golden Palace with no way out. Given that, I had mixed feelings about her, despite the esteem the River Court held her in.
“It’s the key to Queen Azari’s vault?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Where is it?”
Scholars across all peri courts had been looking for her vault for years.
Reza and the Salt Court had been looking for her vault for years.
It was the place where she hid her most powerful object—the crown she’d imbued with her immense magic. Something that would potentially flip the balance of power.
“That I can’t help you with.”
The witch’s eyes slid away from mine, and I snorted, incredulous.
“You give me a key to a vault I can’t find. Promised a power we won’t ever have. And you sentence two boys to death. For what? To play a game?” I turned away from her, disgusted. “You stayed in River, when the other churails left us. Maybe you should have left too.”
“I am part of this land, just as you are,” she whispered.
“I’ve made mistakes here just like you. And I am trying to repent for those mistakes.
Your magic is rooted in the earth of this Court.
The River flows through your veins. You can stop this.
You can find the vault and take the relic created by Azari to free River. I know you can.”
“The peris in River are living in a nightmare, and we can’t depend on finding a power that has been lost for centuries. We need to do something now.”
I strode toward the door, with Talal close behind me.
Baghisha stood in her little hut, her glowing eyes following me out. She looked as though she wanted to say something more, but didn’t have the words.
Finally, I heard her soft whispers on the wind as I closed the door.
“I tried.”