Chapter 24 #2
“You were the one who said the peris wouldn’t help us,” Dalila replied heatedly. “That we should only risk summoning him when we had the spindle.”
I shook my head. “Things have changed; we are entirely outmatched. I didn’t make my deal with Lab because I intend to risk the marid’s wrath taking her aboard the Marawati or because I want to partner with Raksh—I did it because it was the only way to keep my head in the moment.”
“And you have,” she replied urgently. “So just . . . stay in the queen’s graces.”
“I’m not in her graces! She tried to feed me to griffins!”
“And yet she agreed to your deal. So follow it. For a little bit longer.”
Incredulous, I stared at her. “Why? Why are you so determined to stay here? Is this still about your damnable experiments?” When Dalila said nothing, frustration roared through me. “And if I sacked your room? If I turned you upside down?”
Dalila gave me a knowing look, but it was tinged by misery, not her usual tart confidence. “You will not find something if I don’t want you to. You know that.”
I seized her hands. “Talk to me, Dalila. This is not us. We do not bicker and snipe like two proud youths, nor withhold information from each other—and definitely not in the service of a job. What’s going on? Why do you wish to tarry in this place?”
There was a flash of pain in her eyes, but then she faltered. “Your hands are too hot. I should get my kit and clean your wounds myself.”
“It can wait,” I insisted. “Talk to me, my friend. It is you who called us such, no? What is it you are so afeared I will learn?”
“Your friend,” she repeated bitterly. She stepped back, closer to the windows where a pair of gulls could be seen cutting through the air. “If only you knew, Amina, what that friendship has cost you.”
Puzzled, I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
For one more moment, she hesitated, but then resignation stole into her expression. “Fine. It’s time. Especially if the truth keeps you from doing something else rash.” She met my gaze. “How are the blisters on your hand?”
The question was so abrupt and bizarre that it was my turn to falter. “The blisters on . . .” I glanced at my palm. The blisters that had finally started to callous had ripped open again during my fight with the griffins. “What of them? I get blisters from ship work all the time.”
“But we haven’t been on the Marawati in weeks.
” There was a strange desperation in Dalila’s eyes, as though she was waiting for me to come to a conclusion she couldn’t bear to voice.
“Do they normally take that long to heal? The pain in your joints, the fevers, the fatigue and hallucinations . . . Does all that seem explained by a blow to the head?”
“They aren’t hallucinations,” I countered immediately.
But the rest of the words . . . they crept under my skin.
Symptoms I had ignored or been too busy to pay credence to.
There was always something that needed to get done, someone clamoring for my attention, and the ailments seemed easily explained.
I was aging. Life at sea was rough. I’d been injured.
But listening to Dalila lay this all out, like a mason arranging a pathway I was not yet prepared to walk .
. . “Besides, I haven’t been that sick,” I added.
“No, but you’ve been blessed with magic,” she pointed out. “You heal faster. Recover faster. So why isn’t your hand healing?”
“I don’t know! Why does it matter?”
“Because it’s the same hand you stole your meteor blade back with in Sarilaglag, isn’t it?”
“Sarilaglag? What does that have to do with anything?” And then a horrifying possibility occurred, a butcher’s hook waiting to snag a bloody truth. “No.”
Dalila clearly spotted the change in my expression.
“You shouldn’t have come for me,” she said, the same denial she’d been ranting after we saved her.
“Sheikh Sasan didn’t just want to kill me; he wanted revenge.
He wanted to lure those who would risk their lives for mine.
He wanted to watch them suffer, for me to watch them suffer. ”
“But he didn’t poison me! I got the dagger back from Raksh!”
She shook her head. “It was the Banu Sasan who took it off me. I’d seen the sheikh with the dagger; he said he was fascinated by the way it had been forged.
” She grimaced. “I was his apprentice; I know his venoms. I know his craft and anything he touches . . .” She closed her eyes.
“When I saw Raksh with the dagger later, I thought the poison was meant for him.”
“Oh.” A heavy chill seemed to settle over my body. It was the feeling I got before a storm at sea, before the fearful face of a scout. When one had so many lives relying upon your next decision, you could only receive bad news calmly. Digest it, let it all sink in.
A thousand questions came to mind, but all I could manage was, “How long?”
Dalila stared at me through hollow eyes. “What?”
I pulled the blanket off my legs; it was smothering, and I suddenly felt the need to have distance, room to breathe. “How long do I have?”
New determination set in her expression. “There is no reason to speak like that. It typically proves fatal within a month of the first symptoms manifesting, but you’ve held steady with treatment—”
“Treatment?” A brusque laugh barked out of me. “So that’s what you’ve been doing? All those mad, obsessive experiments . . .” But then another understanding dawned on me. Dalila had begun that frenzy back on the Marawati. “You’ve known since we left Sarilaglag, haven’t you?”
Even now, she hedged the truth. “I wasn’t certain. The venom is deadly but fragile, easily washed away. I hoped that our time in the water—”
“Bullshit. I have had blisters since the morning after I saved you, and I know Dalila the Crafty, the Cunning notices all. Weeks—months—you’ve had me questioning my sanity, forcing medicines upon me while lying .
. . and for what?” Fury roared through me.
“Why, why in God’s name did you not tell me this right away? ”
“Because it could have been a number of things and I did not wish you to panic!” she burst out. “Like you are doing right now! Many of these poisons are triggered by excitability; they warm the blood, weaken the heart.”
I stilled, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
“Dalila, I am not some wayward youth to be manipulated for my own good. I am a mother past forty who has dealt with more dangerous situations than this. I am your captain. You should not have kept this from me. I could have helped you. We could have watched for symptoms together. To hell with the peris, we could have returned to Baghdad, to a city filled with physicians. I could have seen Marjana, gotten her home, said good-bye . . .” I exhaled, frustrated tears pricking my eyes.
I would not think of the implications for my daughter, not now. “You robbed me of all that.”
“No physician in Baghdad could have saved you. That’s why I said we should keep going after Sarilaglag.
I was hoping between your abilities and whatever new experiments I could run, I would find something.
And I have.” Dalila was rambling, caught up in her enthusiasm. “Khatti Ugal has been a blessing . . .”
“A blessing? We lost six men. We’re trapped with a murderous witch!”
Still she argued, “I made the best choice I could at the time.”
“It was not your choice to make! I fear God, Dalila. Not death. But you knew. You knew back on the Marawati when I asked if we should turn back that death hung over me. And you said nothing. You let me take thirty sailors into the deep, on a quest where we all needed to be our sharpest, knowing all the while that I could have keeled over and died at any time. Did you have not a care for our crew? For our friends?” I glared at her.
“I have executed men at sea for lesser offenses.”
There was a beseeching look in her eyes, a rare hint of remorse, perhaps an apology, but then it was gone the next moment.
“I will fix it,” she said instead. There was no contrition, not from Dalila. “I swear. That’s why I’ve been working so hard. There is no cure, but some of the plants here . . .”
I abruptly rose from the bed, fighting a wave of dizziness.
“What-what are you doing? Amina, you should be resting!” Dalila shouted as I staggered out of the room.
She was no doubt correct, but despite the pain, I needed to walk, to calm the restless energy in my blood.
There is no cure. That was all I heard, all that mattered.
It suddenly explained Dalila’s desperation, her madness.
She did not accept defeat, not ever. And perhaps part of me should have been heartened that our friendship was sincere enough that her worst enemy had considered my death the cruelest revenge he could enact upon her.
But that was little comfort.
I stopped at the table. As always, it was laid out for a feast; the aroma of roasted meats, the oil glistening from plump grains, the rich color of perfectly ripe fruit all tempting. But that was not what drew my eye, like a moth to flame.
Instead, I stared at the glass bottles of wine the Khatti Ugalans always kept filled.
The sight of the dark crimson nectar stopped me cold, and my mouth watered with the strongest desire I’d had for it in ten years.
I wanted to escape, to drink until the crushing weight of responsibility and hopelessness drifted away.
I shuttered my eyes so as not to see the wine, aware that I was very close to breaking.
No. I would not step away from my Lord for that. Instead, hearing Dalila follow, I asked softly:
“Would you ever have told me?” I turned to face her. “If you were not driven to confess right now, would you have let me believe I was dying of fever, to save your pride?”
“You’re not going to die,” she argued, dodging the question. “The tonic is working. And I’ve made a deal to fix things if it doesn’t. You just need to be patient,” she added, pleading.
A deal. I probably should have questioned that and yet I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I stared at Dalila, feeling all the tensions in our friendship pull taut like a cord.
Had there been a hint of contrition, perhaps I might have been kinder.
Might have told her that I understood the pressure she was under, could only imagine how being caught by Sheikh Sasan had felt.
Said I was happy she was enjoying the opportunities of Khatti Ugal.
But I was so tired. And I had tried. I had tried so many times to reach her all the while she was keeping a secret from me that I was fairly certain meant I would never see my daughter again.
That meant I might not survive to deliver my people to their own families.
And I would never know, had I been just a bit sharper, a bit more clear-eyed during the storm, if I could have kept my men from being killed.
I glowered at her dropped brow. “Is any part of you remorseful? Can you not look at me? Can you not, even now, apologize?”
Her head snapped up. “An apology isn’t going to save you, Amina. Would you have me waste time wrenching at my hair, begging for forgiveness? Yes, I regret what happened, but I am not you, reckless and rash and risking everyone to save others.”
It was as though she had slapped me. That is the danger of long relationships: each of us knowing the deepest cut, and I struck back just as fiercely.
“That you see such devotion as a weakness speaks volumes more about your heartlessness, Dalila, than my ability to lead. No wonder you are drawn to this colorless, lonely place. It’s as false as your affections. ”
Her eyes flashed in anger.
But I wasn’t done. “Get out.”
Dalila flinched but still didn’t apologize. “Your wounds need to be cleaned.”
“Then I’ll call for a court physician.” When she opened her mouth to protest, I snapped, “Get out, Dalila. Go to your queen. Perhaps she has not yet had enough of your lies.”
Not wanting to see her face, I turned my back. She swallowed loudly but didn’t argue. There was the sound of the door softly closing as I stared at the wine pitcher. And then, with a violence that frightened me, I hurled it against the wall.
By the time its bloody stain was spreading across the floor, I was weeping.