Chapter 38
It was no lavishly soft bed replete with silk pillows, but I had never slept more soundly than I did upon a pile of palm rushes in the shade of my Marawati and among the murmurs of my men.
That may have been because Dalila almost certainly drugged me, fed up with my inability to rest, but I liked to think it was because I was back where I belonged.
Even so the days were a blur of fever and pain; I had broken a number of bones in my battle to the death with not-Raksh, and between having them set and dealing with a recurrence of the poison, I was scarcely up to captaining anyone.
But I didn’t need to. I was no longer in the palace, alone and surrounded by enemies.
I was with my people, and it was beyond a relief to finally let others watch over things for a bit.
The truth of what had happened came out in dribs and drabs, all unbelievable.
Tinbu, Majed, and the rest of the men had attended the feast with Queen Lab and passed out as thoroughly as did Dalila and I.
But when they awoke, they did so in overgrown ruins.
There was no palace, no city . . . and Dalila and I were gone.
“We never stopped searching,” Tinbu explained as Jabril prepared to bind two of my broken fingers.
“We’ve likely memorized every speck of this land.
We sent parties out constantly to comb the island and call your names, but there was not a trace of either of you.
” In his voice was haunted grief. “We feared you both gone forever, consigned to some ghastly fate we would never learn.”
I recalled the sea of shrouds, the desperate Khatti Ugalans who’d begged to go home, to die. “God spared us.”
On my part, I hardly knew how to explain what had happened. What Dalila and I had seen and experienced. I tried, in floundering statements that must have sounded like another delusion, but if my friends doubted my recollections, they said nothing, simply relieved to have us back from the dead.
But still . . . eight months. I suppose in some twisted way, it made sense. The odd changes in Khatti Ugal’s flora and climate as though entire seasons came and went in a day. Might time have passed differently under Queen Lab’s spell?
The question made me even more exhausted, too weary—too human—to answer it.
I didn’t care what had happened; I just wanted to go home.
At this point, it would be at least a year since we had departed.
Jamal had likely returned Marjana to Oman, and my family would be terrified that the Marawati had met a lethal fate.
My daughter was the hopeful sort, but thinking about how anxious they must be sent daggers to my heart.
I wanted nothing more than to wrap them all in my arms, to deliver my men to their own worried loved ones.
That is, if I survived to see another landfall.
“How is the antidote coming?” I asked, trying not to sound too concerned as Dalila handed me a cup of gray gruel a few days after our reunion. It tasted worse than usual, but I’d also woken up feeling less like death.
Dalila appeared equally drained. “I fear only time will tell. Time and whatever luck your foul spouse can bring.” Her expression twisted with distaste. “Also the bone-breaker had a not entirely awful idea on how to further concentrate the plant toxin with which I’ve been working.”
“The bone-breaker?” I frowned. “You mean Jabril?” I asked, referring to the only other healer on my crew. “You—you’re working with him?” I asked, trying to conceal my shock. Dalila never worked with anyone.
But she didn’t bristle, didn’t deny it. Her cheeks went red, and she refused to meet my eyes, but she conceded, “His training isn’t terrible. We’ve also been putting together a stock of medical supplies for the trip home. God knows the crew is nervous enough.”
The words lay between us; such an obvious reversal of the last time we had sparred on the beach over her seemingly selfish refusal to halt her experiments and help out with the crew that it didn’t need to be said. Indeed, knowing Dalila’s pride, it would be better left unsaid.
But there was something I needed to voice. “Do you want to come with us?” I asked plainly. “It’s your choice.”
“Do you want me to come?” Her reply was perfectly enigmatic, revealing nothing. “Could you abide having me on your ship again?”
“I would have you on my crew again, yes. We all make mistakes, Dalila. Not all of us try to fix them by sacrificing our eternal existence, but suffice it to say, you have proven your worth. Your loyalty and your friendship,” I added firmly.
“But the decision remains yours. If you choose to stay in Khatti Ugal, to make a new life . . . I will not stand in your way.”
For a lengthy moment, I wasn’t certain. Dalila looked at the sea, her gaze—her mind—far away.
Finally, she replied. “The bone-breaker isn’t that good. You will still need me.”
It was the closest to a yes I suspected she was capable of, and it made me grin like a fool. “Then it is settled. God willing, our next voyage is free of calamity.”
“I would not dare be that hopeful.”
We sat together in silence for a bit longer. I drank back the rest of the gruel. There was still so much left unsaid. About our final encounter with Lab. About everything that had happened between us and all the cruel words we had hurled. I scarcely knew where to start. If we should start.
“Some of the Khatti Ugalans are thinking about putting together a scouting group,” I said softly. “To see if anything is left of the city. I don’t know if you—”
“No.” Dalila’s response was pained. “I took what I could from the apothecary. And I-I do not think I can go back.”
I hesitated. “Do you want to talk about it? About her?”
Dalila rose to her feet, brushing the sand from her lap. “Please keep an eye on your symptoms,” she said hurriedly. “I will check on you later.”
And that remained as far into the topic of Lab as we got while still marooned. But it was further than I got with my other erstwhile partner in misadventure: Raksh.
Despite the obvious misgivings of every crew member who’d had the misfortune of sailing with my husband when he abandoned us to Falco’s marid beast, Raksh had breezily strolled back into our midst as though he’d never left.
Charming and lazy, he had a smile, a coy word, a random fish or freshly killed rabbit for everyone who glanced his way, and as I unwittingly watched him work his magic among both my men and the Khatti Ugalans, it was impossible not to recognize it as such.
He even lured out Hasan, the old castaway from the jungle, returning with an arm around the wild-haired hermit and chatting about Persia.
Around me, however, Raksh was unusually careful. Reticent—and considering this was the man who typically propositioned me for sexual intercourse ten times before noon, it was unnerving. He stayed away from my sickbed and yet I would catch him watching me, constantly, with his calculating gaze.
Only once did Raksh approach, suddenly sitting upon a log near my head. His black gaze was on the ocean, sparkling in the bright light of midday, but his words were clearly for me:
“Are you not curious?”
Dalila and Jabril—now allies in their project to keep me unconscious and resting—had recently given me a draft laced with sleeping medicine and so I fought to hear the question, drowsily surprised at Raksh’s presence. “Wh-what?”
“Are you not curious?” he repeated, his voice airy but with a strange undercurrent lingering beneath. “At how Lab was created?”
The question made me shudder. I would never get the memory of those shrouds out of my head. “No,” I said adamantly. “I wish I knew even less.”
“Truly? No interest in that sort of power?”
Now, I stared at him, incredulous. “Me? No, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t be involved in any of this. You, my abilities . . . it is all a curse.” I shook my head. “I cannot imagine how something like Lab was created. That is for God alone to understand, to judge.”
Raksh gave me another of his careful looks.
He did not bother feigning belief, skepticism writ across his face, but I’d spoken the truth even if the lord of ambition couldn’t understand.
“And yet you have. Judged, I mean,” he explained when I frowned in confusion.
“Or been the instrument of such judgment if you are yet too obtuse to see.”
Whether I was obtuse, poisoned, or simply too old and weary for this verbal sparring, I didn’t know. “If you have something to say to me, please just state it. Otherwise let me sleep. I am still trying not to die.”
Raksh smiled, showing all his teeth. “You’re not going to die, wife. Though you should summon your peri friend. Sooner rather than later.”
“I cannot. I lost the feather and either way, it didn’t—”
Raksh held out his hand. Lying in his open palm was Khayzur’s bloodied feather.
I exhaled. “How did you get that?”
He shrugged. “I found it. Master of fortunes, recall? Both good and ill.” He gave my knee an affectionate tap. “Sooner rather than later,” he said once more as he rose to his feet, our strange interaction apparently complete.
I watched him go, unsettled. I did not regret saving Raksh, not yet.
Despite my misgivings, I even intended to bring him on the Marawati, determined to seize any advantage I could in our difficult journey home.
But as he slipped away, shadows clinging and grasping for his legs, I couldn’t help the terrible premonition that if indeed Lab—part of Lab—and Raksh were kin . . .
I was leaving with the more dangerous one.
* * *