The Sultan and the Storyteller by Lichelle Slater
One
“There will be a significant change in your life.” Kiara tilted my cup into the sunlight spilling through the two narrow windows of the store room in our apothecary. Her magical strength with magic was in tasseography, the ability to interpret the patterns in tea leaves left behind by the drinker.
“That’s vague,” I said, playfully rolling my eyes at my inexperienced younger sister. I leaned over one of the many boxes I still had to unpack and organize in the front of the shop so I could look over Kiara’s shoulder.
Jade, my best friend, had stopped by for a short afternoon tea break and Kiara had insisted on trying to read our futures from the new tea she’d made earlier that morning. She had even pulled out or mother’s tea glasses—clear and narrow with gold-painted handles and a band of gold leafing around the top edge.
“My turn!” Jade pushed her tea cup across the worn counter of my mother’s apothecary. Her once long black hair was shorn to her chin, and her makeup simplified to kohl eyeliner, just like a man’s. She hadn’t worn a woman’s dress in weeks.
Kiara picked up her cup and furrowed her brow. She brought the cup close, then slowly pulled away. Her expression froze.
My heart dropped.
Her dark brown eyes darted to Jade then back to the cup.
“What is it?” Jade asked, her voice suddenly low.
A cloud floated over the sun, darkening the room and the feeling with it.
“I . . . I must be interpreting this wrong.” Kiara practically dropped the cup back onto the table and pushed it away.
I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “What did you see?”
“Um. There are grounds in the X—that means a warning. Danger is coming.”
Jade jumped to her feet so quickly the stool beneath her screamed against the floor. “I have to go.”
“Jade, it might not be—” I started, but she was already out of the storage room and to the front door.
“I’ll see you later.” Jade slammed the door shut behind her, making the windows tremble and the Open sign bounce off the door.
I looked at Kiara. “Do you feel it meant a warning about being chosen?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” She bit her bottom lip and quickly snatched our cups and rushed them over to the sink to wash them out.
I looked back at the door, worry festering in my chest, before I grabbed the crate of new vials and started packing them with new ointments and salves. Kiara and I had run our mother’s apothecary since her death a few years before. Father had argued against it initially, wanting us to move to the palace and work with him, but we never did. Zunbar was our home.
And it was being torn apart.
I shoved another cork into the top of a vial and then carried the glass bottles into the front of the shop to place on the shelves.
“I’m going to fetch the order of candles from Yasamin,” Kiara said behind me.
I looked over my shoulder. “The order you were supposed to collect yesterday?”
Kiara gave me a sheepish smile. “I was too busy.”
“With Gaylin?” I gave her a knowing grin, which turned into a laugh when she blushed.
“Ikhrassi,” she said, still blushed red. She fled the apothecary, leaving me alone to organize, unpack, and prepare the hand cream Madame Omid had ordered.
To me, it felt as if only seconds had passed when the shop door suddenly burst open and the weathered wood ricocheted off the shelf behind it, rattling its contents in a violent quake. Carefully organized and categorized glass vials of dune monster dust, jasmine petals, herbs, and other ingredients tumbled over. An entire vial of siren’s blood clattered, unbroken, to the floor.
“The sultan has chosen Jade for his wife tonight!” my younger sister announced in a frantic voice.
I nearly dropped the box of stardust in my hand. Even though I’d heard what Kiara said, I still stared at her.
Kiara lifted her brows until they hid behind her dark bangs. “Shahira, did you hear me? Jade’s family is packing now to leave. They’re hoping to escape before dusk.”
Her words finally sank in. I set the box back on the shelf, scrambled down the wooden step stool, and rushed around the counter. Madame Omneia could wait for the hand ointment. Leaving the mess behind, I reached Kiara and gave her a shove out the shop door while my other hand flipped the sign on it to read, Closed, please come again soon.
I gathered my red-and-blue kaftan skirts and picked up the pace. “Are you certain?”
“When I was headed down to Yasamin’s shop, her daughter asked me if you were okay. I asked her what she meant, and she said Jade received a summons,” Kiara answered. Her eyes darted around for any eavesdroppers. There were none, but our kind had to be wary, especially after the previous sultan’s decree to outlaw magic and banish the sorceresses of the land or face execution.
The streets of Zunbar were wide, and blue fabric draped high above from one building to the next, casting shade over the streets. This was the capital city of our arid kingdom, Sheblom. The homes in our city were built of stone and stucco, and our stone-paved roads were swept almost daily to prevent the sands from reclaiming them.
Most families lived above their shops, while the richest merchants lived in the northern part of the city, near the palace. Jade’s family home sat one street up and to the right of ours, above her father’s tailor shop.
In the past, the streets would have been packed with tables and wagons as merchants sold their wares. On the busiest of days, it was nearly impossible for a person to navigate the streets, let alone a carriage. Children used to play in those same streets, under the feet and tables of the merchants, swiping any unattended goods to resell down at the docks. However, with the sultan’s sudden turn against the women of the land, fathers and husbands had fled with their families to avoid the sultan’s wrath. Few merchants remained now.
It had all started over a month ago when Sultan Zayne’s wife was murdered. Rumors spread like a flash flood—the sultan had killed her. My father, his trusted vizier, confirmed that rumor, but told my sister and me discreetly that it was the sultan’s right to take his wife’s life because she was having an affair with the captain of the palace guard. No one heard if the guard was punished too.
Sultan Zayne turned that unrighteous indignation against his people. Every day, he chose a woman around my age as his new bride. The next day, that wife was dead. And every day, more people from my city fled.
Jade’s two-story home came into view and Kiara and I dashed around the horse waiting in front of a cart. Kasim’s horse was tied to a nearby fig tree. We bolted up the curved steps leading to the door. Her father carried an armful of linens packed in a basket and gave me a curt nod as we passed. His usually content and bright face was lined with worry. He said nothing to me, not even a greeting, but I read on his face that Kiara was right.
Jade was to be the sultan’s next wife.
His next victim.
Without asking permission, I stepped into their home and had to dodge Kasim, the tailor’s eldest child. His sudden closeness made my heart jump. I’d noticed recently that his shoulders had filled out and he wore his beard with pride. His dark brown eyes, usually filled with joy, were pinched, and his lips, usually ready to tell a joke, were drawn in a line.
He grasped my arm just tight enough to hold me in place. “What are you doing here?” With his other hand, he tucked a wild strand of hair behind my ear.
“What do you think?” I pulled his hand away and ducked under his arm to continue upstairs.
“Shahira!” he called, but he didn’t follow.
When I walked into Jade’s room, I was surprised to find her sitting on her bed, shoulders slumped forward, eyes distant. Her mother dropped garments one by one into the crate by her feet. Jade limply held a letter with the cracked royal seal pressed in golden wax—a griffin.
Her copper eyes flicked to me in a moment of apprehensive fear, but when she saw me, tears swelled in her eyes. “Shahira, what do we do?” She sounded defeated, but no battle had happened. Because no one would stand up to our leader.
Kiara walked to her side, but awkwardly hesitated between hugging her and helping her mother, and ended up standing with her hands sticking out.
Jade’s attempt to disguise herself as a man had done no good. Because she sat on her bed with a summons to lie in our sultan’s bed and then die.
I rushed to her and snatched the letter, scanning the words over and over.
“We have already made our decision,” her mother said, dropping a final scarf into the basket before setting a blanket on top to hide it. “Get up, Jade, and collect any jewelry you want to take.”
“How can I think of necklaces and bracelets right now, Mother?” she bit out.
I kept my attention on the letter. “Madame Jade Aldar shall arrive at the palace with her family before sundown to be prepared in traditional wedding attire. Failure to follow the order of this royal decree will result in the eminent—” My gaze snapped to Jade and then her mother and I held the paper up. “Have you read this? You are aware the sultan will kill all of you if you get caught fleeing?”
“We are willing to risk that.” Her mother gave me a stern look, lips tight in the same expression Kasim wore downstairs.
Kiara’s bottom lip trembled.
I knew Jade’s family had two choices: run and potentially escape, or stay and send their daughter to her death. It was a decision I would never wish upon my worst enemy.
So far, thirty-nine families had been faced with this choice.
Nearly forty young women had been sacrificed to the sultan, and none of us knew why or to what end, other than the greedy monster wanting to keep his throne.
“The sultan is supposed to protect his people!” I shouted, fists crumpling the royal decree still in my hands.
Kasim rapped the wood frame of the door with his knuckles as he entered the room. “The wagon is ready. We must go now.”
His mother handed him the basket in an unspoken order to take it down.
Kiara released Jade and stepped back, tears welling in her eyes.
My heart wrenched in my chest and I felt more helpless than I ever had in my life. Jade and I had just spoken the night before about what we would do if one of us was chosen. She’d said that she would run away and never return. That was coming to pass. I’d lied that I would just tell a story and undo everything that had happened. In turn, she’d asked, “Why haven’t you done that yet?”
I turned to Kasim, speechless, longing for words which usually came so easily, yet in that moment my voice was silent.
He set down the basket and, in two steps, closed the gap between us and embraced me. He held me against his chest. We’d grown up together. All of us. Not just Jade, Kasim, Kiara, and me, but the families who had fled and the girls murdered. We’d gone to school together, learned magic together, swam together . . .
It was only in the last year that the childhood teasing between Kasim and me had become flirting. In fact, it was just the week prior he had kissed my forehead and told me we should probably stop pretending to have no romantic interest in each other.
Now, he held me in an embrace so tight I feared it would be our last.
Kasim pushed me away far too soon, but cupped my face in his hands and planted a kiss on my lips. The sudden, unexpected touch felt desperate but still warmed me to my toes. His lips were warm and soft, and his beard tickled my upper lip.
Again, he pulled away before I was ready.
“I will miss you, Shahira. When things settle down—”
“You and I both know he isn’t going to stop unless someone stops him,” I cut in and then I shook my head. “You finally gain the courage to kiss me as your family leaves for . . . sands knows where?” I didn’t mask my hurt as I pulled away.
Kasim’s eyes filled with pain.
Jade snatched my wrist. “Perhaps your magic could help us?”
I shook my head. “Stories that big . . . I can’t put enough magic inside of them to make the words find life.”
“Or are you just too afraid?” Kasim’s jaw tightened. His words stung and he knew it, because he flinched when I ripped my hand away. He knew I had every reason to be afraid of using my magic for such a big cause.
Their father appeared behind him. “We must go now. Kasim, Jade, yalla.”
Jade hugged me so tightly I feared she could snap a rib. The physical pain would be nothing compared to the heartache I felt. My best friend was running and the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with was at her side.
There was nothing I—or anyone else—could do.
I held Jade’s hand as we walked down the stairs and out to the waiting cart packed with everything the family deemed essential. Kiara followed behind. There was barely room for Jade on the seat between her mother and father and she pulled a cap down to help mask her feminine features. His father snapped the reins, urging the cart horse to move forward and on to their journey to a new kingdom. Kasim’s horse stood waiting, oblivious that it was his last time nibbling the sweet blades of grass fighting to take root at the edge of the family well.
“Will you wait?” Kasim asked, eyes focused on his family riding down the vacant street.
“Wait for what? For me to be chosen tomorrow night? Or tonight in her stead?” I didn’t mean for the words to come out so bitter, but even if Jade made it out of Zunbar, someone else would have to go to the sultan for her. Still, it wasn’t Kasim’s fault.
I looked at the silhouette of Kasim’s face in the sunlight. He was incredibly handsome. I used to stare at him and hope he didn’t notice. But I didn’t care in that moment, and if he turned and caught me, so be it. Especially if I wouldn’t see him again. Behind the proportions of a man, I could still see the boy I grew up with.
I wanted to remember him.
His knuckles brushed my hand before his long fingers entwined mine. “You won’t be chosen, Shahira. Everyone knows that. Not with your father being the vizier.” His voice was soft.
“You are sorely mistaken if you think my father’s status protects me,” I responded, though he wasn’t completely wrong. There had been over thirty opportunities for the sultan to choose me out of everyone in the kingdom, and not once had my name been summoned.
Kasim let out a heavy breath, his shoulders dropping.
He’d just given me my first kiss and now he would leave.
“This isn’t right.” I stepped in front of him and pressed my forehead into his chest. “But it’s selfish for me to ask you to stay.”
He wrapped his long arms around me once more. “When we reach our new home, wherever that may be, I will send a letter with Omar.”
I shifted my head enough to see the hunting hawk poised in the tree near the well. His golden eyes watched the horse to see if a sand mouse or horned lizard might escape from the clump of grass being tugged from the sands. I drew a deep breath and straightened.
“Then I shall wait. Though the thought of losing you . . .” My voice snagged in my throat.
“Then don’t think about losing me.” Kasim smiled softly and caught my chin in his hand before giving me one more sweet kiss, our fingers still linked. “Someone will save Zunbar. Someone brave and intelligent will find a way to stop the sultan.”
“Hopefully soon.” I bit my bottom lip as Kasim’s hand slipped from mine.
His eyes held the same reluctance I felt as he walked to his horse. He climbed into the saddle, put on a brave face, and dipped his head to me. “Farewell, Shahira.”
“Goodbye, Kasim.”