The Sultan and the Storyteller by Lichelle Slater

Ten

Gerard held Ismae’s hand as she sat at the kitchen table, then kissed her cheek and whispered something in her ear that made her blush before sitting beside her. Their happiness seeped off of them, and I felt a pang of jealousy. In spite of Zayne’s moments of kindness, I didn’t believe we would ever fall in love.

“It has been some time since we’ve heard from Fidsa,” Zayne commented.

Gerard sat at Ismae’s side. “Unfortunately, we’ve had some turmoil the last several years. I’m trying to recover our relationships with our neighboring kingdoms, which is another reason I have come.”

“Why you and not the king and queen?”

“My parents only regained the throne a few months ago. I volunteered to travel here to see if you truly had the Windforn mirror.”

“And of course I had to come with him to see your beautiful country,” Ismae added. “Our friends wanted to join, but we decided we probably shouldn’t overwhelm you with too much during our first meeting. Though, your palace could have held us all! This is magnificent! And it’s such an honor to see your traditions. I only hope we get to see more.”

Servants brought out bowls of water for us to wash our hands in. Gerard and Ismae thanked them and I took the opportunity to steal a glance at Zayne.

He shrugged his shoulder, darted his gaze to Ismae and back to me, then gave a playful roll of his eyes.

I smiled. He seemed to be relaxing again.

“How long have you and Sultan Zayne been married?” Ismae asked in a much softer tone, looking at me.

“This is only the second day,” I replied.

“This land is different from ours in so many ways. I’m obsessed with this architecture.” She gestured to one of the windows in the room. “The shapes of things, the colors . . . so many colors.” She grinned.

Ismae told us about how their capital city was frozen in time and the kingdom had split into four different regions. Each had been trapped in a season—one in spring, another in summer, then one in fall, and the last in winter. For sixteen years, no one had remembered. Until Gerard showed up and fixed everything. Gerard downplayed his hero status.

When we finished eating, Zayne was the first to stand. “Shahira, might I have a word with you?”

I caught his brief glance to Gerard before I answered, “Certainly.”

Zayne helped me to my feet and then guided me out to the front of the palace where a carriage, far fancier than any I’d seen in Zunbar, sat waiting. It was painted blue and gold with white accents, and the canopy over the seat was white. The canopy was rolled down on the side of the carriage facing the sun, providing shade. A man in a sleeveless white tunic sat behind the reins.

“What is this?” I asked, turning to Zayne.

He stepped up to the carriage and held his hand out toward me. “You wanted to spend more time together. I noticed how Gerard and Ismae act and asked for ideas on what to do with . . . us. With my first wife, the marriage was arranged. I didn’t have to make her fall in love with me. So I’m taking you down to the beach to swim.”

I couldn’t help but smile as he helped me onto the bench seat. His words echoed in my mind—I didn’t even have to make my first wife fall in love with me. Did he want to fall in love?

Zayne set a heavy basket practically overflowing with food on the floor of the carriage. “Just in case we stay until dinner.” He rested his hand on my knee.

I felt my cheeks grow hot with a blush at his simple gesture. No man had touched me so intimately. “Of course. But what about our guests?”

“They wanted to rest after their journey.” Zayne noticed my glance to his hand and he quickly pulled it away. “Driver, head out.”

“You don’t need to be so modest. We are married, after all.” I held my hand out, palm up.

“Yes, we are, which is why I haven’t wanted to get too close to you emotionally. You could still die tonight.”

I frowned. “Then why take me to the beach?”

He shifted his gaze to something happening in the distance. “If it is your last day alive, then I want you to be happy. I shouldn’t have yelled at you earlier.”

I waited a moment, trying to choose my words carefully before I responded. “You keep saying if as if you don’t know when I am going to die.”

He looked at me from the corner of his eye and then closed them both and released his hair from the ponytail he typically kept it tied back in, then ran his fingers through it. He turned in his seat to face me. “You asked me to tell you what is going on. You demanded to know why I kill my brides. To be honest . . . I do not know. When I go to bed, I have a wife at my side. When I wake . . . she is dead.”

I stared at Zayne for a long while, until he shifted uncomfortably. “Just so I understand, you claim not to remember killing a single wife you’ve had?”

He rubbed his hands on his knees. “I always remember the same thing when I wake—my hands around her throat. No matter which wife, I have the same memory. Until you. These last two nights have been the most peacefully I’ve slept in over a month. I had no nightmares.” Zayne’s eyes softened. “Clearly, there’s something about you. Something . . . I dare not to even wish for.”

“Do you really not know what happens at night or how the others died?” I asked. I was trying to be delicate, but there was no way to be delicate asking a man why he killed.

He glanced at the driver and the pleading in his eyes hardened. As briefly as he had shown vulnerability, it was gone. “I don’t know. Neither does your father. Jinni, shaytan, ifrit—who can say?”

“I want to help you, but I will need access to books. It could be caused by something as simple as an added herb in your tea or poison in your food that would cause hallucinations or throw you into a rage. Fairy pox is a white leaf that could take your short-term memory too.”

He ran his hand down his face. “I’ll show you the library when we return.”

I took his hand. “I’ll do everything in my power to help you. If I can’t find the answers within the palace, may I search beyond? Ask the women in the city?”

“You mean the sorceresses?”

My throat tightened. “No one has seen one in a few years,” I lied. “But maybe someone has heard of a shipment of poisons or something.”

Zayne finally nodded. “I will allow it, but you must use caution when you aren’t protected by me.”

“Protected” by the man who would kill me and not remember why? I bit my tongue.

The road curved and the instant I spotted the ocean, I smiled and leaned to get a view around the servant.

“You really are excited about going swimming, aren’t you?” Zayne asked.

“I haven’t been swimming in a long time, but I’m more excited to be out of the palace again. Twice in one day. It must feel good to you.”

“The ocean is nothing but salt and dead fish.” His nose wrinkled.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

He glanced sideways at me.

“You claim you won’t enjoy it, but the fact you’re taking me to the ocean shows you must care a little bit, doesn’t it?”

“I’m only bringing you here because you asked to spend time together.”

I smiled at him. “Do you have a favorite hobby?”

“Hobby? I am the sultan. I don’t have time for hobbies.”

“Please.” I rolled my eyes. “You do not spend all day at your desk writing letters. There is plenty of free time to do something you enjoy. Painting, perhaps? No, no don’t tell me.” I tapped my bottom lip while I studied Zayne’s hands. “You don’t seem like a painter. I’m going to say . . . you play a musical instrument. The tar, perhaps?”

Zayne gave an impressed frown. “I did when I was younger.”

“I would like to hear you play,” I said. “Why not tomorrow night?”

“I don’t play anymore,” he replied stiffly.

“I don’t care how good you sound.”

With the sunlight spilling in and Zayne’s relaxed expression, I actually had hope I would not only survive another night, but uncover the mystery as to why he killed. And I felt that I would find a way to stop him.

The carriage stopped. “We’ve arrived,” the servant announced.

Before Zayne could even offer a hand, I climbed out and trotted across the sand to the glass-pebble-covered beach.

Piarya Beach was made up of glass pebbles in every shade that had been smoothed by time. No one knew where the glass came from, but there were stories told by sailors of a nearby underwater volcano that spewed the necessary elements to create the beach. One marvelous thing about Piarya Beach was that the glass stones held none of the Sheblom heat, meaning even in the blazing afternoon sun, they didn’t burn my feet.

After I removed my sandals, I closed my eyes and let my toes absorb the unnatural coolness of the stones.

“Where is everyone?” Zayne asked.

Only when I lifted my gaze did I see the emptiness of the shoreline. The beach should have been littered with families enjoying a break from the hot afternoon sun. I remembered days when the beach was so packed, it was almost impossible to swim. Of course, those memories were from when I was a child.

I looked over my shoulder at Zayne. Behind him, the servant set up the canopy and laid out the blanket.

Zayne’s jaw was tight. “Are my people truly so frightened?”

“I’m sorry, but many people have left Zunbar.”

He approached me and stopped at my side. “You are certain you want to spend the rest of the afternoon here?”

“I don’t care if it’s all afternoon or just an hour. Any time I spend with you, I will enjoy.”

His cold gaze made a chill run down my spine. “You don’t even know me.”

“And yet, here we are married. Two strangers trying to figure out each other, but afraid, both trying to hide their hearts.”

He watched me in silence, then looked out over the sea.

I wondered what he was thinking.

The only sounds between us were those of the crashing waves, the seagulls, and somewhere behind us the servant shoving wooden poles into the rocky beach. Zayne looked older than his twenty years. I couldn’t imagine the burden he bore as both the sultan and the enemy of his own kingdom. In that brief moment, I saw how lonely he was.

Both of his parents had been dead for a few years—his mother from illness and his father from a horrible hunting accident—and now his previous wives. It was no wonder he acted so aloof. He was alone.

Zayne must have felt my eyes on him because his attention drifted to me. When our eyes met, he smiled. “I suppose dipping my feet in the water won’t harm anything. Even a sultan can do that, right?”

I could hardly believe it when Zayne not only removed his sandals but his shirt as well. In the sunlight, his body was toned more than I realized, and unlike the first time I’d seen him take his shirt off when preparing for bed, I allowed my gaze to linger on the ridges of his muscles. He had a scar on his side—long and thin. I wondered if it was from the same hunting incident that took his father’s life, or if it was from training with his soldiers. I hadn’t thought of him wielding a sword until that moment.

Zayne entered the water, getting his pants wet up to his knees. I followed his lead and stepped into the waves. The ocean water soothed the tension in my legs and ran all the way through my body.

“My sister nearly drowned once,” I said absently, dragging my fingers through the water and feeling it ripple around me. “She was saved by a childhood friend.”

“That must have been terrifying.”

When I looked at Zayne, he wasn’t looking at me. Pursing my lips to hide my smile, I cupped water in my hand and flung it on him.

He stiffened and turned to me. “You just splashed me.”

I put a hand over my mouth, feigning innocence. “I am terribly sorry. That was completely inappropriate.”

“Yes. It was.”

His eyes narrowed, but there was a soft glint behind them that tore me between warning and mischief. “Shahira,” he said, but his tone was soft and the intonation playful.

I splashed him again, this time only his waist.

Zayne’s lips tugged in a grin.

I wanted him to play, to let go of the darkness and weight of the world on his shoulders. He splashed at me with a little chuckle, but it slowly faded and he took my hand to kiss it, then walked out onto the beach and lay down on his back.

My shoulders slumped.

“It has been a long time since I have felt such relief,” he said, gazing at the sun through the canopy.

Biting my lip, I walked over to where he lay and sat at his side. I reached out and brushed damp hair from his cheek that had snagged on his beard. “You deserve happiness too, Zayne.”

Zayne opened his eyes. “Do I? After everything I’ve done? Even you’re disgusted by me.”

“Disgust isn’t the word I would use.”

Zayne propped himself up on his elbow. “Are you afraid of me?”

“You have a reputation,” I admitted.

He nodded and his face grew solemn. “One I deserve.” He sat up fully and twisted his sopping hair to dry it out. It was curly, revitalized, just like him.

“Zayne, what if someone was doing this to you? Who could it be? I don’t know about you, but if I wanted to take over the kingdom, I would kill you.”

He rested his arms on his knees. “You mentioned a shadow in our room. I believe it appeared because of my first wife,” he said somberly. He smoothed his beard and stood. “I believe I got the taste for blood when I had her executed, which opened me up to that darkness. I must find joy in it.”

“The look in your eyes says otherwise,” I disagreed. “What if that shadow possesses you?”

He sighed and studied me again. “I trust Captain Nadeem and his men with my life. Your father has been a second father to me. What else could it be but me?”

“Then I shall search your library for herbs or poisons. We will start there.”

Zayne began pulling out the food. “Perhaps you can use your skills from the apothecary and make something to take away my blood lust.”

I accepted the komaj from him and bit the corner off, a sweet cardamom bread stuffed with dates. “I’ll do anything to help you.”

“Good. It will keep you alive.”

“And it’s the right thing to do.”

After snacking on dinner, we went back into the ocean and swam until the sun began to set, taking the heat with it. Zayne wrapped a towel around my shoulders and we climbed back into the carriage.

“Thank you, Shahira, for spending time with me.”

I winked. “Even if you smell like salt and fish.”