The Sultan and the Storyteller by Lichelle Slater

Two

Kiara stepped up to my side with tears streaming down her cheeks. “This isn’t right.”

It wasn’t. With the others that had been chosen, I had been able to turn a blind eye. I had grown numb to the heartbreak and distanced myself as much as possible. Never did I think Jade would be chosen. Never did I imagine my best friend would be attempting to flee with a target on her back.

My chest tightened and it felt as though my heart couldn’t beat as I watched my best friend and fade out of sight. “What do you know about their future? Will they be safe?” I asked Kiara, looking over at her.

Kiara rolled her eyes at me and sarcastically said, “Since I had so much time to brew a cup and read it.” She rubbed tears from her eyes.

“You know what I mean,” I said. I placed my arms around her and pulled her close.

She sighed and shook her head, her onyx hair moving like ink in the dimming light. “We both know there are only two outcomes. If they take Jade to the palace, she dies. But they could make it on a ship or get into the desert safely. There is hope.”

My bottom lip quivered, but I couldn’t let myself sob. I had to be strong for Kiara. But a thought itched at the back of my mind—how long before I was chosen?

“I think we should leave the shop closed the rest of the night,” I said, swallowing the hole growing in my chest and stepping back. “No one shops this late in the day anyhow.”

Kiara sniffled and smeared her tears over her cheeks, leaving a small trail of drying salt behind.

“I’m thinking we should make barberries and tamarind-stuffed fish for dinner,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. I could hardly wait for Omar to carry a message to me, telling me Jade and her family were safe.

“Over saffron rice?” Kiara asked.

“The saffron is too expensive, but we could do lime rice.” I took my sister by the hand, like we used to when we were kids, and began the agonizing walk back to our mother’s apothecary.

Kiara relented a small smile. “We may as well make some ghotab too.”

“One of my favorites.” I smiled back, trying to sound enthusiastic, but it fell flat. My heart stung and I looked down the main street as if I could catch a final glimpse of them.

I knew food wouldn’t solve any of our problems, but maybe Kiara was right and Jade and her family would escape before the soldiers arrived to take her. Maybe Jade would make it to the green lands we used to daydream about.

Kiara suddenly grabbed my arm and jerked me to a stop.

I had been so distracted by my own grief I hadn’t noticed a small group of onlookers at the intersection of two roads at the end of the bazaar. My breath caught. Kasim stood beside his horse, one hand holding the reins and the other imploring the six palace guards surrounding his family to keep their distance. I knew they were not ordinary soldiers because they wore gold helmets, silver chainmail armor, and the royal colors of gold and blue. A soldier with a shaved face held the pole of a banner with the griffin crest of Sultan Zayne—the same symbol as on Jade’s letter.

“You are all under arrest,” the soldier with a plume of feathers from his helmet and long kilij scimitar announced. “You chose to willingly act against the decree sent to you this day.”

Kiara and I exchanged a quick glance and, without speaking a word, crept closer as quickly as we could without drawing attention to ourselves.

“Sir, we did not receive the letter you speak of,” Kasim claimed. “We had no knowledge of it and were already planning to leave.” He was always calm under stress.

I watched in dismay, my stomach filled with dread, while Kasim desperately pleaded with the soldiers to let them go. Their only hope was for Jade to step up and offer herself to save her family. But she sat frozen.

“We have no daughter,” their father said firmly.

The soldier cast him a glare. “You expect me to believe so blatant a lie?”

“Why would we risk the safety of our entire family otherwise?” he argued back.

I looked at Jade. If the guards didn’t believe Kasim and his father and if Jade didn’t stand up and save them, they would all die. My heart ached for her. Jade sat with her hands between her knees, eyes downcast, silent as the golden statues guarding the entrance to the palace. My heart pounded in my chest. Jade shouldn’t be in this position. No woman should. How could I say she should sacrifice herself and become another victim of the sultan?

Someone needed to do something to stop him from ruining lives.

The soldier with the gaudy helmet gave Kasim a cruel smirk. “Vizier Khorshid, do these people speak the truth?”

My heart dropped to the soles of my feet and I turned to see my father standing at the edge of the gathering crowd. His expression was solemn. He wore long red and black robes, accented in gold on the sleeves and hem. He held his prized serpent staff in his hand.

I knew Jade didn’t stand a chance now. Because if my father had been sent by the sultan, he would do nothing to defend Jade or her family.

My father glanced at Kasim, a boy who used to sit on his lap and demand stories while we girls played with dolls, a boy who was more or less the son he never had, and I saw in my father’s cold gaze what Kasim couldn’t.

Kasim’s jaw clenched, hope still in his eyes.

Kasim and his family needed my father to lie. But he was bound by an oath to remain loyal to the throne under any circumstance. If he were to be discovered as a traitor, he would be executed.

The vizier shifted his attention back to the captain without moving his head. “Even if the family didn’t read the letter, the daughter did. She is to be taken to Sultan Zayne.” He pointed to Jade with his staff.

The magic from his staff revealed the truth—Jade’s hair lengthened, her garments changed to a dress, and the binding keeping her breasts disappeared, revealing Jade’s womanly form.

Tears began to fall down her cheeks and she shook her head. She’d held it together until now.

“No!” her mother cried and threw her arms around her child. “Vizier Khorshid, please! We are begging you. You know us!” Her voice cracked.

Jade’s father jumped to his feet and shouted, “I won’t allow that—that ifrit to take another daughter only to slay her after defiling her!”

The captain pointed his weapon at the old tailor. “You blaspheme so openly against the sultan?”

“No. Father, sit down,” Kasim warned, his feet rooted in fear that any movement would spark the soldiers to attack.

“I can’t. I won’t stand idle and watch them take her! I will defend my family with my life!” His father drew his pathetic short sword, little more than a dagger.

Kasim cried out, Jade screamed, and the crowd gasped.

But no one could act before the guard’s scimitar sliced across the tailor’s abdomen. His sword clattered on the stone street and he grasped feebly at his insides before collapsing off of the cart.

I grabbed Kiara and clamped my hands over her eyes.

Kasim dropped to his knees at his father’s side and pressed his hands against the wound. He gritted his teeth and hot tears filled his eyes. “Don’t go, Father. One of the sorceresses can help you. Please, someone, help!”

Jade came to her senses and jumped down to her father’s side. She pushed Kasim’s hands aside and placed her own hands over the wound.

Her father weakly said, “Jade. No.”

“I have to try,” she said through a broken voice and blinding tears.

My magic couldn’t help them, but I stepped forward anyway. If Jade healed him, she would take on the injury herself.

My father blocked my path. “Leave,” he said in a low tone.

I pushed Kiara to him and stepped around to run to them.

“And so you don’t forget your role tonight . . .” My attention shot to the soldier who had grabbed Jade’s arm. “Kill the mother and boy as well. Let this family be an example to those who would condemn the actions of their sultan!”

“No!” I shouted.

Before Kasim could get to his feet or even draw a weapon in defense of his family, just as I reached his side, his mother was executed. She collapsed on the ground at her husband’s side. Kasim lifted his eyes to the soldiers with a mix of anger and fear, and I read in that look what I thought myself—they were going to kill him next.

All of the guards drew their weapons.

Time froze with my heart. Everything went silent and my gaze slowly shifted from Jade screaming and fighting to break free to Kasim reaching for his weapon with hands covered in the blood of his father.

I couldn’t let him be executed. I refused to let them take Jade. The people watching were faceless shadows who had once been neighbors and friends, but turned their backs on each other when they should have allied together.

Who would stand up to Sultan Zayne if not me?

“Shahira, don’t intervene,” Father commanded somewhere behind me.

Without considering the consequences, I did the only thing I could. I stepped in front of Kasim. “Please restrain yourself!” I demanded, my hands raised in front of me. “So much innocent blood has been spilt already.”

The general or whoever he was sneered at me. “It is by command of the sultan.”

Behind me, Jade sobbed as a guard dragged her toward the palace overlooking the city.

I made eye contact with my father. He held Kiara to his chest. His eyes commanded me not to do it.

But I had to.

Because no one else would.

“Take me instead,” I said.

The guard’s smug grin melted and shifted to confusion. He eyed me up and down, then looked at my father.

My father’s jaw flexed and his eyes darkened. He shook his head ever so slightly, a look of disappointment he’d given me many times in my life. He released Kiara and approached the men. “She doesn’t mean it. Saran, take Jade and go.”

“You’re wrong. I do mean it.” I marched up to the man holding Jade and grabbed his wrist. “Let her go. Take me to the sultan.”

The guard looked to his leader.

Saran turned to my father.

“I’m offering myself willingly! Volunteers take precedence over a summons!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Kasim set his father down and get to his feet. Tears streaked his cheeks. “Don’t,” he begged softly.

I couldn’t imagine what was running through his mind, or what he was trying to say. Perhaps he was pleading with me not to start any further action that might end up with both of us killed, or maybe he wanted the guard to release Jade. But I had to do something.

I refused to answer him or even look at him.

Saran shook his head. “Your daughter is right, Khorshid. Take her to the sultan. As for the boy—”

“Let him live,” Father said. “The point has been made.”

The guard released Jade and gave her a shove into Kasim, but I refused to let him take me by the arm. “I can walk myself.”

“Shahira, you can’t,” Kasim said behind me. “Please! I can’t bear . . .”

I met his gaze and shook my head softly.

Did I have the power to change the sultan? Hardly. It would take one mighty story to do that. Or, perhaps, a lot of little ones.