The Sultan and the Storyteller by Lichelle Slater
Twenty
I stared at the fading red henna tattoo from my wedding night, just days ago. I’d hated Zayne then because I didn’t understand. Since that fateful night, I had fallen in love with him, uncovered my father’s secret, and accepted the powers I’d been born with. Accepting that power had granted me an animal familiar—a creature that was essentially an animal guide, teaching me how to control my power. Mother never had one, at least not that I could recall. In fact, I couldn’t recall any woman in town with a magical animal. Perhaps they had to keep their familiars hidden.
Closing my hands, I lifted my gaze to the window overlooking the desert west of Zunbar. I open this story. There is a vizier named Khorshid who locked his daughter, Shahira, in a tower. But she used her magic to unlock the door and save her husband. I raised my hand and gripped the doorknob, then twisted and pulled. The door didn’t budge.
I sank back to the floor. I don’t know your name, tiger, or how to summon you, but I could really use your help.
Claws scratched at the door. My name is Navid.
I jumped and rolled up onto my knees. You can hear me?
Yes. We are bound through thoughts, and voice too.
Why are you out there?
I cannot enter. There are wards cancelling magic and I cannot make it in. Tell me how to help you.His voice sounded defeated.
I slipped the griffin from my pocket and pushed it under the door. Take this to my sister, Kiara. She is in the apothecary. Tell her I need her help and Kasim needs to call the sorceresses into action.
I heard Navid snort under the door. I’ll see if I can sneak the keys to get you out too.
Thank you, Navid. Don’t get caught.
I’ll do my best.
For what felt like ages, I sat mulling over every potential escape I could think up. Should I break a window with my bare hands? I might be able to use my magic to summon something to catch me before my body smashed against the ground below. I had tried telling a story, but the red markings on the floor and ceiling pulsed—the wards Navid had mentioned. I didn’t even have a hairpin on me to attempt to pick the lock, which I had absolutely no experience with anyway.
But my mind lingered on the lock and I stared at it. Perhaps Navid was cunning enough to obtain the key.
As if I’d summoned him from the thought alone, Navid’s voice came to me. “I scared your sister to death. I showed her the necklace, but now she thinks I’m Zayne. I can’t communicate with her using my words, it appears. I still have the necklace too. Your Zayne is with a man of magic and I cannot sneak in. I’m sorry I have failed you.”
No, you haven’t. I’d actually hoped you would return. I need you to use your magic on the lock.
There was a long pause.
Navid?
“I told you the door has a ward.”
Does the lock?
“Oh, it doesn’t!” Navid thumped against the door and I pictured him standing with his front paws on the door. The lock clicked and then swung open. He grinned proudly, showing his fangs with his nose wrinkled.
I opened my arms and hugged him. Thank you. I’m so glad you showed up when you did. I’ve heard stories of sorceresses receiving an animal companion when they accept their magic, but since sorceresses have been gone or hiding for years, I can’t recall having seen any. I can’t wait to get to know you.
“In the meantime, let’s get the help you need to save Zayne.”
I kissed the top of his head. Just one more thing.
I snuck downstairs, using Navid to tell me when the halls were clear, until I managed to get to my bedroom.
It’s not safe to walk out the front doors of the palace,I said to Navid. We need to get out the window and then we can flee to the city.
Navid crawled out of the window first, then I slipped out after him. I was grateful for the cover of darkness so we could slip across the front of the palace to the wall. Navid boosted me into a tree and I climbed over the wall and dropped down onto the top of a building on the other side. Navid followed, and then we ran to the apothecary.
Kiara was with a group of probably five or six women in the back room of the apothecary and she gasped when she saw me. “There was a tiger that came, and I thought Zayne had been—that’s him!”
I opened my mouth and tried to describe how Navid was my familiar, but again no words came. I bit my lip and Kiara stared at me with wide eyes.
“What happened?”
I shook my head. I wanted to tell her I needed her help, and the help of the sorceresses.
The door burst open and I turned around to see Kasim with his forehead beaded with sweat, panting hard. “The soldiers took Jade! Shahira, what are you doing here? Why would the soldiers take her?”
“Khorshid is going to kill Jade. He’s going to make her the final sacrifice,” Navid said aloud for me.
Kasim opened his mouth, froze, then looked at the tiger.
His gaze shifted back to me and I pointed to my throat and shook my head, signaling I couldn’t talk.
“We should get to the palace, then,” Kasim declared. “We need to save Jade.”
A rush of thoughts flooded my mind at once, warning and desperate.
Navid caught Khorshid by the hem of his shirt. “She wants to go in first to distract the sultan. Sultan Zayne is being controlled, and she will not let you harm him. You and the sorceresses walk in a few minutes after, so she has that time.”
Kasim’s jaw tightened. “I don’t agree with this.”
“She adds that if you get attacked by the soldiers, try not to kill them.” Navid leaned his body against my leg.
I gave Kiara a big hug, then kissed her cheek, wishing I could tell her things would be fine.
When I left the apothecary, I was uncertain what would happen once I entered the palace, confronted Zayne, and faced my father. Especially now I had no voice.
I slipped unseen into the palace through the same side door I had entered the night I’d been wed to Zayne. But I paused just inside and closed my eyes. My whole life I have doubted myself and my magic. I should have been learning how to control and use it instead of hide it. I have more confidence in myself now than I have ever had before, and when I enter the throne room, I will slip Zayne’s griffin charm into his pocket and protect him from my father’s powers. Magic tingled across my skin and the hairs on my arms rose. I opened my eyes as excitement began to build inside my heart. I will be able to speak to Zayne, and he will find a way to turn the ifrit on Khorshid and stop him from taking Jade’s magic. My father will be exiled and unable to use any power.
The story had been spoken.
The spell cast.
And I hadn’t needed my voice.
I held my head high and gripped Zayne’s charm in my fist before I pulled the door open and boldly entered the main hallway of the palace. Each stride was deliberate, each step intentional, and just as I was about to reach the entrance of the throne room, Captain Nadeem stepped forward.
“How did you escape?” To my amazement, his voice was low and he didn’t shout a warning.
“I came to stop this wedding and save Zayne.” My voice broke from its prison.
Nadeem shifted his gaze while trying to remain still. “You cannot do this on your own.”
“I never said I was alone.”
Another soldier rounded the corner. “Shahira is here!”
Nadeem grimaced and he gave me a silent, apologetic look before quickly stepping forward and seizing me by the arm.
“Take me into the throne room,” I commanded.
Captain Nadeem’s arm stiffened, his brows furrowed, and he turned on his heel before pulling me across the threshold. I was getting better at using my powers in the same way Ismae had. If only they worked so well against other magic users.
When I saw Zayne sitting beside Jade on the wedding bench that had been ours just a week ago, my heart clenched. His eyes met mine, and I could have sworn there was a sparkle of recognition. But with a stomp of my father’s staff, that flicker of light was gone.
“Shahira!” Jade cried and tried to stand, but Zayne reached out and pulled her back down, gripping her arm tightly.
The man who had once been my father frowned. “You should have stayed put.”
“You know me, Ulley,” I said with all the effort in my heart. “I am your wife. I am the woman who promised to save you. I plan on keeping that promise because I love you.”
Zayne’s jaw tightened and he rose to his feet.
“Zayne,” Father said in warning.
But the Sultan walked to me, his eyes dark, and as he walked he drew his sword.
Father’s lip curled in a cruel smirk.
My breath caught and I had half a thought to try and run, but Captain Nadeem held me tightly.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t spill your blood here, traitor.” Zayne’s nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Because I love you.”
Zayne leaned to my face and looked at me in agonizing seconds of silence. “No one could ever love me,” he said with finality.
With a jerk of my arm, I freed it from Captain Nadeem’s grip and grabbed Zayne’s face in my hands to plant a kiss on his lips.
He stiffened under my touch.
I knew a kiss wouldn’t be enough to break my father’s spell.
How could I have been so foolish?
I lowered myself back down onto my heels and looked up at the man I had fallen in love with. He had his hand held out toward the captain, a silent command to him from moving forward. I slid my hand down Zayne’s chest and felt my heart break.
Zayne glared down at me with anger. “What makes you think you have any right to touch me in such a way?”
My hand fell, sliding the griffin pendant into the breast pocket of his handsome red shirt. If my touch couldn’t help him, perhaps an enchanted amulet could. “Forgive me, my sultan,” I whispered as unbidden tears blinded me. I tried to wipe them away, tried to appear strong. “You can stop him. You have to fight for me, just as I’m fighting for you. Like the story told.”
Zayne leaned down to my ear and it was my turn to stiffen. “I hope you have a plan, because he has more than one ifrit,” he whispered.
His statement caught me so off guard, I pulled back and looked up at him.
He looked down at me with his eyes, not the eyes of someone who was being controlled. The charm had worked!
I dried my cheeks, resisting the urge to smile and grab on to him there, and Zayne restored his stone face before he turned to my father. “She wants to watch the wedding,” he lied.
Khorshid studied Zayne up and down. “Get back over here and let’s finish this.”
“I would rather my men arrest you for treason,” Zayne said flatly. “Guards, take his staff and arrest him.”
Khorshid blanched and took a step back. “You think you can stop this?” His eyes began to glow red and he turned his attention—and anger—toward Jade. “I won’t be stopped by a woman!” He stomped his staff on the ground and a shadowy form crawled down the wall on four distorted legs.
Jade let out a horrified scream and fainted, collapsing to the floor.
“Navid, protect her!” I ordered.
The tiger appeared at her side in an instant.
I turned and shouted a warning to Zayne.
He was already running toward my father, his ceremonial sword poised for battle. The soldiers in the room finally sprang into action and ran toward the vizier as their sultan had ordered. But the command of their sultan couldn’t hold up against the command of magic. At another stomp of the staff on the floor, all of the soldiers froze where they stood.
Zayne reached Khorshid with his sword raised over his head.
The ifrit leapt off the wall.
Zayne shouted as he swung his sword downward at my father.
The demon grasped Zayne’s blade in his hand before the blow landed, and black ooze slowly sizzled against the sword, consuming the metal. The demon’s blood.
The ifrit took solid form—a creature with scales like a snake, long quills like a porcupine, and claws as long as a dragon’s. It had three eyes and four horns. Not knowing what else to do, I wrenched the sword from the nearest incapacitated guard, wrenching it from his grip, and ran to Zayne’s aid.
The ifrit’s cold gaze snapped to me and screamed like nothing I’d ever heard. I attempted to swing the blade, but pain exploded across my left shoulder and back as I spun and collapsed against the sofa before sliding to the ground in a heap.
I vomited in agony.
“Shahira!” Zayne cried out.