When my mother offered me at Belast's altar, the god plucked out my right eye. It could have been much worse. I've seen Talented who are missing hands, or feet, or entire limbs. I've heard of Talented men, high-voiced, who'd lost their manhood in exchange for Belast's power. I consider the one eye a fair trade for my Talent.
The scent of love permeates the marketplace: new-love, friend-love, jealous-love, even hate-love. It shifts as people move, as their gazes fall in different directions; it mingles with the scent of cumin, paprika, and turmeric. My wares jangle at my waist and over my shoulders--pots, pans, teapots, lamps, and chains. They all smell of old-love, comfort-love. It's deep and sweet, like a river laced with honey.
Niyat's whiskers tickle my ear. "There are easier ways to make money, Iyalah."
I scratch his little head, and use the movement to tuck him back beneath my hood. "We've spoken on this before," I mutter.
"But your mother--"
"Understands," I cut in. I stop, unroll the rug beneath my arm, and set up my wares on the dusty floor of an alley. All of my wares are metal. They have to be, to become so loved and still be of use. "I have a reputation," I say. "I sell only the finest goods." The leather merchant to my left gives me an odd look, but says nothing.
"Your Talent blinds you," Niyat says. "These things are worn." He shifts inside my hood, and his tail slips down the back of my neck, making me shiver.
Amongst the flow of foot traffic, a woman stops to consider one of my bronze lamps. She lifts it, examining the curve of its spout.
"You must face the truth before it's too late," Niyat whispers, just loud enough for me to hear. "Iyalah, your mother is dying."
Perhaps it is the redness of my nose, or the sunken hollow where my right eye used to be, but the woman glances at my face and then sets the lamp back down. The sandstone street blurs in my vision as she walks away.
"I don't say this to hurt you," Niyat says. "I know what it's like to lose a mother. I don't want the same fate to befall you." He shifts into a weasel and drapes himself about my neck, seeking to comfort me the way I once comforted him. I found him years ago as a kitten, mewling his heartbreak outside the palace gates. He did not smell of love until after I'd taken him home, given him some milk, and washed the fleas from his fur. When I awoke, a girl with a missing left hand curled in the corner where I'd left the kitten. But Niyat prefers a male form, so I pretend not to notice that he shifts into a girl when he sleeps.
I wipe the tears from my eye. "She's just sick," I say, though I know, and Niyat knows, it is not the truth. Mother has been abed for six days. "She only needs a doctor. I'll find a way to pay."
"Use your Talent," Niyat says.
"To do what? Become a soothsayer? The only ones unaware of who loves them are heartsick teenagers, and they've little enough coin. Besides, I've done it once before." A secret, blurted out when I was ten years old. A man's wife and her cousin. They did not smell of family-love when they looked at one another.
"Your mother didn't place you on the altar so you could live in poverty," Niyat says.
I open my mouth to retort, to ask Niyat why his mother placed him on the altar, but a commotion sounds from the street. Raised voices, feet shuffling as people run past the alley, and then one voice calls above the rest.
"The Raj's crier," Niyat says. He tries to scramble onto my shoulder, but I push him back down. "Can you hear what he's saying?"
"Quiet," I hiss. I rise to my feet, and turn my head, trying to pinpoint the sound. I can't make out everything the crier says, but I hear enough. "Another execution. Sundown, at the palace gates." I stop, listen again. "The Wazir of Trade."
Niyat lets out a low whistle. "That's the third Wazir this year."
I lift the collar of my shirt, speak into the space between cloth and skin to be sure no one can hear. I have no desire to join the Wazir outside the palace gates. "I think the assassination attempt last winter has Raj Mefit seeing enemies in the faces of his friends."
"Raj Mefit should go stick his head in the tanning vats. That might clear his mind."
I muffle a laugh. "Be careful what you say. They'll execute you as a weasel, or a rat, or whatever form you choose to take. It won't matter."
"Careful yourself." He flicks his tail at my chin and then burrows back into my hood before I can swat at him. "Best get to work. The sooner we're done here, the sooner we can tend to your mother."
* * *
It's sundown by the time I've sold enough to consider the day well-spent. I take the long way back, and Niyat doesn't argue with me. They'll be executing the Wazir at the palace gates, and I have no desire to see a man killed. The first time, when I was ten, was enough.
Home is a shrunken hut near the edge of the city, shared with two other families. As soon as I duck inside, the scent of family-love assaults me. It is like sticking my nose over a freshly-baked plum pie, with a handful of cinnamon on top. The smell tickles the back of my throat, but I'll acclimate to it soon enough, and forget it's even there.
Two children peek at me from beneath a blanket on the ground. In the corner, their father wipes dishes clean with a damp rag. He looks up as I enter and gives me a faint smile. To my left, the other family is already asleep, their lamp blown out, all three of them lying side by side. They always wake just before dawn to work at the tannery.
I make for the ladder in the center of the room. It's hard to climb without making too much noise--the wood creaks beneath my weight and my wares clang against one another--but I get to the top without waking anyone. My mother lies on a mattress, her graying hair fanned about her head. I kneel at her side, unload the items I've not sold. Niyat runs down my arm and leaps onto the floor as I work. Mother's skin looks soft and delicate as ashes. I fear if I touch her or blow on her, she will crumble into dust.
I pull forth the pouch of coins and give it a bounce so she can hear the clink of coin. I don't have the heart to show her it is mostly coppers. "I'll have enough money to get you a doctor soon," I say.
She smiles, reaches out, and closes my fingers about the purse. "Keep it. You need it more than I do."
Niyat speaks from behind me. "If she used her Talent to do more than purchase and sell well-loved items, there would be no question of who needs the money more."
I turn to find Niyat shifted into a boy, a little older than the one below. I glare at him and wish he were still a weasel, so I could easily pick him up and muffle his words. Niyat can change into a mouse and be satisfied on a crumb of bread. He can change into people who are not missing their left hands. What does he know?
My mother's fingers curl about my own. "Nonsense. Iyalah should do what makes her happy."
She understands, she always understands. But tonight, as I heat water for her over the lamp and spoon-feed her mashed lentils, it brings me no comfort. My mother has always sought to do what's best for me, and now, when she needs me the most, I cannot think of how to do what's best for her. I don't want to.
When I lay down to sleep, Niyat shifts into a dog and curls at my back.
* * *
I wake in the dark, a woman's limbs tangled in my own. I throw off Niyat's arms and legs, ignoring his muttered protests. "Raj Mefit," I gasp out. "He does not know his friends from his enemies."
"Iyalah," Niyat mumbles.
But I'm already moving. If I stop, if I hesitate, I will find excuses, ways to back out of doing this. "Look after my mother," I say to Niyat. "I'll be back in a few days."
"Iyalah, wait!"
The Jamira family, the ones who work at the tannery, are already awake. They glance at me curiously as I make for the door. Outside, the sun has just crested the horizon. It isn't wise for me, as a single woman, to roam the streets alone at this hour, and already I am faltering. I am remembering that day ten years ago, the shouted accusations, denials, blood on the ground--his, hers.
Their deaths were my fault.
Someone seizes my elbow and I yelp, my heart kicking at my ribs. A burly man with thick black brows and hands like iron whirls me about.
"Don't be an idiot, Iyalah," he says. "Come back home."
"Niyat!" Relief makes my knees weak. I shrug off his fingers. "Next time speak before grabbing me. You told me I should use my Talent to earn more money."
"There are other things you could do. You could find the beloved lost items of others, or their missing kin," he says.
"It doesn't work that way. I can only smell beloved objects if I'm close to them, and people only smell of love when they're thinking of the ones they love, or looking at them. There isn't a way for me to pinpoint a particular person." Raj Mefit has the money--he can hire a doctor to save my ailing mother.
Niyat's face goes still. "Sell your services, just not to Raj Mefit. Please, anyone but him."
The pleading note in his voice reminds me of the mewling kitten I found outside the palace gates, all those years ago. I have to reach up to place my hand upon his cheek. "What did he do to you?"
Niyat closes his eyes and leans into my touch. His breath gusts warm across my wrist; his stubble scratches my palm. For a moment, I think he is about to answer me. And then he melts into a rat, scampers to my feet, and climbs up to my shoulder. He places a paw upon my ear. "I gave your earnings to the Jamira family and asked them to look after your mother while we're gone. They're good people; they'll do as I've asked."
I want to protest, but his presence doesn't just comfort me, it strengthens my resolve.
He burrows into my hood. "The rewards of working for Raj Mefit are great, but so are the dangers. Keep me hidden."
By the time we reach the palace gates, the sun has fully risen, the streets filling with people going about their daily tasks. Yellowed sandstone walls jut above the streets, twice the height of a man. Palm fronds and the broad leaves of some vast plant peek over the walls. The gates themselves are bronze, thick-walled doors guarded by fifteen men.
The guards eye me as I approach; the space before the gates is seldom occupied--it serves only as the location for public executions and as a buffer between Raj Mefit and the common folk. I lift my hands, so they can see I carry nothing. "I wish to speak with Raj Mefit," I say. "I have been blessed at Belast's altar, and I believe my Talent will be of interest to your master."
The guard nearest the left door calls to me. "What is your gift?"
"I can smell love."
It doesn't take as long as I expect for them to open the doors. Perhaps it is because I am a woman and alone, or perhaps it is because my disfigurement is so easily visible. Only two guards fall into step with me as I pass through the gates--one in front and one behind. Niyat does not move in my hood. If I did not know better, I might worry that he was dead.
The air inside the palace walls is moister than outside, and it smells of earth and growing things. A wealth of water soaks into the ground at the base of the trees. Brightly colored flowers I don't recognize line the path from the gates. The faint scents of family-love and romantic-love waft from both of the guards--they wax and wane as we walk.
The crenellated towers of the palace rise above the greenery. The guards guide me between sandstone columns, and we follow the walls--never entering. I'm so transfixed by the tiles inlaid above the pointed archways of the columns that I almost don't notice when the guard in front of me stops, and then moves to my side.
I drop my gaze just in time, and rest it upon a pair of white slippers, embroidered in gold. The feet inside are brown, the skin smooth, interrupted only by the gentle curve of vein and tendon.
"I hear you claim you can smell love," the voice that speaks is rich and deep. It is the voice that has ordered the deaths of three Wazirs.
"I can," I say, "in all its forms."
"Look at me," Raj Mefit says.
I lift my one eye. He is younger than I thought he would be, a web of fine white hairs weaving through the black. Though I expected the high cheekbones and the craggy nose, I did not expect the softness of his lips. They look incapable of uttering cruelties.
"These two men," he says, and I tear my gaze from his mouth, "do they love me?"
Both look straight at Raj Mefit. I sniff the air and only catch the faint scent of flowers. "No," I say.
Raj Mefit draws the jeweled dagger from his hip. "Then what use are they to me?"
The blood on the ground. I swallow, my heart pounding so hard I think I will be sick. The guards shift a little, the scales on their armor clinking as they move, and the scent of love bursts forth from both of them as they think about those they care about. Both keep their hands at their sides, and though neither reaches for the weapons at their sides, I know they want to.
"These are simple men," I say. "They do not know you. How can you expect them to love you?"
Raj Mefit stares at me a while--is it the hollow where my eye once was?--before sheathing the dagger and turning away. "If you cannot tell when there is treachery in a man's heart, then you're of no use to me."
My chance to save my mother is walking away. "Those who wish to betray you will claim to love you," I call after him.
I must have brushed against an old wound, because he stops as surely as though an arrow had pinned his foot to the ground, frozen mid-step. He doesn't breathe. And then he turns his head a little. "Take her to the harem, have the girls clean her up. Afterward, bring her to me."
It isn't until they are leading me through the palace, past carved friezes and mosaics, that I realize: I've done it.
* * *
The harem is a place of satin curtains and velvet cushions. The girls barely speak as they move, but they touch one another on the shoulder or the hand and the scent of friend-love mingles with perfume. It's much like family-love, with less cinnamon. The girls cluck their tongues as they undress me, as they wipe down my limbs with scented water. My hood slips to the floor in one piece, Niyat still hidden inside.
They wrap me in fold after fold of brocaded cloth, and Niyat finds it easy to scamper across the floor when they aren't looking and hide in the piece draped over my shoulder. We have a moment, as I leave the women for the guards, to exchange a few words.
"Ask for the money upfront," Niyat says, "and put a limit on your stay here, so you can see to your mother. Have him agree to this first, and before a witness, before you do anything for him. He's a dangerous man."
I think of the curve of Raj Mefit's mouth. "Are you sure?"
"He executes those that displease him. Of course I'm sure!"
I've lingered for too long. One of the harem girls approaches, takes my arm, and leads me to the door. She gives me a smile filled with pity--as if she has any Talent at all, and my missing eye is a handicap that makes finding doors difficult.
I slip free of her soft hands and into the care of the guards.
Raj Mefit receives me in a small room, the single window overlooking the palace grounds. He sits cross-legged before a low table, and motions to the cushion opposite him. Is this how a tyrant behaves? I find myself doubting as I arrange the folds of my dress and sit on the cushion. Despite the rug and the paintings upon the walls, there's something sterile about the room--it has never held three families who love one another.
"Leave us," Raj Mefit tells the guards. They go, and we are alone.
"I'm an unmarried woman," I say as soon as they close the door. I have never been alone with a man, except for Niyat, and half the time he takes the shapes of animals.
"And I am the ruler of this city and all the lands around it. You need not worry about your honor. You've seen the girls of my harem; you are nothing like them."
I clench my teeth against the embarrassment. "I have no husband to provide for me. I am wretched, and I am poor. If I am to assist you in rooting out traitors, you must change my circumstances."
"Money." Raj Mefit says the word flatly, and I cannot tell if he disapproves of my forwardness.
"Yes."
He looks out the window and drums his fingers against the tabletop. "A hundred gold denyars to interview all the members of my household."
I have to place both palms on the floor to steady myself. He says it as though it means nothing. I could buy a thousand doctors for my mother with that sort of coin. We would never worry about what to eat, or ration our water. Niyat nips the skin of my shoulder, and I realize I have not answered. "Yes," I say, and swallow, "that would be sufficient."
His dark eyes slide to the door, and then to the window, as if searching out hidden ears. "Someone in this palace seeks to take my life."
"You executed the Wazir of Trade last night."
"And I was certain, then, that it was him. Now," his brows shadow his eyes, "I am not so sure."
Niyat does not speak in my ear, but I know what he would say--that Raj Mefit is mad, and that I've taken on a task I cannot complete. "Three days," I say. "Give me three days and send a doctor to my mother's house in the city. I will do my best."
"Done." He laces his fingers together and places them beneath his bearded chin. "You are not the first Talented I've had in my employ, though I've never heard of one that can smell love. You have my attention, and now you have my coin."
I puzzle a few things out in my head before speaking. "Tell me about those close to you. Describe them."
Some of it I already know, but I let him speak without interruption. Two sons by a wife who died years ago, both living outside the city. Six Wazirs, but only three of whom have held their posts for longer than a year. A food taster who has served him since he was twelve. Misha, his favorite harem girl, who spends most nights in his bed.
Raj Mefit never smells of love, not even when he speaks of his sons.
"And when was the last attempt on your life?"
"That I know of?" He scowls and turns his gaze to the window. "Last winter."
The last attempt on his life was the only one. I may have set myself to chase shadows. At least my mother will see a doctor. "I'll want to speak with those close to you. Don't tell them who I am."
He looks back to me, and I swear I can hear my heart thud in my chest. "What shall I tell them?"
"You are the Raj. Tell them whatever you wish."
* * *
Raj Mefit's soldiers show me to the room I'll be occupying for the next three days. As soon as I shut the door, begging a moment of privacy, Niyat emerges from the folds of my dress. "What was that?" he hisses. All the fur on his back stands on end. "You need a witness. He'll keep his word about the doctor--money is as dust to him--but he may not keep his word about the three days."
I go to the bed, run my hands down the covers. I have never felt anything so soft in my life. "Then I'll have to find his would-be assassin."
Niyat climbs the bedspread and stands on his hind legs. "He spooks at ghosts. Iyalah, listen to me. I owe you a debt I can never repay, but I am doing my best."
I crouch, so we are eye-to-eye. "You've repaid it a thousand times over. I will find the culprit, if there is one. I am not afraid."
With a leap, he launches himself at the front of my dress, and then burrows beneath the cloth. "I am."
* * *
Raj Mefit introduces me to his household as a foreign dignitary. The harem girls and the guards know better, but none will refute him. When he is done leading me about, showing me off as though I am a horse being put through its paces, I make my way to Raj Mefit's rooms, where he last left Misha. He leaves me to it, and I find the absence of his warmth at my side disconcerting. The two guards follow me, as though I might grab a priceless vase and make for the walls.
Misha opens the carved door on the third knock. She is lush as an oasis--black hair falls to her waist in shining waves; her face is a perfect, un-lined oval. I am the desiccated leather clinging to the bones of a corpse. Still, I straighten and greet her without flourish. "I am Iyalah," I say to her, "and Raj Mefit's honored guest. May I speak with you?"
Confusion passes over her pretty face for a moment, but she moves to the side and allows me entrance, along with the two guards behind me.
"My city is interested in trading with yours, but I would like to better know the sort of person Raj Mefit is." I sit on a cushion across from her. Raj Mefit's outer chamber is sparsely furnished, though the walls are richly decorated in blues and greens.
I can nearly see the thoughts turning in her head as she thinks about what she should say. "He's honest, and kind. He will honor any agreement you set."
She smells of love when she speaks of him, but it isn't a scent I know. While it carries with it the floral notes of romantic love, the fruit-scents are sour, like a pomegranate left in the sun. I've smelled this before, but I've never been able to place it.
"Tell me more--does he treat you well? Is he generous with his people?"
She lies through her teeth, with the bright, vacuous look of a shop owner hawking dubious wares. The smell emanating from her increases, along with the sour notes. I'm trying to identify it, figure out what it means, when I realize I can barely smell it anymore. I've acclimated.
The only thing I've learned from speaking with Misha is this: it is not her.
* * *
My meeting with the food taster is much the same as with Misha. He extols Raj Mefit's virtues with grand gestures, thick-jointed fingers painting arches across the empty air. All the while, he stinks of fruit on the edge of fermentation.
It must be love, because I can smell it, but I do not know its name.
Raj Mefit finds me again in the hallway, and falls into step at my side. He crooks a brow at me.
"Neither your food taster nor Misha intend you harm," I say.
He breathes a sigh--of frustration or relief, I cannot say. "There are still the Wazirs, and my sons."
"Have you considered that the culprit might not be within your inner circle?"
Raj Mefit slows his step, and gives me a long look. I read pain in the downward tug of his lips, the tightening of his jaw.
I wish I could speak to Niyat right now. His presence steadies my thoughts, but his words spark them. He moves a little against my skin, and something else occurs to me. "Did you ever find the person responsible for the attempt last winter?" There had been no public execution.
For the barest moment, Raj Mefit smells of romantic-love. And then it's gone. "Someone I cared about. She said she was not the only one close to me who wished me dead." I get the urge to take his hand, to lend him the simple comfort of human touch, but I keep my distance. He clears his throat. "My eldest son is coming to the city for a visit. You'll sit next to him at dinner."
As abruptly as he joined me, he leaves.
* * *
Azael, Raj Mefit's son, walks with a rolling gait. He takes his seat next to me with both hands planted on the tabletop, and the dishes rattle as he settles onto his cushion. His belly is not overlarge, but he is built like my mother's favorite kettle--low to the ground, flat-bottomed.
"Azael, the heir," he says to me with a nod of his head.
"Iyalah," I say.
Raj Mefit sits at the head of the table, far enough so that I can barely hear what he says. Once the food is served, I can only see his lips move.
"My city is interested in trading with yours." I lean toward Azael, and use a bit of bread to mop up the buttery sauce on my plate. All I want is to lick the plate clean.
His gaze slides to me and he smiles. "You are no foreign dignitary." He waves a hand at the others sitting at the table. "You may be able to fool them, but not me."
Heat rises to my cheeks, makes the dress feel stifling.
Gently, Azael takes the piece of bread from my hand and places it back on my plate. "We never touch the food with our hands. And you're missing an eye. Belast's blessing, if I'm not mistaken. You are not the first my father has commissioned."
"I--" I stop, bite my tongue, pick up my fork, and spear the piece of bread.
"So why you?"
I shake my head and wish Niyat could come out and curl around my neck as a weasel. "It's not my place to say."
"He would have spoken to me about these things, once." Azael wipes his mouth with the edge of the tablecloth and leans back. "He was a good father." The same scent from the food taster and Misha wafts from Azael's skin. "Now he speaks to no one. She ruined him, you know."
I forget my humiliation. "Who?"
"Tajira."
I remember the assassin Raj Mefit spoke of, the woman he loved. "Who was she?"
He huffs a breath out through his nose, an eyebrow cocked. "It is not my place to say."
* * *
Niyat emerges as soon as I close the door to my room. "We should leave. Tomorrow. He'll have sent a doctor to your mother. We can move to another city, someplace he won't look for us."
"I promised him two more days."
He nips the skin of my neck, so hard that I gasp and clap a hand to the spot. "What did you come here for?" he cries out. "Your mother lies abed, awaiting your return. To whom is your duty: her or Raj Mefit?"
My fingers come away wet with blood. I wince. "Why not two more days?"
Niyat dashes from shoulder to shoulder. "Why not five more days? A lifetime?"
I snatch him as he crosses my collarbone. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Tomorrow. We leave tomorrow and I'll tell you."
I think of the pain on Raj Mefit's face, the softness of his mouth. My mother, her withered hands cupping mine. "Fine. Tomorrow."
* * *
I wake in the dark of night to clanging. Bells, footsteps, the chiming of scaled armors moving in synchronization. "Niyat?"
No answer. I swing my feet over the edge of the bed. "Niyat!"
"Here, I'm here." He crawls up my covers as a mouse. "What's the noise for?"
"I don't know." I pick him up, and place him on my shoulder. He makes his way to the back of my neck, hidden by the high collar of my nightgown.
The door to my room bursts open. Raj Mefit's men enter with swords drawn and lamps held high. Without addressing me, they march from corner to corner, checking behind curtains and tapestries, looking beneath my bed. I sit on the edge, my toes just touching the floor, and shiver. "What's happening?"
"Another assassination attempt," one of the guards says. Just like that, they finish, and they file out of the room, one-by-one.
"Iyalah!" Raj Mefit enters just as they leave. "A man just tried to kill me. He's here, in the palace." He crouches by me, takes my hands, and shakes them, like a beggar asking for coin. "Please, you have to find who it is."
"Who tried to kill you?" Despite the chill air, his fingers are warm. This man has more riches than I can comprehend, and yet he asks for my help.
He swallows. "I don't know. I woke to someone standing over me, my dagger in his hand. Before he could strike, I called for my guards."
"And then what?"
"He was gone."
"The man...disappeared?"
He nods. Raj Mefit spooks at shadows. His imagination? A dream? I cannot speak so boldly, so I merely tilt my head to the side as if deep in thought. "I'll interview your Wazirs tomorrow, and all the members of your staff, if that's what it takes." And then, emboldened by his pleading, I squeeze his palms.
He doesn't drop my hands, disgusted, as I expected him to. He leans in, like a flower seeking the light. He has Misha in his bed, but when's the last time someone showed him simple kindness? I dare to move a hand up his arm, to cup his cheek. My breath runs through a throat gone tight.
He turns his head to the side, and his lips--the ones that seem so kind--kiss my palm. I can't speak, can no longer breathe.
"Please do," he says.
He is standing, he is walking away, he is gone and I am still sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling as though I've glimpsed something forbidden.
Niyat breaks me out of it. "As soon as the sun rises, we go."
"He needs my help, Niyat."
"Whatever discord Raj Mefit has in his life, he has brought upon himself."
The spot where he kissed my hand feels different from the rest, as though the skin there is new. "Is he really such a villain?"
"Yes!" Niyat leaps to the bedspread. He shifts into a man and the bed creaks. "Tajira was my mother. She didn't place me on the altar because she wanted a better life for me--she placed me on the altar to save me."
I clutch the blankets. "Why wouldn't you tell me this before? Didn't you think it was important?"
"It's shaped my life. Raj Mefit loved my mother, loved her so much that he wanted to marry her, commoner and Belast-touched as she was. Here," he touches his left ear. "She grew her hair out to cover it. Her voice could make the gods tremble and weep. But she had a bastard daughter."
I put a hand on his thigh. "You."
He breathes in deep. "Me. Raj Mefit's solution was to kill me. My mother's was to sneak away and place me on Belast's altar--I was still young enough. The god took my left hand and gave me my Talent, and my mother bade me use it to hide. The guards found her in the temple, and dragged her back to the palace. It was the last time I saw her."
"And you never went back for her?"
He closes his eyes. "No."
It explains so much, yet so little. "Are you certain Raj Mefit wanted you dead?"
Niyat's eyes snap open, and he casts my hand from his leg. "You don't believe me. You'd rather believe the words of a despot, a man who will never love you."
It's as if Belast decided the eye was not enough, and took my lungs as well. "I don't--"
"Don't you?" He presses a thumb to his forehead, as if trying to stave off a headache. "I may have stayed hidden, but I hear your voice when you speak to Mefit; I feel the way you move toward him, close as you dare. He is the richest and most powerful man in the city. You may say you are indifferent, but I know you, Iyalah."
"You presume too much." The voice that issues from my mouth does not sound like mine. "He loved your mother. Why do you think he will never love me? Is it my looks, my missing eye, my poverty?" I point at my face, my body, uncaring that--to anyone listening at my door--I am shouting at myself. "So this is what you think of me: that I seek power and that I'm unworthy of love. Why did you insist on coming with me?"
He glances at the door, his face grim, and then back at me. "Your Talent blinds you. In so many ways." And then he disappears, in much the way Raj Mefit's would-be assassin must have. It takes me a moment to find the mouse in the dim lighting, running for the crack beneath the door.
"And you keep too many secrets," I call after him.
It's too late. He is gone.
* * *
I cannot remember the last time I awoke alone. It feels like a form of betrayal, to wake without Niyat at my side--his or mine, I'm not sure. It isn't until the fog of dreaming passes from my mind that I notice: Raj Mefit sits on the edge of my bed.
I scramble into a sitting position, bow my head. My black hair, thick with tangles, slips in front of my face.
"You remind me of her," he says. "Tajira. All the Talented do. There's something about you--an aloofness, as though you float above this world instead of existing in it." He glances at me and then away again. "I sent the doctor to care for your mother."
"Thank you." I dip my head, again and again. "Thank you."
"You all say that." Raj Mefit slides toward me, runs a hand up my arm. "And you all profess to love me yet you leave me all the same."
My mouth goes dry. I want to shout, to exclaim that I am not like them, that I would love him forever if he'd let me.
"But you," he leans in, his breath smelling of mint, "you're different."
Yes, yes I am.
His lips meet mine. Is this what my mother intended when she placed me upon the altar? The hand on my arm rises to my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. I reach for him, but as soon as I touch his chest, he jerks away. The grip on my hair tightens. "You have already betrayed me."
His breath smells of mint and that is all. There is no love in Raj Mefit, nothing yielding.
* * *
The room the guards put me in is small, the door iron and barred from the outside. A single, tiny window provides light; if I reach on my tiptoes, I can touch the sill.
Everything in here stinks of comfort-love: the bed, the desk, the one lamp. It is only when I search the room with the lamp that I find the list of names carved into the sandstone wall beneath the bed. Nariyah, Mijone, Taylus, Junifar.
The name at the top is Tajira.
* * *
Raj Mefit comes to see me the next day, bedecked in red and gold. My fingers hurt from pressing and prodding at the walls all night, seeking a way out.
"Tell me who you were speaking to the night someone tried to kill me." Raj Mefit stands by the door, hand on his dagger's hilt, as though approaching a caged tiger.
I only shake my head.
In a few quick steps, Raj Mefit stands before me, and my vision goes red as he strikes my cheek. He grabs me by the hair again, lifts my face close to his. "I will find out, either way. Do you think I'm a fool? You brought another Talented with you--someone who can become invisible or change shapes. How many of those are there?"
My breath catches. Niyat and his poorly-planned vengeance.
The harshness of Raj Mefit's expression melts. "You could be my Tajira, Iyalah. I would let you wander the palace, because it would be yours. I would send money to your mother, make certain she's cared for."
It tempts me, this offer. Me, married to a Raj, sitting at his side not just as his Talented companion, but as his wife. This is a grand future, worthy of my mother's hopes when she placed me upon the altar.
I would only have to betray my dearest friend.
I keep my silence, and Raj Mefit hits me again. I stagger to the floor, the taste of blood in my mouth, the world swimming before me. Here, with my palms against the sandstone--the same sandstone Tajira tread upon--my mind clears.
I am willing to die to keep Niyat safe. I am willing to kill.
The fear ebbs. I wipe the blood from my lips with the back of my hand. "Do you know how many flavors of love there are?"
Raj Mefit stands over me. "The people close to me love me--that is all I need to know."
"Yes. The people close to you love you, it's true, but they do not love you as you are."
He looks to the wall as though he is looking through it, at all the people inhabiting his palace. His brow furrows.
"They love the man they believed you to be." I surge to my feet, seize his dagger, and plunge it into his chest. His face goes ashen as his blood pumps over my hands.
"Niyat!" I scream his name with all my might, hoping that somehow he knows that I am sorry, that I should have trusted him at his word, that I should have curbed my pride. Hoping he is still nearby, searching for me.
I smell him before I see him. The wind carries the scent into my room--all honey and plums and cinnamon, with a floral note atop.
He arrives through my window as a sparrow, then shifts to a rhinoceros. We move without speaking. I climb atop his back and he tears apart the door with a few tosses of his head. And then we are free, thundering through the palace, the floors shaking at our passage. Raj Mefit does not call out orders, so no one moves to stop us.
Niyat takes apart the gates with the same ease he did the iron door. "Iyalah," he gasps to me as we run through the city, people scattering before us, "there is something you should know. Raj Mefit sent the doctor, but--"
"No." I dig my fingers into his hide.
"There are some illnesses no money can cure. She is gone."
I cling to him and sob as we pass from the city into the desert, and the sun shines hot on my face, drying my tears into salty trails against my cheek.
* * *
Niyat does not stop until we are well away from the city and those who would hunt us down. He shifts into a man and holds me; he whispers all the things my mother told him to tell me before she passed.
I hear her voice as he speaks--the light admonishments to look after myself, to not be afraid of my gift, to know my limits, and above all, to seek happiness.
"She always wanted you to be happy." Niyat lets me go. "I'm sorry you could not be there, and I'm sorry you suffered at Raj Mefit's hands."
"You came back for me." I wipe my eye, though the ache in my chest remains.
"And now you know all my secrets." He shrugs, his gaze never quite meeting mine. "Every last one."
I reach for his hand. His fingers twine in mine; it's an action we complete without thought. "My happiness is with you." As soon as I say it, I know it's true.
Niyat takes a strand of my hair between his fingertips. He smells so strongly of love I wonder that I never noticed before. He has never strayed far from my side, not since the day I found him. There is something essentially Niyat in this form he's taken--the softness of his brown eyes, the dark curls, the strong jaw.
"I'm not--" I swallow, terrified of hurting him. "I'm not a tribadist."
He leans down, kisses my forehead. "That's fine. I'm not a woman."
I throw my arms about his shoulders, hold him tight, squeeze my eye shut. I would drown in his scent, in his presence, if I could. All I can feel now is sadness and relief.
He must know my heart, because he only rests his chin on the top of my head, his arms loose about my waist. He may not always understand, but he always tries.
This will take time.