Wind and wildfire mages.., p.33
Wind & Wildfire (Mages of the Wheel), page 33
“But who will speak for you, Vali Ahad? You took our children, for the unspeakable crime of learning, and we are done being treated like animals,” the speaker answered into the dark market.
Omar clenched his hands at his sides. The silence that followed was answer enough, weighing everything down, a hopeless void.
“I will speak for him.”
Omar knew Dilay’s voice, the signature of the magic she used to amplify it enough to be heard. A mage orb shimmered into existence, illuminating her in the darkness, standing amidst a circle of faces he recognized. Seda stood beside her, lowering her hand from conjuring the orb. Omar’s body relaxed, air filling his lungs and clearing his head.
“And me,” Seda said.
“All of us,” Turgay said from Dilay’s other side, and Zeki, next to him, nodded in agreement as Turgay swept a hand to indicate a cluster of people around them.
“Yusef, ask any of these who imprisoned them, and who released them,” Dilay addressed the speaker. “Ask your daughter. Ask Toulin what she knows of the Vali Ahad. And then let him speak, or it can only be assumed you are more interested in your temporary power than you are a solution to injustice.”
Yusef faltered, looking at Omar as he contemplated. Torches flickered back to life, and a few more orbs floated up to light the market once more.
“Let me through,” Dilay commanded. The crowd between her and Omar shifted, opening a path for her to cross the street. She smiled at him across the gap. He clasped his hands behind his back, so he did not grin like a simpleton as he strode toward her. Ruslan dropped out of his saddle, and a few of the quicker guards did the same to hurry behind him.
When he reached her, he clasped his hands harder, and smiled.
“Hello,” he cast. She cocked her head, and a wisp of cool magic swirled up the back of his neck. The greeting made the rest of his tension bleed away, and he released his grip on his hands.
“Very well, Vali Ahad, come tell us what you have to say.” Yusef stepped off the platform and gestured to it as if it were a dais, exaggerating a bow. Omar held a hand out in front of him in invitation.
“YOU FIRST,” OMAR SAID TO her. “So they can see I will defer to you.”
“Will you?” Dilay asked as she stepped in front of him, trying to tease away her tension and her emotions.
“Yes, Instructor Akar.”
She couldn’t look back at him, though she wanted to. He wasn’t teasing, even his cast voice held promises she did not want to hear. Promises he could not keep. She swallowed the lump of hurt, and pressed a hand over her frantic heart as she walked forward.
The crowd parted for them, or for Zeki and Turgay forging ahead of her. A few of those up front were familiar to her, faces she saw in the market; the elder woman who sold her herbs grasped her hand on her way by; a city messenger whose void son had taken classes from her until he had taken work on the docks. Dilay squeezed hands that were offered and returned smiles until she stood at the platform across from Yusef.
“Did the Vali Ahad free you too, Dilay?” Yusef asked. Dilay had only met him once. Yusef was Toulin’s father. His daughter was a void, but he was clearly a fire mage, for both the charisma he obviously possessed, and the scorch-marked platform upon which he stood. If she remembered correctly, he was a smith for the guild.
“He asked me for my help,” she said. Yusef’s thick brows drew together. Omar moved to her side and stepped onto the platform. Dilay looked up at him, and he held his hand out. She raised an eyebrow in question, because magic still sizzled in the brown of his eyes and glowed over his skin. He had darkened the entire market, dozens upon dozens of fire mages. That anyone had ever thought a lack of control was his issue seemed laughable now. He gave the smallest nod, and she took his hand. He tugged her onto the platform beside him.
A restless hush descended on the crowd. Dilay looked out over their heads, to the market beyond, where vendors had done their best to barricade their stalls. Some stood in front of them with makeshift weapons, some cowered within. Some had left the stalls to join the throng that stretched down the market road toward the pier. Hundreds.
“You are angry.” Omar’s words to the crowd did not even need a push of magic to carry. Dilay repressed a smile and a glance at him. There was symbolism there, between the voice and the man. The mildness he affected, the quiet manner and reserved conduct. But that wasn’t him, and she thought that perhaps he was emerging from that imperfect mold cast over him to be the man she was certain he could be. A Sultan who saw his people. “I understand.”
There was laughter in response, some shouted insults. Omar waited for the quiet to return. “I like to think”—he looked at Dilay—“that Dilay Akar is my friend.”
She gave a single nod, because she could not speak. It was not friendship dark in Omar’s eyes, but adoration. Dilay looked at the crowd instead. Seda, Turgay, and Zeki stood in the front, along with a few of the others who had followed from the lower districts. A wall like the ineffectual palace guards should have been, but who instead milled by Commander Isler.
“What happened last night was my fault,” Omar announced. She glanced at him in surprise. A rumble went through the crowd, accompanied by an uptick in the agitation that was already palpable in the air. Dilay did not know if Omar possessed the speaking skills to calm a crowd, or rally them behind him. But this was a trial by fire. If he failed, she could see in some faces enough anger to fuel violence to kill, despite his earlier demonstration of power. “I have been to Instructor Akar’s night school. I have seen what she, and the others”—he gestured to Seda and the two men in the front row—“are trying to do.”
“And what is that, Vali Ahad? What could you possibly know about our children and what they are denied?” Yusef said, and was echoed through the crowd. Omar waited again, started to clasp his hands behind his back, and Dilay tugged gently on his sleeve. He relaxed.
“I know what it is to have magic that controls you more than it is controlled, and I would not wish it on anyone. I also do not believe in talent wasted, and I have seen Instructor Akar’s talent for drawing out the best in her students.” He gave a slight smile, but he did not look at her. Something fluttered in her stomach. Pride, or the same adoration she had seen in his eyes before. “I should have done something, the first time I went to the school and saw what she was doing. But”—he relaxed his shoulders—“I was afraid. And so I inadvertently caused this. All of this. The arrest of Instructor Akar and her students, the fear you feel, the entirety of the injustice is on my shoulders.”
People shouted agreement, and not in a friendly way. When they quieted to a discontented rumble, Omar continued.
“So I will do what I should have done the moment I knew about Instructor Akar’s efforts. I will enlist her assistance in developing a plan for more schools like hers, for each district. Schools that anyone can attend.”
Dilay believed him, her entire body filled with sparkling, incandescent excitement. But the crowd did not. They responded with a mix of stony silence and scornful chatter.
“We have been lied to enough, Vali Ahad,” Yusef said. “You cannot simply appear down here for the first time and begin promising things and expect us to believe you.” He gave a sharp laugh. “We are not the fools your breed think we are. The Sultan will never agree to anything like that.”
“I believe him,” Dilay announced, using a push of magic to carry her voice to the far edges of the crowd. “What will this anger solve? What will violence do but cause more hardship? Look at this market.” She pointed. “What will you do, strip them of their livelihood to prove your point?”
“We have been reduced to this,” Yusef said, addressing the crowd and not her. “If they will not listen to us peacefully, then they will listen when we burn their city.”
“I am listening,” Omar declared. That booming voice demanded silence, and achieved it. “It took me too long, and for that I am sorry. But I am not my father. And all I am asking of you today is a chance to prove that to you, before anyone else is harmed.”
“It is my school,” Dilay said. “And my choice to help. And I choose this path.”
“And me!” Seda called. She stepped up to stand at the base of the makeshift platform and face the crowd. Turgay and Zeki joined her. A moment passed that felt like a collective breath held.
A few others broke from the crowds. Parents of those Dilay taught. Friends from her neighborhood. They joined Seda in facing the protestors, silent in support. A trickle of them continued, and Dilay’s body was light with relief.
“Go home,” Dilay said. “Everyone. Go home to your families. You have the attention of the palace, and a promise. Let it rest at that, today.”
There were rumblings, a few flashes of fire amidst the crowd, mages that would prefer to maintain their anger. Hope flickered when Dilay saw one such fire extinguished by a man standing next to someone, who then gave a quick, angry admonishment.
“For today,” Yusef said, giving Omar a tense, angry frown, “you have won. But if you do not keep your word…”
“I understand,” he said. Yusef raised his arm. The signal worked on most, as a large slice of the crowd began to turn and scatter, a disorganized dissolution. Enough remained and began to cluster that Omar stepped off the platform as Yusef turned away.
“Yusef,” he said. “If we cannot disperse them with words, then I will have to bring the City Watch in, and I do not wish to.”
Dilay could see that most of those who remained were men, drunk on alcohol, the promise of violence, or both. Yusef stood beside Omar, surveying the milling group, many of whom still held clubs made of broken bits of wood or other detritus they’d found along the way. But they were dispersed as the crowd absorbed them, many forcibly steering them away. Dilay stepped down.
She laced her fingers with Seda’s, looking toward Omar. He and Yusef had their heads bent together, talking. It did not look friendly, but neither did it seem antagonistic. Dilay turned toward Commander Isler, who stood with arms folded over his chest and a sour glower. Perhaps he had wanted a more…energetic outcome. He had certainly tried for it.
“Have you been home yet?” Dilay asked Seda.
“No. We spent all our time returning the children. Come on, you can walk me back.”
“Wait,” Omar said, turning away from Yusef with a hasty farewell. “May I?” He gestured in the direction of her home.
Seda pressed her lips together to repress a knowing smile Dilay was all too familiar with. “If you wish it, Vali Ahad.”
“What did you say to Yusef?” Dilay asked as they fell in step together.
“We spoke about Toulin.”
Dilay beamed up at him. There were so many things she wanted to say, but this was not the place. A small section of his guards, along with Ruslan, followed them through the streets. Seda gave Dilay a farewell hug when she turned down her street.
“I will check on you in the morning,” Seda called as she broke into a jog toward her home. Dilay waved.
When they reached her house, it was quiet. Perhaps the neighbors and family had returned home. Or perhaps they were all huddled, listening. The night was darker for the lack of mage orbs in the lamps. Everyone had been too busy participating in or avoiding the protests to light the lamps. Omar’s men waited at a reasonably discreet distance up the hill.
“Will you be all right?” Dilay asked. She did not know what waited for him back at the palace. He shrugged.
“I doubt I am in any real danger. No imprisonments or hangings. So, I will bear it.” He stared at her so hard heat crept up her neck.
“I…never told you congratulations,” she said, succeeding in making the moment even more awkward as she pointed to the betrothal ribbon around his neck. He clutched at it as though he meant to rip it away but dropped his arm and shifted his gaze away from her instead. “Who?”
“Zehra Demir,” he said, with all the emotion of crushed stone.
“I am glad,” Dilay said, her throat closing. “That it is not an air mage. That you will not have to see a child—”
“Stop.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Please stop.”
“All right.” They stood in silence for a long, painful time, until she could bear it no more. “I should go.”
Omar nodded.
“I am so proud of you,” she said, because she wanted him to know, to feel some of her bursting triumph. When she started to bow he stopped her, his hand cupping her face and urging her up.
“Don’t,” he said on a shaky breath. His thumb swept over her cheekbone. “Thank you.” He stepped close and pressed his lips to her brow. She closed her eyes, unable to breathe or speak. “For being my strength.”
She grabbed handfuls of his entari, her chest a single, crushing ache.
“I”—he drew back, his fingers tightening then relaxing against her cheek—“will love you until the day I die. Even if I do not remember myself, I will remember you. Always.”
He dropped his hand, turned, and strode away. She wanted to scream for him to stop, but she could not. He did not look back, not once, and Dilay was shattered and reformed by the single, shredded breath she was able to draw.
Twenty-Nine
OMAR KNELT ON THE COLD tiles of the Council Hall in nothing but his salvar, his hands pressed to his knees so he did not fall forward under the strike of the cane. He had lost count, but Eymen had said there would be fifty when he announced the punishment to the Council. It was all a crescendo of pain now, each new lash sending it soaring, erasing thought and self. Enough time between each so they did not blend together. The only thought that lingered was that when he was Sultan, he would abolish this punishment, and perhaps even bury a stack of canes with his father, as a last, final jest.
His skin had broken. He could see droplets of blood land on the pristine tiles when the guard flicked the cane. He tried to count them between, to still the animal in his brain that wished to lash out. The instinct to turn around and put hands on the man assigned to lash him, and erase his mind. Violence beget violence—he had come to deeply understand that concept over the last two days.
The next lash came, and for a moment he was nothing but pain, it resonated through his limbs and teeth, blackening his vision and his sense. And in that dark and silent place of nothing but pain, he and his magic came to an agreement. That he did not need protecting anymore. He could face an angry city and subdue them. He could defy his father and survive. Despite the pain.
“Fifty, Sultan Efendim,” the Grand Vizier announced. Omar breathed. His magic coiled and curled inside him, quiet, and controlled. His skin was clammy, his muscles shaking involuntarily. He still couldn’t see quite straight when he bowed to touch his head to the marble. For a moment he thought he would pass out.
“Well taken, my son,” the Sultan said, calmly. Omar had no delusions that his father would be emotionally affected by the sight of him being struck. He was newly settled with that revelation. Because he did not need his father’s approval, if he approved of himself. Omar sat up. “I trust you will also handle your duties today with the same composure?”
“Yes, Sultan,” Omar said in a voice he did not recognize. The Council members who were present stirred. It was clear many of them disapproved of the Sultan’s choice of punishment for his wayward son. But none of them saw fit to voice that dissent.
Ruslan hurried to kneel in front of Omar, bearing a tray with a glass of water. It wobbled as he held it out, his usual stony manner strained. Omar drank, and set the cup back.
“The physician,” Omar’s mother ordered, in a thin voice. Ruslan nodded to her.
“You may go, son. To prepare for the guild tribunal,” the Sultan said.
“There is a matter I wish to address first, Sultan,” Omar said, “if I may.” Perhaps it was a poor idea to address the Council half naked and bleeding, nearly delirious from the throbbing pain. But Omar had been dealing, and functioning, with pain all his life.
“You have earned my ear for the moment,” his father said. Omar did not stand; he wasn’t certain he could without toppling over again.
“I wish to annul my engagement to Zehra Demir,” he said. He wanted to smile, because bringing it up felt akin to spitting blood at his father in defiance. This new dynamic between them suited Omar well.
“You cannot possibly,” the Grand Vizier said, glancing frantically between Omar and the Sultan.
“Have you not caused enough disgrace in this court already, Vali Ahad?” his father demanded. “How dare you insult the Grand Vizier, and I, with such a suggestion.”
“It is not meant to insult, Grand Vizier, I apologize. I am honored to be betrothed to your daughter, as any man would be. But Sultanim”—he returned his attention to his father—“I am concerned that this will mean I am the last Veritor in the Sabri line.”
The Sultan looked immediately to the Sultana, who stared at Omar with angry disapproval. So. That had been her plan in choosing Zehra. As well it was, or he would not have been able to think of an excuse to annul things without shaming Zehra, which he did not wish to do. But, this solution was Dilay’s, not his. Though she probably did not realize she had given him the idea when she mentioned it in parting. He could not think of her. Of his foolish confession to her. She didn’t need the burden of his feelings on top of everything that had already happened to her.
“Sultan Efendim, I understand that this is a concern, but please consider the ramifications for my daughter.” Eymen turned to bow as he spoke. The Sultan tugged at his beard, his gaze trailing up to the patterned ceiling.
Though his back was numb, or hurt so badly Omar could no longer distinguish the pain, he could feel blood oozing over the undamaged skin lower down. Sitting through the Merchant Guild tribunal would be agony. But if he could achieve this single triumph, he could also endure that.
Because he had understood, standing in front of a crowd ready to trample him into the pavers with Dilay at his side, brave and beautiful and torn asunder, that there would never be anyone else for him. He would not pretend. He would spend his lifetime alone if that was his only choice. She was a Queen in his heart, and was all he would ever see.
