* * *
The next morning we rode through a small settlement in the lower mountains, a town I’d visited only once with my father, but I still remembered it.
Tashuna townsfolk stopped in their tracks upon seeing our company, and mothers grabbed their children, running inside their homes.
I didn’t blame them.
Reza adored it. He smiled smugly from his steed, the entitlement and power radiating from him. He fed on fear and panic, and I knew it was the only thing that made him feel like he had any sort of control.
“Maybe we should stop here, Kiyan. Show them a taste of the Court of Salt. They likely haven’t seen any of the fun we have in the city.”
Something dark sank in my stomach, Reza sounding like he did in the early days, when he tortured indiscriminately in order to show his authority. When the palace courtyard ran red with River blood and he laughed at rebel attempts to fight back.
“We likely don’t have time,” I said blandly, without any inflection.
“Come, Kiyan. We have to stop for the night in any case. We might as well stop here.”
Dread seeped into my veins, but as usual I kept my face immovable.
I glanced toward Yaseema—and she looked back at me as if sensing my unease.
“Very well,” I answered. “There is a caravanserai at the end of town. I suggest we make our way there before nightfall.”
“And in the morning, I can greet the people.”
I nodded, tightening my hands on the reins.
“Where are we?” whispered Yaseema, her voice low and concerned.
“Tashuna. It’s the last town before the lower mountains. It was an important place for the ancient peris.”
I didn’t know why I was repeating the lessons my father had given me when we’d last been together, but Yaseema seemed to want to know everything and anything, looking intently before she usually scribbled it down in one of her journals.
Now she was hanging off my words as if she were going to write a book about them.
I looked over at Reza, but he had ridden ahead, likely looking around for pet animals he could kill in front of the village children.
“Why was it important?”
“It had a great concentration of magic, and one of the most famous goldsmiths made their home here. As a result, many royal peris came to get the magical pieces made that would have been conduits for their life magic.”
“Like Queen Azari’s haath phool,” she said, referencing the hand cuff I’d taken from her when she’d arrived at the palace, the one that had helped her cross the River.
“Yes, and her crown. Gold mined near here is the only metal that can hold a thread of our magic. It makes its nearest town valuable indeed.”
“Why did they bury them? The relics? Why not keep them in the hands of the peris?”
“The Court of River is unique in its underground vaults. But you already know the answer to that—when you imbue the object with a thread of our life magic, it keeps the earth alive. Here, magic is in the land, and it’s in the peris—they are one and the same. When the peris from River left the human lands, they left some of the relics behind, because to remove them would have been catastrophic for the land.”
She rubbed the back of her neck, clearly uncomfortable after such a long ride, and I had the sudden urge to place my hands there and ease the ache. I looked away from her.
“Because of the history of the town, this is a popular place for peris to come from all over the seven Courts to get jewelry made,” I continued to explain. “I’ve been here once before. There’s a bazaar you might like.”
Her eyes lit up, making me wish I’d mentioned it sooner.
Watching her study everything that came across her path was fascinating, and I didn’t doubt why she’d become a scholar. She was filled with questions, her curiosity never satiated, and I wondered how it felt to have such a relentless zeal for discovery.
I had lost much of mine when I’d lost my family.
