Sky Beyond the Storm by Tahir Sabaa

Author:Tahir, Sabaa [Tahir, Sabaa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Part III

The Jinn Queen

XXXV: The Nightbringer

One evening on my way home from visiting the Ankanese, I stopped to rest and eat south of the Waiting Place, along the shores of the Duskan Sea. As I let the stars and waves lull me to sleep, a flicker caught my eye. A fire burning bright and solitary, the lamp of a wanderer on a great, dark plain.

It drew closer, and I flowed into my flame form, for this jinn carried weapons in either hand, and though I did not enjoy battle, I was more than prepared for it.

“Hail, kindred.” She brought with her the scent of citrus and juniper, her voice husky and accented strangely. “Will you share your meal? For I have traveled long, with nary a bite. For your kindness, I will offer you a tale. This, I vow.”

I confess my bewilderment, for I knew all of the jinn in the Waiting Place, and yet I had never met her.

“I am called Rehmat and am a creature of flame, like you, my king,” she said. “But born elsewhere, that I might live among the humans for a time and understand them. I have bled with them and battled with them, but Mauth bid me join you, for my destiny lies now with our people.”

Rehmat. A strange name. One with a meaning that unsettled me.

She told her tale, as she promised, and then traveled to the Sher Jinnaat with me. But ever after, she was never content to remain in the wood. A strange mood would overcome her, she would strap her blades across her back and wander, a warrior-poet who found a home wherever she laid her head.

The first time she disappeared from the Waiting Place, I searched and searched until I found her draped in the branches of a Gandifur tree in the far west, trading poetry with the Jadna tribe—the forebears of the Jaduna.

She drifted thousands of miles south, to the Ankanese, and taught them the language of the stars. Then she sang stories with the first Kehannis of the Tribes, teaching them to draw magic from words. She found those Tribespeople who saw the dead and instructed them on the Mysteries they would later use to pass ghosts.

“Why,” I asked her, exasperated, “do you always wander so far? Why can you not remain in the Sher Jinnaat?”

Her smile pulled at my heart, for there was a deep sadness to it. “You have found your purpose, my king. You have much magic in you. I still seek mine. When I find my power, I will return. This, I vow.”

It had not occurred to me that she lacked magic, for to me, she burned with life and wit, humor and beauty.

One day, weeks after she’d disappeared again, I woke from sleep. Her anguished voice called to me across hundreds of miles. I made for an island empty of human life, but teeming with every other kind. The ocean was peaceful, a brilliant azure, the winds sweet as summer cherries.

I found Rehmat along the northern coast of the island.

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