Chapter Twenty-Seven: To Paradise

A knock roused Osmund early the next morning. His head swam with fading dreams; he struggled to recollect where he was. With a start, he noticed Cemil already awake and sitting alert beside him, face turned in the direction of the disturbance.

“Yes?”

Sakina opened the door. She was fully-dressed, and her face was ashen. “You had better come to the stables,” she said to Cemil in Meskato. “There’s been an incident.”

Osmund was dragged wholly into consciousness now. He managed to get out, “T-the horses—”

“The horses are fine. It wasn’t gryphons. Only…” Sakina paused, fretting. “Just come. It’s urgent.”

Already Cemil was rising and throwing on his outer layers, looking not at all like someone who’d recently been asleep. “Show me,” he urged. Osmund scrambled to his feet behind him, only a little unsteady. “Osmund, you can—”

“I’m going!” he insisted, and no one troubled him after that.

The commotion at the stables was visible from a distance, but it was only once they’d weaved through the small crowd that they saw the boy.

He was about fifteen years old, and writhing in agony as several older women pressed patterned cloths to his chest. With alarm, Osmund saw the blood seeping through the dark material.

“Stand back,” Cemil barked to the bystanders, kneeling down beside the youth and ripping away the cloth, then the remaining scraps of the boy’s shirt until the injury was bare. The contusion on the lad’s chest was deep and severe, excruciating just to witness. The Meskato prince placed his hands above the wound, and the bright glow of his healing magic began its work.

Almost as soon as the magic began to circulate, the flow of blood slowed, then stopped. Osmund watched in awe as the skin stitched itself back together right before their eyes, flesh layering and re-combining until all that remained was a bruise, and then, not even that.

The boy took a deep, wheezing breath, coughed, then stared up at Cemil, wide-eyed. He was faintly pale from the loss of blood. Cemil offered the youth a small smile and said some words in the Anshan language that sounded like reassurances. He looked so warm and kind. Osmund couldn’t believe the sheer terror on the boy’s face.

For the first time, he took note of where they were. More specifically, whose pen they stood in front of, though after seeing those injuries he hardly needed to guess. Anaya. She was visibly agitated, snorting and stomping in place, but Osmund hadn’t yet gathered himself enough to run and calm her.

A man approached—one of Kaliany’s Meskato administrators. His expression was grave. “Şehzade Cemil,” he said. “This boy is an attempted horse thief. We have ample witnesses, enough to dispense with a trial.”

The surrounding soldiers chattered excitedly. Osmund turned to Sakina in horror. “What’s the Empire’s punishment for horse theft?” he whispered, almost unheard over the din.

Her eyes were empty. “Death,” she replied. “By hanging or the sword.”

Cemil stood. His hands and garments were bloodied. “This is a new territory,” he said, “and he is young, not yet a man.”

“The law is the law, my prince.”

“But this is my horse.” This time Cemil’s words carried forcefully. “Therefore he faces my justice.”

The surrounding soldiers had worked themselves into a frenzy. Osmund heard calls for vengeance, for subjugation.

“They beg our protection, then rob our prince?!” jeered a man next to him.

“Make him an example!” shouted another.

The village head—the poised and well-dressed middle-aged lady Cemil had talked to yesterday, who Osmund had since learned was called Sharwan—approached Cemil and the incensed soldiers. Her hands were wide with an open, conciliatory air, but they trembled. “Şehzade,” she called, in accented Meskato, “before you make your decision, the boy’s family wants to make an appeal. They beg you to spare their son’s life, that he might offer it to you and your mighty empire, in service.”

Cemil looked up slowly. “In service?” he repeated.

“He’s really a good boy,” the lady went on. Her voice was shaking now too. “He looks after his family’s goats and his younger cousins too, and sometimes he helps with the tea leaf harvest. He’s patient and he learns quickly. Such a hardworking servant could be useful to a prince like yourself.”

For a moment Cemil said nothing. His features were empty of expression, except a tight line that had appeared around the corner of his mouth. Then, “Tell them that won’t be necessary.”

“What will you do?”

The Meskato prince angled his head back down at the young man, who hadn’t stopped staring at him with a raw mix of fear and, if Osmund wasn’t imagining it, hate. “I believe he’s learned his lesson,” Cemil said without looking away. “Let him go. Make sure he knows that I won’t be so forgiving next time.”

Sharwan spoke to the youth in the Anshan language. The boy briefly looked at her, then back to Cemil, then at everyone gathered all around. Without uttering a single word, he deftly scampered away.

“Ungrateful brat,” sneered a soldier, uncaring who heard. “If he comes anywhere near a Meskato horse again, we’ll teach him justice at the end a spear.”

Cemil rose to his feet. “That’s enough,” he growled at the outraged soldiers, who quieted. “We’re here to hunt gryphons, not children. No one is to touch a single soul in Kaliany without my command. Is that clear?”

It made Osmund anxious to see how the soldiers exchanged glances with each other. Thank heavens Cemil had chosen mercy, but he hated to think it might come at the expense of his standing with his own people. That kind of thing was of immense importance to a prince.

Sakina was the first to approach. “That was well-done,” she said privately. “Thank you.”

Cemil looked between her and Osmund. There was something seeking in his expression. Then he nodded. “It’s over with now,” he said. “Let’s break our fast before we ride.”

There was an inn nearby where many of the soldiers had taken up lodgings. Cemil and Osmund ate there together. The owners served them a simple porridge with vegetables that was surprisingly flavorful, and fried dough which Osmund liked quite a lot (he even got to eat some of Cemil’s portion after the prince claimed to be suddenly full). He prayed that his stomach would behave this time.

After this brief, happy interlude, they rode in formation—that is, Cemil and about half of his soldiers, Sakina, and Osmund too—outside the village, in the direction of the cliffs. The gryphons built their lairs into the cliffsides, and did their hunting in the canyon below. It would be possible to study the creatures from the high vantage point, and be alerted if any of them headed towards the village.

Sakina, on a horse that flickered between pearly white and burnished gold depending on the sun, rode up alongside Banu and Osmund, which was unexpected. He wasn’t sure how to greet her. Did she know he’d eavesdropped last night? Would she apologize? Would she expect him to apologize?

“Tell me, what do you admire about Cemil?” was what she said instead.

Osmund stared. “U-um.”

“I won’t tell. Unless your answer makes me laugh.”

She was smiling at him interestedly again. It didn’t seem like she was jealous or wanted to mock him for his feelings, even if she apparently thought they were blinding his judgment. There wasn’t an easy way to escape this conversation, much as Osmund might’ve liked to. He pressed his lips together. Where to even begin?

If asked this question a few short months ago, he might’ve mentioned Cemil’s good looks and charm, and the plain fact that he’d been nice to him. Just the barest bit of kindness had been addictive to someone like Osmund; it’s possible he’d have begun falling for anyone who treated him so gently. But those qualities alone wouldn’t do the Meskato prince justice. He’d come to know him a lot better in the last few weeks.

“He cares so much, so deeply,” Osmund muttered instead. His eyes were on Cemil’s back. “I mean, he really cares about doing the right thing for people. Even if it’s for some random wretch off the street, like I was. Or a boy who tries to steal his horse.”

Sakina made a thoughtful hum. She was looking in the same direction. “I admit a part of me was worried,” she confessed. “I didn’t know what he would do when he realized someone had tried to take Anaya.”

Osmund’s gaze travelled down to the midnight mare herself, though he couldn’t see much more than her great, whisking tail. He’d taken pains to calm her this morning after the incident, and now she was about as tolerant as she ever got. “I…I’ve been wondering something,” he began, cautious.

“You mean, why does an otherwise sensible şehzade of the Meskato ride such an ill-mannered, unreliable horse, when most of our mounts are raised from foals to be as sweet as darling Banu?” she asked without missing a beat, and in spite of everything, Osmund wanted to scream.

“Yes!” He forced himself not to actually raise his voice. “I can’t make any sense of it! It can’t be vanity. Can it?”

Sakina laughed, but it was a subdued thing, the remnant of a woman less assured than she was now. “No,” she said, and sounded a little sad. “It isn’t vanity. I suppose you haven’t heard then? About the prophecy.”

“Prophecy?” People in Tolm had plenty of those, but he didn’t know any that originated from these lands. “What is it?”

“‘When the fourth son falls, the last wild horse of the Anshan will bear him to paradise, and a new emperor will ascend to the throne.’”

Osmund’s heart plunged. “The fourth son…that’s Cemil, isn’t it? He’s the fourth of his brothers. But…” He stared down at the reins in his fists. “Doesn’t that sound like he’ll…die?”

“The verb here is unclear in our language,” Sakina explained, though she didn’t sound happy about it herself. “Prophecies are notoriously tricky about these things; they’re rarely what they appear to be on the surface. The two of us used to debate its meaning. I suggested maybe the horse would be the one to carry him to safety from a battle, when all hope seemed lost.”

“But…‘paradise’?”

“In our literary and oral traditions, ‘paradise’ often refers figuratively to the heart’s strongest innermost desire.” She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Cemil wants to be Emperor of the Meskato. He’s been determined to do it ever since he was young. Prophecies aren’t made about those who fail and are forgotten. Cemil will succeed. I know it.”

“Then Anaya…” Osmund’s eyes widened. “‘The last wild horse of the Anshan’?”

“Yes.” Sakina gazed long into the horizon. “Wild horses used to roam free in the Anshan valley, but over the years, they’ve all been captured as prizes. When Anaya was wild-caught, not far from here, she was the last. The people of Kaliany have looked upon Cemil as a traitor to his mother’s kind ever since.”