Lucinda Betts

A good daughter would have remained silent throughout the entire moon salutation on the second day of her wedding ceremony, but Princess Shahrazad was no longer a good daughter—she was a desperate one.
And she was a daughter who saw the magician arrive. With flashing wings, a golden pegaz soared over the Amr Mountains, ridden by someone in a black robe.

“Father.” As her voice floated over the silent wedding party, the klerin froze. She felt the women next to her still, waiting for the terrible repercussion.

“I’m beginning to loathe you, Princess Shahrazad,” her mother-in-law-to-be whispered. “Must you ruin every ceremony?”

But Princess Shahrazad refused to be daunted. She gestured to the approaching pegaz. “Look!” she commanded. If her father and her husband-to-be couldn’t help her fight this evil, no one could.

“What is it?” the Sultan demanded. Then he squinted into the sky, puzzlement clear on his expression.

“It’s a…” Her old nurse stopped, perhaps stunned at the words about to come from her lips. “It’s a pegaz.” Her hand went to the bones in her pocket. “And it’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.”

Shahrazad could only nod in sick agreement. With wings as stunningly huge as any storybook painting, the horse swept through the sky with power and might. The hot sun shone on the beast’s massive wings, making them gleam like gold as they beat the air. An emerald and gold bridle glittered in the morning light.

“It’s the magician,” Princess Shahrazad said to the Sultan, hoping all the evil he embodied was captured in her meager description. “Don’t let him land.” Don’t let him ruin this marriage.

“You do not command your father.” The Raj ir Adham said these words calmly, but his mother turned toward her and slapped her mouth.

“And you do not speak during the wedding ceremony,” the older woman whispered.

Shame washed through her, stinging her like the pain hadn’t. She’d never spoken out of turn or lifted a demure eye in her entire life. That she had to do so now…

“Please, father,” she called across the dune, ignoring the taste of blood. “Can you forbid him to land?”

“Willful bitch,” her mother-in-law-to-be hissed. But her father ignored her altogether, gesturing to the archers who loaded arrows into their dark bows and pointed them at the pegaz.

Only then did Shahrazad see the rider, the face of her assailant. His black robe rippled in the wind, and his thin mustache twisted down his face, trailing in the wind over his shoulders. Silver embroidery winked, and she saw his bared chin, which was as pointy as his nose.

And then words whipped through her mind. I can grant your heart’s desire.

The pegaz adjusted the sweep of her wings so that her flight slowed. She stretched her legs as does a horse about to land after a great jump, and then she hit the ground with a silent grace.

I can grant your heart’s desire. The words were a torment—like a mirage seen while crawling through the desert. By jeopardizing this marriage not once but twice, this magician had taken her heart’s desire from her.

The mare galloped a few steps through the deep sand and then stood, her fine legs gleaming in the sun. Her long, elegant neck arched beautifully, and her face bore a lovely dish. The light breeze toyed with her golden forelock.

“Greetings Sultan,” the magician said to her father, sliding from the pegaz. His voice radiated a terrible power.

Her father responded by placing his hand on the hilt of his scimitar, a scowl clear on his fine-boned face. His bodyguards put their hands on their hilts, too.

“Who are you, sir?” the Sultan said, his voice carrying majestically across the hot sand. “Who are you to intrude upon this most sacred ceremony?”

The black-robed magician unfastened his cloak and shook it. The action sent sand whirling near his feet, and a large dust devil spun near the mare’s withers.

A second man appeared from the swirling sand, stepping forward toward the wedding party with lanky grace. He was taller than her father and more broad shouldered than her husband-to-be. Shahrazad couldn’t see his eyes from where she stood, but his sharp cheekbones and the elegant line of his nose reminded her of a bird-of-prey. His long, dark hair fluttered in the breeze for all that it was tied back in a club.

But when he turned toward her, she gasped. He was the same man she’d seen in her vision. He’d given her a secret smile and pulled her toward him like she’d belonged in his arms. He’d stolen her thought and her senses with his kiss.

As he met her forward gaze, his expression was too tight to read, but then his eyes widened when he saw her, as if he, too, were surprised.

Suddenly the small of her back burned, just like someone held a lit torch to her skin. Her defilement ached.

“I ask again, sir,” her father said to the magician, apparently unimpressed by the creation of a full-formed man from nothing but a flapping cloak and swirling sand. “Who are you? And if you fail to answer, my men will fill you and your assistant with arrows.”

“Forgive my intrusion, my Sultan,” the magician said, bowing low to her father, his expression humble. The tips of his mustache fluttered just above the sand. “I want nothing more than to help you celebrate the Festival of Nooroze, to help welcome your lovely daughter—” he bowed toward the canopy where she stood, “and your stalwart son-in-law—” he bowed to the Raj, “into marital bliss.”

Seemingly not convinced, the Sultan raised his hand in an elegant gesture, and his archers drew back their bowstrings. “You have not answered my question.”

“My Sultan, I am Badr, Great Magician of the Moon’s Land and the Sun’s. I bring a gift to you, to celebrate this marriage between two great houses.” He stepped toward the mare’s head and held her reins toward the Sultan with his long fingers. The huge moonstone ring he wore flickered in the sunlight.

“Badr the Bad,” the Raj said, his disgust clear. “You seek to trick us.”

“I do not trick, as you say.”

“I know your reputation, sir,” the Sultan said, but his gaze offset his forbidding tone. Even from this distance, Shahrazad could see his eyes drink in the winged mare. Shahrazad could almost smell her father’s lust for the beast. “I know your name,” the Sultan said, “and you are not welcome here.

“Very well.” Badr bowed. “I will leave as you ask.” He turned toward his mount, the picture of compliance.
Relief sang through Shahrazad, swamping the sorrow at the beast’s departure. If the magician left, her life could continue as planned. Perhaps the burning pain across the small of her back would fade like a forgotten dream. The man with the warming kiss would vanish too.

And when Badr the Bad grabbed his mare’s mane to mount, Shahrazad actually let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

But then the magician paused and turned toward her father, and her breath once again refused to leave her lungs.

“What is it?” the Sultan asked. “Why do you hesitate, unwelcomed guest that you are?”

“Please forgive me,” Badr said, bowling low again. “It is only that I have a question for you.” A breeze swept over him, sending the tips of his long mustache fluttering around his narrow chest.

“What is your question?”

“Send him away, Father!” She couldn’t contain herself. She didn’t want to hear the question; she didn’t want her father to hear it. “Send him now!”

But the magician answered the Sultan before the Sultan could stop him. “Are you certain you wish to send me off—when I can grant your heart’s desire?”

Your heart’s desire. With those all too familiar words, a strange squeak filled the women’s tent, bounced off the silken ceiling and the surrounding dunes. As her nurse grabbed her arm, Shahrazad realized the cry came from her own mouth.

“I beg your pardon,” the Raj said, stepping out of his wedding tent. “But I am giving the Sultan his heart’s desire.”

“And what is that, sir?” Badr asked. “If I may ask with nothing but the deepest respect in my heart for you.”

“Don’t answer!” Shahrazad shouted, pushing Duha’s powerful hand from her arm. “Don’t engage him!”

“I will denounce this wedding if one more words falls from your mouth,” her mother-in-law-to-be said.

But her husband-to-be ignored her. “With our two lands joined together in marriage,” the Raj growled, anger resonating in his tone, “our great armies can protect all the Moon’s Land from the shitani insurgence, God hold us in his eye.”

The magician straightened from his bow. “Perhaps, if you find it too onerous to accept this gift from me—” Badr held up the golden reins. “You’d like to take her for a ride? A quick flight over the Amr Mountains to view the Land of the Sun on the other side?”

Oh, Shahrazad wanted to ride the winged mare more than she’d ever wanted anything. If her father felt any portion of the same longing she felt, he’d be unable to refuse. He’d fall right into the magician’s trap.

“Father,” she called over the dune. “Don’t ride! It’s a trap!”

But could any trap be sweeter, more perfectly baited?

“Perhaps your willful daughter should ride instead,” the magician suggested, flapping his cloak as if shaking out dust. It was the same gesture, Shahrazad realized, that he’d used to make his assistant appear.

“Perhaps my willful daughter should ride instead,” the Sultan repeated.

The women surrounding Shahrazad gasped and muttered. They certainly realized her father shouldn’t allow the nearly wed princess—even one who continually spoke out of turn—out of sight for even a heartbeat. “No!” one of them shouted. Shahrazad realized it’d been Duha, who’d never said a word in the presence of a man, much less the Sultan.

“Do you wish your daughter to ride my pegaz?” Badr asked the Sultan, his dark eyes inscrutable at this distance.

“She rides better than most men in this land.”

“Ah, but that is not the question,” Badr replied. “This pegaz is most compliant. Your daughter will be quite safe in her care.” The magician shrugged his black-clad shoulders, sending silken ripples across his elegant robe. “The true question is one concerning the character of your daughter. Do you trust her to return when the arching sky does nothing but invite?”