“It was impressive.” Karina’s gaze slid to the coin purse on his hip. “If I may ask, exactly what do you plan to do with your earnings?”
The bard licked his lips. “Give me an hour of your time, and you’ll see firsthand what I can do.”
Aminata gave a barely concealed snort as Karina replied, “I think I know of the perfect home for your coins.”
“And where may that be, my sweet gazelle?” he leered. Karina checked his left palm—no emblem, meaning he was Unaligned. This man was from somewhere very far from here—the Eastwater savanna, perhaps.
“In my pocket.” Karina leaned forward until her nose was inches from his, close enough to smell the orange essence he definitely oiled his mustache with. “I’ll play you for them. One song. Audience decides the winner.”
Surprise followed by annoyance flickered across the bard’s face. Karina bit back a laugh.
“Do you even have an instrument?”
“I do. Aminata?”
Aminata sighed, but dutifully passed the leather case in her lap to Karina. The bard sneered when he saw the state of Karina’s oud; thin cracks lined the instrument’s pear-shaped body, and the floral patterns Baba had carved into its neck had long faded beyond recognition. But holding the last gift her father had ever given her sent a wave of calm flooding through Karina, dulling the ache in her head.
“If I win,” said Karina, nonchalantly tuning one of the oud’s eleven strings, “I get all the money you earned today.”
“And when I win,” said the bard, “you will give me the honor of calling you mine for the rest of the night.”
It took all of her self-control not to visibly gag. “Deal. In the spirit of Solstasia, I’ll allow you to pick the song.”
The bard’s eyes narrowed, but then his grin widened. “‘The Ballad of Bahia Alahari.’”
The pain in Karina’s head throbbed anew as her heart constricted. Baba had loved that song.
Refusing to let her opponent see he’d rattled her, Karina simply said, “After you.”
“The Ballad of Bahia Alahari” was a mournful tune that told the story of how the first sultana of Ziran had battled her own husband, the Faceless King, when he had sided with the Kennouan Empire during the final battle of the Pharaoh’s War. Within minutes, the audience had tears streaming down their faces, many even openly sobbing. However, a number of patrons, many of whom were noticeably non-Zirani, seemed unaffected by the performance, and Karina kept her attention on them as her opponent played.
With one last haunting note, the bard lowered his oud as a raucous cheer filled the air.
“Your turn,” he said, his eyes roaming over her body with a predator’s gaze. Karina stepped forward, moving her hands into position and ignoring the snickers at her instrument’s destitute state.
Yes, her opponent was good.
But she was better.
Too fast for anyone to stop her, Karina leaped from the stage onto the table in front of her, earning startled yelps from its occupants, and slammed her sandaled foot on it in a steady rhythm that echoed throughout the restaurant. Though Karina wasn’t facing her maid, she knew Aminata was clapping along, scowl and all. In seconds, everyone in the room had joined her in the beat, banging whatever they had on hand against their tables.
Grinning a grin that would put a hyena’s to shame, she began to play.
It was still “The Ballad of Bahia Alahari,” but Karina bent the melody almost beyond recognition. Where the bard had focused on the stifling yet beautiful grief the song was known for, Karina pushed the beat to a frenzy, playing at a speed normally used for the fastest dance songs. She brought the song to a crescendo where she should have quieted and bit into the parts that were meant to be soft. Through it all, the song never lost the undercurrent of sorrow for which it was famous—but it was sorrow converted into manic energy, the only kind of sorrow she knew.
Karina sang the first verse in Zirani, turning in a circle as she played so every person could hear.
For the second verse, she switched to Kensiya. A delighted cry went up from the group of Arkwasians, engaged in the performance for the first time that night. Then she went to T’hoga, and back to Kensiya. With each verse, Karina made sure to hit a different major tongue of Sonande. The only language she did not sing at least a line in was Darajat. None of her tutors had considered the language of Eshra important enough to teach her, and she lacked the incentive to learn it on her own.
The cheers of the audience drowned out Karina’s last notes. She smiled sweetly at the bard, who looked ready to toss his instrument to the ground.
“I’ll be taking that.” Karina grabbed his purse and bounced it in her hand. There had to be at least a hundred daira in there.
“I want a rematch!” the bard demanded.
“Rematch with what? What else do you have to lose?”
His face twisted into a pained grimace as he pulled a heavy object from his bag. “I have this.”
In the bard’s hands was the oldest book Karina had ever seen. The green leather cover sported bite marks around the edges, and time had yellowed the pages with mold. Faded almost to invisibility, the title read in Zirani, The Tome of the Dearly Departed: A Comprehensive Study on the Curious Matter of Death within the Kennouan Empire.
“The man who sold this to me couldn’t even read the title,” said the bard. “He didn’t realize that he had pawned away a true remnant from the time of the pharaohs of old.”
A shiver ran down Karina’s spine as she eyed the Kennouan glyphs embossed on the book’s cover. Reading had never been her preferred pastime, and she neither needed nor desired a dusty old book about a culture long lost to history.
“If this book is so special, why are you gambling it away?”
“Anything worth obtaining is worth sacrificing for.”
Karina wasn’t one to turn down a challenge, no matter the prize. Baring a smile that showed all her teeth, she unstrapped her oud from her back.
“One more round.”
Twenty minutes later, Karina skipped from the Dancing Seal, her bag heavy with her new book and Aminata trailing behind her like a second shadow as last-minute preparations for Solstasia swirled around them. Workers suspended from scaffolding strung garlands of jasmine and lavender between tightly packed buildings while white-robed acolytes yelled for people to bring forth anything they did not wish to take with them into the new era so that it could be offered to the Great Mother during the Opening Ceremony. Throngs of all ages streamed toward Temple Way, engaging in spirited debate about who the seven Champions might be.
Karina’s new coins jingled in her pack, and she couldn’t help but grin as she imagined adding the winnings to the ever-growing pile of daira she’d hidden within a jewelry box in her vanity. Every coin brought her closer to the life she truly wanted, one far away from Ziran.
“Must you always be so dramatic?” sighed Aminata as they sidestepped a group constructing an altar to Patuo in the middle of the street.
“I have never said or done anything dramatic in my life, dear Mina.”
As Karina flipped idly through The Tome of the Dearly Departed, her eyes glazed over various chapter headings: “Differentiating Zawenji Magic from Ulraji Magic”; “Care and Feeding of an Infant Serpopard”; “The Rite of Resurrection Involving the Comet Meirat.”