“Since when were you so keen to invade Zenith? You had seldom spoke of it before aunt Ríma came. I don’t know how that witch has talked you into this madness. You are a married man. You cannot marry her daughter, Ahnja.”
Razilan looked her square in the eye. All joviality had vanished from his face. “Sultana Olella is barren and I need an heir.”
Nalini grinded her teeth. Before Razilan had found Faith, he had slept with harlots every other night. None of their wombs had quickened. Mayhap, the one who was barren was not Sultana Olella, but him. “You have Wumla,” she said. “He is your heir, and Princess Yasmeena is with child. They will ensure House Reba’s continuation.”
“You cannot tell me you think Wumla is fit to be heir? There are those who claim he is not Father’s son, for one.”
Nalini rubbed her eyes and shook her head. It was true that Wumla looked like neither their mother nor their father. Their mother claimed that he looked like her father, but Lord Ajmal Asfour had died when their mother had been small. Moreover, before Nalini had been born, Father had had a guard, who’d had a bald, egg-like head, who had shown affection toward their mother. The rumours were that this guard had been intimate with the then Lady Padma Reba of Greatmouth Castle, and Daquan had executed him in the hope of putting an end to the rumours. But that had only fuelled them. “You don’t seriously believe that old rumour, do you?” Nalini asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Razilan said. “Others believe it, and I want stability in the Kingdom. That is why I am going to change the laws on marriage. I will bring them back to the true ways of Abyar, meaning that a man can have three wives if he so wishes, so long as he treats them all equally and-”
“You sound like a fanatic!” Nalini shouted. “Lord Nahmet will never permit you to sideline his sister, you could lose the trust of the nobility, and the last Sultan who’d had three wives… his descendants caused civil war! Have you forgotten what happened to the last sultan who acted recklessly in the name of Abyar?”
Razilan smiled broadly. “Worry not,” he said, with a calmness that belied the severity of the consequences to come. “I am familiar with the Kingdom’s history and I intend to make sure that it does not descend into civil war for generations to come. I just want to bring back the true Faith to the Kingdom and to where Abyar was given Divine revelation. How does that make me a fanatic?”
Nalini chewed on her lips. She had spoken out of passion and he had caught her out with logic, as he always did. To convince him to hold back from his mad intentions, she would need another tactic: one of logic, nuance and reason that would resonate with him. “It is noble that you want uphold the true laws of Abyar throughout the Kingdom and beyond,” she said, carefully. “But there are practical realities for a sultan to consider when making a decision. The consequences can be grave if he gets them wrong.”
“You sound like Father.”
“Was Father wrong? He held the Kingdom together successfully.”
“Yes, but did Father take into account the consequences of sinning against Abyar when he wanted his body burned?”
Nalini sighed. It always came back to the cremation these days. Why did I say anything?
“We are cursed because of it,” Razilan continued, shuddering. “I feel it in my bones, like the oncoming of a chill.”
“A chill?” People tended to get a chill in winter, not summer. Not that Al-Jaraba had especially harsh, disease-breeding winters to the north of Volído and Loranca. Nalini had never been to any of those kingdoms and did not know what they were even called. But Emilio had told her about the winters in those places: to the north-west, the kingdoms were said to have winters that were cold, windy and rainy; while to the north-east, where nomadic horselords were to said to roam the endless grasslands, the winters were allegedly snowy and freezing, with a wind that cut through to the bone. “It is probably nothing more than a fever.”
Razilan shook his head and coughed. The cough sounded nasty, and when he removed his hand from his mouth, it was covered in green-yellow mucus. “No, it’s more than a fever,” he said, quivering. Then, he grimaced and rubbed his left shoulder, massaging it to alleviate the pain from the wound he had taken during the revolt. “It is part of the curse that Abyar has bestowed upon us for burning Father. Only a holy war can purify the Kingdom and save us from His wrath. I am convinced of it.”
“Well, you can at least wait until you are better before you-”
“No! There is no time to lose. Not unless we want to bring ruin to all that Father built. I have already ordered every writer in the palace to write letters, calling for every nobleman in the Kingdom to gather their armies and prepare for war. I will send letters to them all in the coming days.”
Nalini held back her tongue. Every fibre in her wanted to shout at Razilan again, to tell him to stop what he was doing. But she knew her brother. When he was convinced of something, he listened to no-one and did not care for the consequences; especially, when it came to religion in recent years. Now, more than ever, she understood why their father had been concerned about Razilan sitting on the throne.
“You were about to say something?” Razilan said.
An idea gonged in her mind. If my brother believes everything is part of what the Divine and His Messenger want, mayhap he’ll listen to another side of what they desire. “I cannot disagree that Abyar has reason to be angry with us,” Nalini said. “Nevertheless, we are in mourning. Abyar clearly states that we must withdraw from the world during this time. Thus, would it not be wiser to wait until our period of mourning is over before going to war, lest we anger Him further?”
5
-Stay Strong-
(Nalini)
Nalini placed her hands onto the balustrade of the balcony that overlooked the capital, and yawned. The moon was high in the sky. It was late and her day had been long. Yet, she just wanted a few moments to herself before she went to bed: to breathe in the cool night air, and stare at the city while it was still.
What am I going to do with my brother? Am I going to spend the rest of his reign stopping Razilan from himself?
She wondered if she had the strength. Sultan Razilan had agreed to delay his holy war until the moon had turned and their initial month of mourning was over. That had given Nalini some relief at the time. But several days had passed and Nalini had thought of no other way to delay his plans again.
Even from his bed, sick with fever, Razilan had still made sure that Nalini gave him nightly letters on how much coin she had siphoned off for the war. And every night when she had visited him with the accounts, he had told her to find more money. Nothing was going to stop him from this madness. Was there even a point to trying to stop him? If he was going to bring ruin upon himself and the Kingdom, would it not be better to let him do it sooner rather than later and save herself hassle?
Nalini sighed and rubbed her forehead. It was lumpy, like it had been when she had first flowered, and soon the lumps would form ugly spots. The burden of her responsibilities and her loss weighed down on her. It pushed out spots as an outlet, ruining what little beauty Abyar had given her. Nalini wished she could go back to how life had been at Greatmouth, before her father’s revolt.