Free A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston Page A

and I knew that it was not fear I felt, rushing along with the blood through my veins.

L
o-Melkhiin knew her well, that first one. He knew what she looked like. Her scent. The shape of her smile. He remembered her for a long time,
because he loved her. I remembered her because I stole her.
    She was shorter than Lo-Melkhiin was, and her face was lit with joy all throughout the wedding ceremony and the feast that followed. The people did not know what was to come, not yet. They
had not even begun to suspect. All they knew was that Lo-Melkhiin was happy to wed, at last, and their lands were slowly recovering from misrule. They did not yet understand that there would be a
price. Lo-Melkhiin knew, of course, and he screamed and raged, but he could do nothing to stop me.
    When the food was eaten and the songs were sung, they put Lo-Melkhiin and his bride to bed in a silk-hung room with wide windows for the moonlight. Lo-Melkhiin stood in the pale space on the
floor, and she came to him, dark hair bleeding color under the silver glow. The night air was desert-cool, but her lips on his were warm. For a moment, Lo-Melkhiin was overcome. He stopped his
voiceless screams at her touch, warmed by her kiss. When I tightened his hands on her slim waist, he remembered, and screamed anew.
    I was clumsy, that first night. The cold light worked too quickly, and she was too in love with the man she thought she had married. It would take me time, and several more wives, to refine
my methods. I think, had I been better able to control myself, she might have lived to see the next day. She might have lived to see the next ten. I would learn in the nights to come that fear
burned swiftly, but love burned strong. Both were useful, which was fortunate, because soon enough no one loved Lo-Melkhiin anymore.
    None of that mattered that night. I took what I required from her, and made Lo-Melkhiin watch as she shriveled and wilted under his hands. Her dark hair turned grey, then silver, and finally
white. Her eyes lost their spirited glow, and became dull things within her skull. Her skin drew tight across her bones, and then sagged as her bones failed within her. My only real complaint was
that she never screamed, but Lo-Melkhiin did enough of that for both of them.
    In the morning, when the serving girls woke Lo-Melkhiin, it was with cries of fear and distress at the sight of the thing with which I shared his marriage bed. I feigned distress as well,
and did so good a job at it that I was believed. She was buried, and I pretended to mourn even while the lands prospered. But a lord cannot be unwed, and before long, the council begged Lo-Melkhiin
to set aside his supposed grief and marry again. They did not have to beg very hard.
    The second wedding was much the same as were the ones that followed it. If there were rumblings that Lo-Melkhiin should not wed again, they were as quiet as the footfalls of a wild dog
hunting in the desert. Time passed and girls died, and eventually there were too many for even the Skeptics to explain away. But the land prospered, and there was peace, and Lo-Melkhiin asked again
to be married. The men of the council decided, then, the sort of girls to sacrifice, and the law was handed down.
    I cared not for the laws and rules of Lo-Melkhiin’s council. I cared only for the strength of the power I took from his wives, as they came to his bed, and for the pain I caused to the
body I had taken. In time he twisted; his agony lessened, and became a dull thing that I could barely provoke. My power did not wane, however, and I found I could still taunt him with the fragility
of our victims. And so we continued. Together.

WHEN THE HENNA MISTRESS and the others were done with me, one of the footmen came and took me to a garden I had not been into before. It was at the base of the qasr wall, and
its entrance was hidden by a door carved to look as though it were part of the wall. I had looked at it and never seen what was