Chapter 234: The Sultan’s Return

Eden did not know Malik was coming.

Dunya led him down through the snow without a word.

The Faraja at the stairs saw a tall, gold-haired stranger in a torn gray cloak and nearly drew their swords.

Then one of them looked at the girl beside him, the way she held herself, and his face went slack.

He dropped to both knees on the stone.

Nobody had to explain.

A quick whisper went through the tunnels ahead of them.

By the time they reached the ledge above the Garden, the great cavern had begun to fill. People poured out of the tents and the side tunnels in a silent flood. Soldiers lowered their cups. Cooks came out with flour on their forearms. Old men leaned out of the dining cavern, and children ran barefoot across the stone.

They stood in a vast pale crowd with their faces turned upward, looking at the man at the edge of the ledge, where the Mother of Devil’s Maw once stood, announcing his death.

Dunya laid her hand on the projection stone at the rail and nodded, now recording and streaming the stranger next to her to all of those in Eden.

Malik stepped up and rested both palms on the cold stone rail.

He let the silence stand for a moment.

"Peace be upon you."

The words rolled out across the cavern, and a ripple went through the crowd.

"O noblest, most honorable, and purest of people."

Somebody gasped.

Somebody else began to cry.

This deep voice... those warm words...

"You do not know this, because I did not tell you. But since my return all those months ago, I have been in a constant struggle. Every day. Every hour. Against the Order, against the Invaders, against myself, and against something older that none of you have seen."

Both were so very familiar.

"But no more."

They belonged to a dead man.

"No more."

The silence went deeper in the crowd.

"I thank you. Every one of you. You were told to leave your homes, and you left them. You were told to walk into the dark, and you walked. Many of you wanted to stay. I know that. I saw it on your faces. You wanted to stand beside me and fight, and perhaps die with me. I took that from you."

His voice softened.

"Thank you for obeying anyway. It was the hardest order I have ever given, and you followed it. Because you did, you are alive to hear this."

Down in the crowd, thousands of hands were pressed against thousands of mouths.

"As I promised you, Mother of Devil’s Maw..."

His gaze moved across the heads below him, searching.

"I, your Sultan, remained alive."

Malik came back.

***

Aladdin heard it standing in the eastern tunnel with a staff in hand.

He had been in the middle of a drill, and his palms were bleeding through their wrappings.

When the voice came down the tunnel, he did not hear it at first. Then the staff slipped out of his grip and rang on the stone.

He did not pick it up.

The boy commander ran.

Aladdin ran the whole length of Eden, shouting something that did not have words.

He burst out onto the floor of the Garden and skidded to a halt at the back of the crowd.

He saw the gold hair.

He saw the shoulders.

"My Sultan."

His knees went.

Aladdin sat down on the stone with a thump and began to laugh, and then he was crying so hard that the people beside him had to catch his arms.

Azeem had been carrying a tray of bread.

It went over.

Forty loaves tumbled across the floor, and the children around him scrambled for them with delighted shrieks.

He did not notice, standing frozen, his rings humming faintly.

An unlit grin slowly broke across his face, reaching ear to ear.

It was the first one in weeks that he had not manufactured.

Zafar had not moved from the cold corner in days.

He was still sitting with his knees drawn up and his white hair hanging over his face.

The voice reached him through the stone, prompting him to lift his head very slowly.

He stared at nothing, and his lips shaped a single word:

"Dammit."

It was the same word as before, but it meant something completely different now.

He pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes, his shoulders shook, and he did not make a sound.

Duban stood at the end of a long table with a cup in his hand.

He had been refilling it with a ladle from the barrel, the same slow ritual, and the water was almost to the brim when the stranger’s voice came down.

His hand stopped.

A silver thread of water ran over the lip and splashed across the stone.

He set the ladle down and looked at the cup.

"The third time, perhaps."

Then the prince-like man laughed, lifted the cup in a trembling salute toward the ledge, and drank it himself.

Kabir was at the top of the northern stairs.

He had not left his post since he assigned himself to it.

Standing against the sealed iron door with his arms folded, his scarred face to the dark, the Guard of the Fifth sat on the steps behind him.

When the voice came, nobody moved.

At least not in the beginning.

Slowly, every head turned towards the giant.

His arms came unfolded and his back bent.

It was his body finally allowing itself a moment to relax.

But even then, his expression did not change. It never did.

Not even while a tear ran down his cheek, and another, and another.

He did not lift a hand to wipe them away.

Then, in a show of absolute loyalty, Kabir went down on one knee on the stairs.

The entire Guard went down with him, one at a time, their heads bowed towards the Garden.

No matter how many years passed or just how strong they got, Kabir, Zayna, Sarah, Tarek, Rami, every Shadow, would always prostrate before their one Lord, their savior.

"Thank you for coming back."

Noor stood in her little ledger-room with a quill in her hand.

She had written a number on the page and forgotten what it meant.

The voice rang out through the tunnels, both calm and impossible, and she sat there with her heart pounding and her mouth slightly open.

The quill dropped.

Ink bloomed across a day of careful calculations.

She did not seem to care about that for even a moment.

Noor straightened her robes, tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear, and walked out of the room at a very dignified pace.

About ten steps down the tunnel, she broke into a run.

She had to see him, the one whose acknowledgment mattered so much!

Safira had been kneeling beside a cot, tending to the body of a young soldier.

Once the voice came through the cavern, her fingers stopped.

Unlike all those beside her, she did not turn her head right away.

Instead, she sat very still with her hand paused above the man’s wound.

"L-Lady Safira? Is it...?"

"I was right."

She laughed.

It was a small, shaky, bright thing, making her tear up.

Safira quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.

"I said he would come back."

Her hands glowed, returning to the wound.

It was soft, the same light as always, and it poured down into the man’s wound until it was gone.

Though she had resumed healing the soldier, her thoughts only repeated one thing:

’He came back!’

A thought echoing in the minds of many.

One so very different from what echoed mere weeks before.

It was the exact opposite, and for that, they couldn’t be happier.

The Sultan had returned!