Chapter 236: Well Behaved Mule

Amal took the last three steps in a leap, and Malik caught her in midair, lifting her clean off the stone. Her arms locked around his neck so hard that his collar creaked.

She was shaking all over without making a sound, and for a long moment neither did he.

"Baba."

It was still cracked, but it was hers.

"I am here."

"You said you’d come back."

"I did."

"You were so slow."

"Hm, I took the long way."

Amal let out a hiccuping laugh and buried her face in his shoulder.

Feeling her tears soak through his gray cloak, he turned his head and pressed his cheek against her hair.

The whole cavern below them seemed to fall away.

At that moment, the world was only her and him.

A father and daughter.

He had expected to feel many things upon reuniting with her, but he had not expected to feel so very light.

By then, Layla reached the top of the stairs.

She stopped a step below the ledge, one hand on the rail, her chest rising and falling.

Her eyes were red, swollen, and fixed on his face as though she were afraid it would vanish if she blinked.

Malik held out his right hand.

It was whole.

Layla stared at it for a very long moment.

She remembered a cold arm lying in her lap, a hand she had washed finger by finger.

Slowly, carefully, as if the thing might burn, she reached out and laid her palm against his.

It was warm.

Her breath left her.

"You have both arms."

"I do."

"That is all you are going to say?"

"I have been told that I am bad at this."

A strangled laugh came out of her.

Layla stepped up onto the ledge and walked straight into his chest, Amal and all.

She wrapped her arms around the pair of them, and he held them both.

Her shoulders shook against him, her fingers dug into the back of his tunic, and he felt her say something into the cloth that he could not quite hear... which was strange for an Angel.

"What was that?"

She lifted her head.

"I said, I trusted you."

"I know."

"I trusted you, and yet I washed your hand."

"I know that too."

"Do not ever have me do that again."

"I will not."

"Say it properly."

"I will not sacrifice my life."

Malik spoke with perfect solemnity, making Layla stare deeper at him.

Then she pressed her forehead against his collarbone and laughed until it turned into something else.

Amal wriggled between them and caught a fistful of each of their sleeves.

A family reunited once more.

Down in the Garden, noise began to rise.

It rolled up into a roar, and the word at the center of it was one he had heard a million times. "LONG LIVE THE SULTAN!"

It rattled the crystal overhead, and the snow slid down it in sheets.

Malik could not hear it properly; his ears were full of Amal’s breathing.

But he didn’t listen to his Hope for too long, finding the others approaching.

Aladdin was the first to reach the ledge, and he did it by recklessly climbing the outside of the rail.

He tumbled over the top, hit the stone on his knees, and bowed so low that his forehead struck the floor.

"My Sultan! I never doubted your return for a second!"

"Don’t lie, boy."

Azeem strolled up behind him with a tray of bread under one arm.

"The soldiers can vouch for me!"

Malik sighed at them.

"Get up."

Aladdin got up, wiping his face with both hands.

Unlike his fellow commander, Azeem did not kneel.

He walked up and stopped a pace away.

"Am I really your Right Hand, Sultan?"

"You are."

Azeem began to tremble.

"But I... left you behind."

"No, you did not. You only followed my orders. The many lives you saved are evidence of that."

Azeem opened his mouth to speak, only to close it right after, giving up.

He bowed his head in a damned attempt to hide his forming tears.

"Sultan."

That was when Zafar came up behind him.

He stood at the edge of the ledge with his hands clenched and his chin lifted.

It was obvious that he had balled his eyes out in the way over here.

Malik looked at him for a long moment.

"You wanted to fight at my side."

"Yes, that is my only wish."

"You will."

Zafar’s breath caught.

"Not today; today you can sit down. But you will very soon."

Zafar bowed his head, prompting another man to move forward.

Duban had arrived, holding a cup of stone filled to the brim.

With great ceremony, he held it out to Malik in both hands.

"My Sultan, you are far too great a figure for me to call you a friend; I know that. I also know that you prefer drinking tea over liquor, but allow me this pleasure. Please share a drink with me; regret would drown me if I don’t ask this of you now."

Malik, leaving his wife and daughter’s embrace, slowly took the cup.

Surprising everyone around him, he drank the entire cup without ceremony.

It was cold and slightly sweet, but it was the finest thing he drank in so very long.

"Thank you, Duban."

His commander pressed his fist to his chest and bowed.

When he straightened, his face was... young in a way Malik had never seen.

Behind him, a very large shadow cleared its throat.

It couldn’t be anyone else but Kabir.

Kabir stood at the head of the stairs with the Guard of the Fifth at his back.

Day after day of watch had worn lines into his scarred face, but that didn’t stop him. Slowly, he went down on one knee, and the Guard knelt behind him in a clattering row.

Malik crossed the ledge and put a hand on the giant’s shoulder.

Kabir looked up.

His eyes were perfectly steady.

"I told you Shadows not to wait for me."

"I did not wait, my Sultan. I stood."

"Where is the difference?"

"Waiting is a thing you do with hope; I only stood."

Malik had no answer for that.

He squeezed the shoulder instead, hard, and the giant bowed his head further.

Noor arrived next, coming up the stairs far more composed than the rest, her robes straightened and her hair perfectly in place.

She bowed slightly.

It was a grand vizier’s bow, a thing of angles.

But she couldn’t hide her true feelings so perfectly.

Her hands were shaking so badly that the sleeves rattled.

"My Sultan. You have nothing to worry about here. I have everything planned out, down to the last grain. We can outlast..."

She paused.

Her mouth began to tremble.

This wasn’t what she wanted to say.

"I thought that you were gone, and I did not have the chance to tell you. There is... there is something I wanted to say for so long... I kept telling myself I would."

"Tell me now."

"I..."

She pressed two fingers to her temple.

"Your work is impeccable."

It was both a stiff and odd sentence.

She delivered it with her chin high and tears running down both cheeks.

Malik looked at her.

"So is yours; it has been for years. My Sultanate wouldn’t have survived otherwise."

Noor made a sound like a hiccup and turned her face aside, saying nothing at all.

Those words were enough to satiate her hunger for acknowledgment for a lifetime.

Safira came next, walking across the ledge so very slowly, as if the floor might tilt.

When she reached him, she did not bow, and she did not speak. She lifted her eyes and studied his face with the same careful attention she had given a crowd on a dusty road.

Then her gaze dropped to his right arm.

It lingered there.

A wondering smile bloomed on her face, and it grew until it reached her eyes.

"You had one arm."

Her voice was incredibly soft.

"For a while, yes. But we Angels can regrow them, apparently."

"You were on the road... in the wagon... with the cumin."

Malik considered his options.

They were few, and well...

Lying was no longer necessary.

"The mule was well behaved."

Safira laughed.