“Why would it do that?” I asked.
“It wants the ruination of Kharuf,” he reminded me. “And marrying the Little Rose to the Maker King’s son is the best way to ensure it. Qamih already bleeds Kharuf dry. After the wedding, when the Little Rose is legally required to share her rule of the kingdom, Prince Maram will have all the power. He will be able to make it so that Kharuf is on fire if he wants to, and the villagers seem to think he might.”
“My mother thought the wedding might save Kharuf,” I said.
“Yashaa, your mother dreamed more than Tariq does,” Saoud said quietly. “She always had hope, even when there seemed to be none, and when she got sick, she only hoped harder. Tariq thinks about the stories like they are pieces that he has gathered, and he looks at them from all angles. I know your mother is a good woman, but she was wrong about this.”
I was quiet. Though there was no cloud above us, I felt that the light of the sun had dimmed.
“I don’t mean that she was foolish, or na?ve,” Saoud continued. “But she wanted to believe so hard that I think she made it true. Except she only made it true for herself. You and Arwa and Tariq will have to find your own truth, and it will not be so pretty as hers.”
“You will be with us, too,” I said. “It’s your truth as much as it is ours.”
“I know, Yashaa,” he said. “But I have a different path, even though we have walked together for so long.”
“Come,” I said, having had as much truth as I could stand. “I will show you the garden.”
I pulled him up after me, and led him across the glade to the little hollow where the garden was. Already, the reeds that held the fence posts to the crosspieces were being replaced by the string I had made. I had taken a spool of Tariq’s thread the night before, telling him what it was for, and left it now.
“Look,” said Saoud, and I went to where he was standing on the far border of the garden.
I had not expected another gift, from the gnome or otherwise, and yet here before us was just that. There was a basket of food, larger than the first one, as though the creatures knew there were five of us now instead of two. Beside it were two small wooden boxes with clever catches on the lids, so they would stay closed even if they were packed away and carried on someone’s back. Saoud picked one up and opened it. Carefully he licked the tip of his finger and tasted the contents.
“Salt,” he said, and made a face. I passed him the water skin so he could wash his mouth out.
“It will be useful in the desert,” I said. Saoud’s father hadn’t been the one to tell us about that particular method of survival. My mother had known it, from the days when she still thought she might someday take the Silk Road herself.
“Indeed,” said Saoud. “And it is expensive.”
“I have left a spool of Tariq’s good thread,” I told him. “Do you have anything else?”
I had only my knife and the clothes I was wearing. Saoud was much the same, except he also had the hoops he was wearing in his ears. They were small and not worth a great deal, but they were his and he loved them. He reached under his kafiyyah and began to twist one of them off.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I didn’t mean that. They’re from your father.”
“It’s all right, Yashaa,” he said. “I will keep one and leave the other. I don’t craft things the way you do, so it is the best thing I can offer. And when I remember the one I still have, I will remember this place.”
He walked back around the garden, and set the hoop down on top of the spool of thread. I stepped closer and looped it through the thread itself so that it wouldn’t get lost if the spool was somehow disturbed, and we carried the gift from the gnome back through the glade.
A creature stood there, the first living thing I had seen in some days that was not a far-off bird or my own friends. It was very short and very white, and it stood on two legs, though it carried itself as though it could also stand on four. It had two little horns on its head, gossamer wings on its back, and a long face that smiled at us. It was not the sort of smile I was used to. It wasn’t joyful or glad or kind. Rather, it simply was, and it did not need us to judge it. It was both reassuring and deeply unsettling.
We stood there, frozen to the spot, while it regarded us. It seemed to decide that we were worthy of it, for it inclined its head as though in greeting. Neither of us spoke. I could not have said words to it, even if speaking then would have solved every problem I had ever faced. It didn’t speak either, which I took as a mercy; but its smile grew in intensity, and I found that somehow, the wider it smiled, the more comforted I was. Then it laughed, and my heart soared to hear it.