The Diviner Read Online Free PDF Page A

this brat out of here. My sweet little Reihan never screamed so. I vow to Acuyib, if Sayyida is as noisy as her mother, she’ll end up silenced the same way.”
    He summoned the nurse, who was so terrified she actually cast a glance at the bed rather than keeping her eyes strictly on her charge. The Sheyqa glanced at the eunuch, who nodded; a new nurse would be found by morning. When they were alone with Ammineh’s corpse, Nizzira said quietly, “Find Azzad. Find him, and kill him.”
    â€œAs Your Glorious Majesty wills it, so shall it be done.”
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    He could stay, and die. He could flee, and live.
    If he stayed, he could accuse the Sheyqa in public and have all know what had been done to the al-Ma’aliq.
    Which everybody would know anyway. And nothing would be done about it. The Sheyqa was the Sheyqa.
    If he fled, he could establish himself—somewhere, somehow—and one day take his vengeance.
    Which was precisely what the Sheyqa feared and why he would be hunted.
    He had nothing. With the deaths of the al-Ma’aliq, he was nothing.
    But the thought of Nizzira wondering—wondering for years, never safe, never at rest, always wondering when and where and how Azzad al-Ma’aliq would strike—filled him with hot, vicious glee. He must survive.
    Khamsin snorted softly, as if to remind him that they were still in the capital city of Rimmal Madar and within easy reach of the Sheyqa. Revenge was for the future—if Azzad lived that long.
    And if living required money, vengeance required a fortune.
    In pearls, perhaps?
    Two hours later, so covered in midden filth that Khamsin’s nostrils flared in disgust, Azzad had the pearl necklace tucked once more in his sash.
    It lacked several hours till dawn, and in those hours he could be halfway to the western coast. Instead, he turned south. South, to The Steeps that marked the border of Rimmal Madar and the Gabannah Chaydann—the Devil’s Graveyard. No one would ever look for him there.
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    In the city of Dayira Azreyq, dawn was stained red-brown. All that morning people muffled their coughing, shuttered windows in vain against thick drifting smoke, and thanked Acuyib that the only fires in their own homes were in ovens and lamps. Anyone who had cut himself anytime in the past week sent up similar praise that the wound was not a sword or an axe through the chest. And those with sicknesses of the belly or bowels paused in their misery to be grateful that only spoiled meat or too much wine afflicted them, and not the Sheyqa’s poison.
    In the way of great cities, small words traveled quickly. A servant, a day laborer, a lover sneaking out a back door, a cook venturing early to the markets—small words, they were, fire and swords and poison , connected to the once-great name of al-Ma’aliq.
    Dayira Azreyq came alive more slowly than usual, but it did come alive; and for all that nearly a thousand al-Ma’aliq had died the night before, it was a day like any other—all its inhabitants furtively thankful for another day of life.
    Thus the evil was accomplished. For a jealous Sheyqa’s obsession, the al-Ma’aliq were exterminated, from the aged patriarch Kallad to the real ruler of the family, Za’avedra el-Ibrafidia, to Kallad’s infant great-great granddaughter, only five days old.
    The el-Ma’aliq who had married outside the family were also killed, and their children with them, and their husbands as well for safety’s sake. From the mountain castle’s fastness to the broad estates in the lowlands, from Beit Ma’aliq’s splendor to the small stone huts of the workers, those connected to the al-Ma’aliq by blood or loyalty or employment were obliterated. Within a handful of days, the dead numbered more than four thousand. No one spoke a word against the slaughter.
    The Sheyqa’s servants who were not the Sheyqa’s servants vanished hence they had come, with