Banished (Forbidden) Read online

  Walking on my own, I peered into numberless hollows along the walled avenue. The air turned motionless. Not a breath of a breeze. Prickles rose along my neck and arms. Each cave opening was like a single dark eye watching my every step. My camel ignored the surroundings and chewed her cud, sighing and grunting behind me.

  “Silly girl,” I told her over my shoulder, and my voice echoed in my ears.

  Just then a shadow moved above me. My heart stuttered. Swallowing my anxiety, I spotted a second series of rough-cut steps. Using my hands, I climbed the staircase, breathless.

  “Is someone there?” My voice was strangely loud in the utter stillness. Someone was watching. I could feel it, sense it. “Kadesh?”

  The shadow didn’t confirm or deny the question, but a man spoke from the darkness, the timbre of his voice low and rough. “What is a lone woman doing in the land of the Edomites? Don’t you know the Edom men are savages? You might not be alive until sunset.”

  My pulse thudded in my head, but I wasn’t going to leave until I knew for certain the man Hannah had told me about wasn’t Kadesh. I moved to the opening, his heavy rich cloak swishing about my feet.

  The past month of travel dragged like weighted chains tied to my ankles. It was all I could do to climb the steps of the cliff. How horrible I must look with my wild, tattered hair and bloodstains on my worn dress. “You can’t frighten me,” I said, my voice echoing off the dense walls. “Chemish gave me permission to search this land.” I took three small steps upward. “I’m Jayden, daughter of Pharez and tribe of Nephish. I’m looking for someone and I thought you might know—”

  I caught sight of a shadow crossing the blackness of the cave. Quickly, I climbed the last ten steps, my heart jammed in my throat.

  “I know who you are,” said the man, and his voice was suddenly right there next to me.

  And that was the moment I knew. This was the voice I’d heard in my dreams all these long and terrible months. My voice broke despite my resolve. “And I’d know you anywhere, Kadesh. I’m wearing your cloak. Marked with your own blood.” Under the sinking afternoon sun I laid the last nugget of frankincense on my outstretched palm. “Frankincense brought you to me the first time—and frankincense helped me find you again.”

  His laugh was strangely callous. “How could that be?”

  “A family of the desert told me of a stranger who healed their son with the power of the frankincense.” When he made no response my trepidation grew. “Kadesh, I’ve grieved for so many months over your death, too many to count. But you live. You live!”

  “If you can call this living.”

  His aggrieved answer left me unbalanced. This was not the reunion I’d been longing for. “What does that mean? What are you saying?”

  His next question was abrupt. “Who gave you my cloak?”

  He was mere steps away from me, but locked in the cave’s darkness. Purposely keeping me at bay. “Horeb gave me your bloodstained cloak as a wedding gift. Proof of your murder.”

  His voice held a strange despair. “My dreams have always been filled with you, Jayden, but any hope was stolen when your betrothed attacked me that last night in Mari.”

  “And I watched it all—locked inside Dinah’s house! But if you live, Horeb can never take anything away from us again. I’m here. I found you.” Tentatively, I stepped into the cave’s opening, unsure of myself. Wanting to run to him. But something was clearly terribly wrong.

  Kadesh’s shadow paced the stone floor. “After Dinah and Nalla dragged you back into the house, Horeb’s soldiers held me down while he plunged his sword into me and left me to die. For Horeb’s plan to succeed—to rule the western deserts from Akabah to Damascus—he needs you as his wife. You give him the security of a tribal law fulfilled. The decency of family and stability on the throne.”

  “I know how ruthless and vile he is, but how did you escape? Both Horeb and Nalla told me you were dead.”

  “I have no more memories until I woke weeks later, cared for by Chemish’s wife.”

  “I should have run away with you the night of Hakak’s wedding! If we had gone away together all those months ago . . . none of this would have happened.”

  “No. We’d both be dead if you had come with me that night.”

  “At least we’d have been together,” I whispered.

  His laugh was brusque. “Instead, you’re Horeb’s wife.”

  His statement shocked me. “No! I am not Horeb’s wife!”

  A dreadful silence swept through the canyon. A sinister foreboding. There was something Kadesh wasn’t telling me. What had happened to him?

  “I suppose I should believe you because you’re here and not in Horeb’s tent. But fate conspired against us. Horeb only had to take you back to the tribe with him to declare you his wife.”

  “I escaped Nalla’s house before Horeb could kidnap me. I ran away to the Mari hills and nearly died of starvation until I met Gedaliah and his family.” I took another step closer, all the love I couldn’t contain rising up within me.

  “Stay where you are! Don’t move again.”

  His voice. So different, so changed. So terrible. “What did Horeb tell you? Why do you hate me so?”

  I could see the details of his shadow now, his head buried in his hands. “Oh, Jayden, I could never hate you, but rumors and gossip spread like a sandstorm. I was told Horeb had taken you to his bed after he proclaimed my death. There was no way you couldn’t marry him after that.”

  “Horeb has lied about everything,” I said, tersely. I moved again, frantic to touch him, real and solid, not a dream any longer.

  “Come no closer, Jayden. Please.”

  An odd sense of clarity washed over me. “Gedaliah’s wife, Hannah, told me the man in the Edomite cave kept his face covered. . . . You were scarred by Horeb’s sword, weren’t you?”

  I sensed his eyes studying me. “I’m sorry you came so far for nothing. You’re free to leave now that you know the truth.”

  “No, Kadesh. I’m not afraid of you or of Horeb any longer. Next time he and I meet I will kill him for everything he’s taken from us. One of his soldiers even attacked me in the hills of Mari.”

  “Oh, Jayden.”

  The sound of my name on his lips turned my heart inside out. I sank to the parapet, shadows chilling my face. “Whatever Horeb did to you doesn’t matter to me.”

  He gave a brief snort of laughter. “You shouldn’t say that before you see the monster he created.”

  My senses crackled. “I’ve lost my mother and my sisters. I survived the grief of your death. I’ve crossed the desert and mountains, alone and hungry and exhausted. How could I be afraid of anything else?”

  Before he could stop me, I plunged into the cave’s entrance. Kadesh whirled, retreating, but my eyes had adjusted to the dim light. The cave was adorned with a simple fire hearth. Rugs and pillows, pots and candles. He lived here, not as a guest, but as one of them. “You made a deal with the Edomite band of robbers not to harm me, didn’t you?”

  “They spotted you when you crossed into Edomite borders. We didn’t know who was hiding beneath my old cloak. You might have been Horeb here to finish me off, his army awaiting his signal to attack. It’s only a matter of time before he returns.”

  “I should never have believed Horeb when he said he watched you die.”

  “A sword in the skull usually kills a man.”

  My breath carved a dagger across my tongue. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s taken two moons for me to ride a horse or camel with any sort of competence,” he said. Now I could see that he held his arm in a sling against his chest. He wasn’t completely healed. This was the reason he hadn’t tried to find me.

  “I was asleep on my death bed for the first few weeks while Chemish and his wife nursed me back to the living. When I woke again, I realized how much time had already passed, and I knew Horeb would have already declared my death.” His head lifted. “I also knew you had no way to s
top your family from forcing you into the marriage.”

  “I came close to killing Horeb once,” I confessed, my dark thoughts spilling out. “Sometimes my own lust for revenge horrifies me—because that means I want to kill the king of my own tribe. It’s treasonous no matter how much I despise him. But I don’t want any deed to stop me from being with you—in this life or the next.”

  “If our fears convict us, then we are both condemned.”

  Holding myself at bay when he was so close was torture. “Are you an Edomite? Is that why you’ve been staying here, because Chemish is a relative?”

  “No, Jayden, I’m not an Edomite. That band of rogue men last year stole my gold, too. The men in these red lands are merely distant cousins, just as they’re yours.”

  “Why do you keep it a secret, always speaking in riddles?”

  “Because I do have secrets. More than you know. I wanted to take you with me to the southern lands, but now . . . it will be too hard for you. Our women are too different. There is great wealth, but also great danger.”

  “I survived the journey here alone. And it’s still my dream to go with you.” The setting sun shifted, slanting across the cave’s entrance and submerging me in a pool of brilliant light. I lifted my eyes to this mysterious man I loved. “Kadesh—please let me in.”

  He held up his hands to stop me, and the gesture was a stone in my chest. “You don’t want to look at me.”

  I tossed aside the worries I’d carried for so long. “I want to look at every part of you until the day I take my last breath. You survived. And healed your wounds with the magic frankincense. I can see you, right here, right now. Hiding away. But you are no monster to me.”

  Before he could speak again, I closed the distance between us. “I’m going to take you for myself. At last. Forever.” Lifting my hands to his face, I traced the mangled skin running the length of his left cheek.

  The scar was jagged; Kadesh’s face had been sliced several times by a knife, then sewn together with stitches that made me hurt to look at them. A black linen patch covered his left eye.

  “You lost your eye. That’s the truth you’re trying to protect me from. But the only thing that matters is you survived.”

  I gazed unflinching at the fine angle of his jaw, the thick dark hair falling to his shoulders. Kindness, integrity, and honor were a part of him. Traits that made up the deepest fibers of his soul and linked my heart to his.

  Before he could pull away, I grasped his hands. His skin was warm, his fingers strong and fine, just as I remembered. I lifted his palms and placed them against my face. Only a heartbeat of space separated us. To see him, to touch him, was everything I had dreamed.

  “I won’t ask you to live with a disfigured man,” Kadesh told me. “I’ll give you food and water, coins and guards to accompany you back to your father. But know I will always love you. Until the day I leave this world.”

  “How can you say these things? I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “A scarred man would bring you shame.”

  “Then look at me!” I cried.

  Before I could stop myself, I jerked his cloak from around my neck and allowed it to slip to the ground. Then I untied the belt around my waist. My dress drifted along my bare shoulders.

  “Light a candle, Kadesh. I will show you the scars of my life, but I’m not going to be afraid any longer. I want you to know the truth.”

  “Jayden, you don’t have to do this—”

  Despite my determination, my fingers shook as I picked up one of the candles and bent to hold it in the fire’s coals. Under the wavering yellow, the pale white lines of the cuts Horeb had given me using my own dagger showed clearly on my neck and shoulder. An eternal reminder of the night Horeb had tried to rape me at the pond. The same night he’d murdered his own father, our king.

  Kadesh groaned. He touched my neck, and then gently traced his fingers down the white slash etched along my shoulder. I shivered at his touch, and then reached out to wipe away the tear that slipped down his face.

  “Knife wounds don’t go away. I know that, too.”

  “These aren’t new scars,” Kadesh said with a quiet fury. “Horeb attacked you. Long before we ever went to Mari. Long before he tried to kill me. Why didn’t you tell me when I saw you at the temple of Ashtoreth?”

  “I was afraid just like you. Ashamed of my own actions. I scarred Horeb that night, too. So there would be proof. I’ve already made a vow to kill him the next time I see him. But as long as I have you with me, I won’t ever be afraid again.”

  “You are an amazing girl, Jayden, daughter of Pharez.” Kadesh’s voice was so tender my body ached. “You are as lovely as the day I first saw you from the cliff top, dancing in prayer at your mother’s grave, pouring out your love and sorrow.”

  I stepped into the circle of his arms and leaned forward to softly press my lips along the ragged scar on his cheek. Then I kissed the emptiness where Horeb had stolen his sight. He was blind, and I ached with a grief that ran deep and terrible. The disfigurement could affect his role as Prince of Sariba. His ability to be a warrior and king.

  Kadesh pulled me tighter and his tears of agony ran down my neck. I wanted to take away his pain. I didn’t care what he looked like. I only knew that I loved him and would do anything for him, just as he’d done for my family.

  “I should have gone to your father that very night,” Kadesh said softly. “I should have protected you.”

  “If you had stayed at the oasis, Horeb would have killed you in your sleep. The night of Hakak’s wedding, the night we fell in love, Horeb saw us—we were already as good as dead. No more regrets,” I added, my fingers in his hair as he kissed me. “On the night of our marriage, I will dance for you with jewels and perfume and silks.”

  He wrapped his cloak around me as the sun began to sink. “Jayden, are you truly ready to be tied to the mystery of the southern lands?”

  I stared into his beautiful face and nodded. “Your home will be my home. Your secrets will be my secrets.” Kadesh lifted me up into the strength of his arms and my toes left the cave floor. His long hair brushed against my bare shoulders and I closed my eyes as he kissed my face and neck again.

  The power of the ancient Mother Goddess was deep within me, intense as ever, but also familiar and sweet. She’d brought me here. Watched over me. I didn’t know why I had ever been afraid.

  Taking my hand, Kadesh led me out of the cave. Slivers of lingering sunlight dripped down the narrow canyon walls. “I have something else to show you.”

  My white camel kneeled at the bottom of the cave’s steps, and he clucked his tongue to beckon her to us. Kadesh lifted me onto Shay, pulling himself up to sit in front of me so I could lean against him. My arms went around his waist, my chin in the crook of his neck while we navigated the maze of alleys and crevices. A moment later, the city of Edom spread below us. A spectacular fortress of blood-red cliff walls and towering sandstone.

  A brigade of Edomite men sat astride their black and chestnut mares. The horses’ hooves danced, eager to charge into battle. And then a hundred men poured across the floor of the valley, surging from the cracks and fissures of the canyon.

  A thrill ran through me. “What’s happening?”

  “I’m gathering an army to travel back to my homeland. Chemish is enlisting his brothers and cousins. Yesterday one of our scouts returned. The story of a wounded southern man has leaked out. Just as you heard rumors from Gedaliah’s family, so has Horeb.”

  His words turned me colder than a river in winter, but then his warm, beautiful eyes sought mine.

  “But first, I was getting ready to send the Edomite army to see if there was any chance I could still rescue a certain girl of the Tribe of Nephish from the clutches of my enemy.” He touched my cheek and gave me a half smile. “Only she found her way here first.”

  Kadesh had been coming for me, just as he’d promised. But I wasn’t the same person Kadesh had left at
the Tadmur oasis so many months ago. So much had happened. So much had changed.

  The warriors on their fierce steeds gave me great satisfaction. In the far reaches of the desert, Horeb and his men were unaware we would be ready for him if they found us on the trail to the secret southern lands.

  “I wasn’t planning to be defeated a second time,” Kadesh said. “If we want to stay ahead of Horeb’s army we need to leave without delay. Flee these lands and head south.”

  Every bone in my body was exhausted, but there wasn’t a moment of spare time. I noticed the way he protected his left arm. Being blind in one eye would hinder his vision, too.

  A hot wind lifted my tangled hair, spinning it about my face. I tried to calm my thudding heart. I had to be ready for whatever lay ahead, whether it was victory or death.

  There were no more secrets between us, but there was still a war to fight if we wanted any kind of peace. Survival was going to take all my focus. Every ounce of precious life. To win a future that would finally belong to us.

  5

  Chemish’s wife, Isra, arrived to take me to her family home.

  My fingers lingered in Kadesh’s hand, reluctant to let him go. “Isra will care for you. Sleep well, Jayden. Tomorrow we ride out.”

  “You’ll take care of Shay?”

  “Asher has already tended to her with food and water.”

  When I glanced over my shoulder, I could see Asher’s dark silhouette watching us from the mouth of the cave. He nodded an assurance for my camel’s well-being and gave a small bow.

  Isra slipped her arm through mine. “Welcome to the land of Edom,” she said, leading me to a set of stone stairs a short distance from Kadesh’s cave. Her eyes sparked a rich dark brown, a startling green color circling the irises.

  This home was much larger, befitting an Edomite ruler. Luxurious rugs and tapestries decorated the floors and walls. A girl of about ten grasped my hand and motioned for me to sit while she washed my feet in a basin of water.

  “I’m quite filthy after weeks on the trail,” I said with a self-conscious laugh.