The Covenant of Shihala – Book Excerpt

Hello friend! Today is the book excerpt post that comes from the historical fantasy, The Covenant of Shihala by Laya V. Smith and Kyro Dean. This is the first book of The Fires of Qaf series and you might remember it from the cover reveal a few months back.

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Get to know the authors: Laya and Kyro

Welcome to Armed with A Book! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

Laya: I am the co-founder and co-editor of Eight Moons Publishing, a new boutique press specializing in upmarket romantic fantasy. When I am not writing or reading, I can usually be found daydreaming, cooking, laughing at stand-up comedy, or playing with my two children. My debut novel “The Lumbermill”, published by Black Rose Writing, won the 2021 Maxy Award for Best Thriller and was a finalist for 2021 IAN Award for Best Debut Novel.

Kyro: I dreaded the idea of writing romance for the longest time, in denial that I already had romantic elements in my early works. When the co-writing opportunity with Laya presented itself, I dipped my toe in the full romance puddle and has stomped around in the genre with my rain boots ever since. With over 25 books written on my very worn keyboard, I have written in most genres, including YA, science fiction, Middle-Grade, graphic novels, fantasy, alternate history (steampunk), and poetry. I also run the Vanilla Grass Writing Resource blog to help writers improve their craft.

Other than writing, I love to play the piano, bake, and kickbox. My shelves are covered in equal parts books and plants, as well as a few books about plants. I love to laugh, love easy-laughers, and will talk to anybody about anything.

What inspired you to write this book?

Laya: Me and my husband at the time were talking about moving to Turkey, which we ended up doing for a short time. I decided I wanted to learn more about the history and culture and started researching everything about it. I took a class on the history of the Middle East and one on Islam. I read the Quran and other writings. And as I delved deeper and deeper into the culture and the history, I found myself fascinated by these supernatural beings called djinn. I discovered their mythos was so much deeper and more complex than I had ever imagined and I became obsessed with the idea of writing about one. Prince Jahmil of Shihala came into my mind fully formed and started talking to me about all sorts of things that I didn’t understand yet and I started to journal about him and the world he lived in. 

Around the same time, I was thinking that I wanted to try my hand at writing a romance. I’d written about a dozen novels at this point and every one of them had some measure of romantic subplot, but I wanted to really explore the genre and try writing an honest to goodness romance.

Kyro: I was in a writing group with my co-author Laya and revealed I had always wanted to co-write a romance with someone. Laya said “Me too!” I laughed then, thinking it was one of those passing things, but then she looked at me with a very serious face and repeated, “No, really. Me too.” We started the next day.

How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?

Laya: From the time of its conception before I got Kyro involved to write Jahmil’s love interest was about a month. This book took us the longest of any in the series since we were still feeling out the world, the characters, and each other. I think it took about three weeks. The first half took about two weeks, but the more comfortable we got, the deeper we became involved in the story, the more obsessive we became about writing it. And when it was over, we went out to dinner and though we were both happy that we’d completed this project, we were both sad that it was over. And we knew then that this was going to be a series. I don’t think we quite understood the scope yet or what we were getting ourselves into, but we were excited to see where this journey through Qaf would take us.

Kyro: 15 days from the idea to the first draft, then a 9 month break while we wrote 15 other books. Then a month of edits.

What makes your story unique?

Kyro: I think the blending of historical fiction and epic fantasy give our book a unique edge. But wrapping it all up in a sophisticated romance really sets The Covenant of Shihala apart in today’s market.

Who would enjoy reading your book? 

Laya: I think fantasy and romance readers who are looking for something a little different, a little quirky, a little weird. The romance in our books doesn’t always follow an ordinary pattern and the characters are very complex and individual. Kyro and I are both very character centric writers and the way our two characters interact with each other is always very natural and at times surprising, like real life. I would say our books are upmarket romance for a sophisticated reader who loves an in-depth and expansive universe filled with three-dimensional people. And djinn, of course.

Kyro: Anyone who loves fantasy will love the world-building and magic in our book. And anyone who loves romance will get all the feels they’re looking for.

What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?

Kyro: An escape. A breath away from their reality and into a world of love and hope.

Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

Laya: Jahmil and Ayelet find themselves lost together in a strange land after they teleported there to escape a lava giant. As they walk through the barren landscape, Jahmil asks her about a man he saw her with and says that from the way he looks at her, it seems he’s in love.

“The way any man looks at me is not your concern.” She jutted her chin up sharply.

“Do I appear concerned?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m simply making conversation.”

His nonchalance caught her off-guard. How dare he pester her, flash his eyes of fire, and then say he does not care? “You’re terrible at it.”

He frowned, the glow from his eyes dimming and purpling where it touched the blossoms. “I pity him.”

“What a polite way to call me terrible!” she said, but her shoulders shook with cool laughter. “He knows what he signed up for.”

“I only mean, I can imagine what it would be like to love you.”

“You mean awful?” She cracked a wry and bitter grin, willing to play his game if it meant getting home faster. She needed to nurse her pride from the bitter sting of his coldness—an impossible feat beneath his calculating eyes.

“Completely awful.” He chuckled, his gaze sweeping over her face. For a foolish moment, she drank the colors in. “I’ve never been in love, but I know what it would be like.”

“Yet more words that tumble from your mouth I don’t believe at all. You do not love me.”

“And yet I can see it, like the mist of a new day breaking through storm clouds…” He smiled and rubbed his finger over his lips absentmindedly. “If I loved you, nothing else would matter. Nothing in Qaf, or on Ard. Nothing in heaven. But if you were to ask me whose life was more important, yours or mine, I would say mine and you would walk away from me not knowing that you were my life. If I loved you, my tongue would be tied and words would fail me, again and again. And I would never find the right time or place to tell you, and so you would leave me.”

He paused and looked past her into the distance. His smile held, but a hint of moroseness glinted in his eyes. She leaned in, wishing for more and hating herself for it.

 “Yes, I can see that clearly. You would leave me even as the hottest sun abandons the desert to ice and death. You would never know the truth. And I would die every day in your absence and never love again.”

The spark in his eyes returned to her, a green as bright as emeralds. She fought the heat billowing up from her chest. He should not have said that. Even her forced smile could not bear the weight. It fell, and she opened her mouth just so, trying to find something, anything to say.

With the tip of one finger, he tapped her jaw closed.

Where he touched burned hotter than her cheeks, waking her from the dangerous net his words had caught her in. They were just words, she reminded herself. His cold, steady heart did not thrum with music the way hers did when they drew near. 

She swatted his hand away. “That was a lot of words to give to the breeze when you do not love me at all.”

“No. I don’t.” He smirked and shook his head. “Thank Allah for that. You would ruin my life.”

Kyro: This may sound silly, but I love the part in the book where Balian, the heroine’s former love and best friend, calls her out on being a flirt and stands up for himself. It’s a small thing, but something I think more people should learn how to do. Everyone should feel empowered to stand up for themselves and express their emotions.

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Book Excerpt from
The Covenant of Shihala

Once again, Jahmil was summoned to stand before the Queen of Ahmar. The lives of six thousand people hung in the balance, and he had no offering. Again.

“Al’ama,” Jahmil cursed and snapped the doors of his jewelry cabinet shut. Nothing but empty pouches and his grandmother’s opal necklace. He would die before he gave that up, even for the sake of saving lives. Not to Queen Qadira. It would be worth nothing to someone like her. A trinket against her obscene collection of diamonds, pearls, and wonders mined from the Five Corners of Qaf. But Jahmil had already given his querulous fiancée as much of himself as he was willing to part with. That necklace was meant for someone special. Someone he would never meet now. 

He had to come up with something. The one time he had gone to see Queen Qadira without bringing a gift, she had him publicly censured before her muster of vapid, peacocking courtiers and threatened to tattoo her name on his cheek should he ever make such a miscalculation of conduct again. 

Jahmil rolled his neck from side to side until it cracked. His bones felt like clay left to blister in the sun. A bit of public humiliation and scarification was the least of his worries. Keeping Qadira happy was a matter of life and death. The Queen of Ahmar had not simply inherited her position. Like every previous ruler of her kingdom, she’d had to beat out and murder every one of her siblings in order to rise to prominence, which in Qadira’s case left two princes and four princesses in marble sarcophagi. If she had gleefully done that to her own siblings, what was to stop her doing the same to a fiancé who could not even bring her an acceptable present? Never mind that Jahmil was a penniless refugee. Never mind that he had ten thousand other matters weighing on his mind. None of that made any difference to Qadira. She would have her present or she would have his head.

Snatching up his purse, Jahmil dug his fingers inside. Two opals. Barely enough for a plate of kofta. He walked to the window and gazed up at the sky. The rusty circle of the First Moon was nearing its zenith, its coppery glow spilling warmly upon his face. The Shadow Moon peeked over the glimmering parapets of the City of Pearls, blocking out a perfect circle of stars. Finally, his eyes found the tiny, pale pink Third Moon, tucked neatly in the crook of the Horseshoe Nebula. Jahmil lifted a hand and gazed through his fingers. He aligned his thumb to match the angle where the paths of the two moons would cross. Some fifteen degrees to spare. Enough time to slip to Ard and buy a fat slab of sticky baklava to satisfy the queen’s insatiably greedy mouth. The confection might yet have the added benefit of gluing it shut.

A whoosh sounded behind his back, and a quick rush of heat that smelled of lily of the valley licked his shoulders. It was rude to apparate directly into any djinn’s home, let alone a prince’s private chambers. Only one person in both worlds ever did, and even she wasn’t supposed to.

“Marhabān, Mother,” Jahmil said, turning slowly. 

The dowager Queen of Shihala had royal blue skin that glowed like lapis lazuli in the warm light of the First Moon. Thick black ringlets shimmered under her transparent veil like the ocean under the night sky. Teardrops of obsidian hung from her ears, her dress a checkered wonder of gold and black. Her upper lip curled like a desiccated leaf, a practiced sneer of superiority and contempt. A queenly expression if ever there were, though she was forbidden from wielding any power. When Jahmil became engaged to Queen Qadira a year before, his mother had relinquished her title and accepted house arrest in Ahmar’s royal harem. But Qadira had greatly underestimated the ingenuity of the dowager Queen of Shihala. Everybody always did. Jahmil himself had often been guilty of the same offense, even as he quietly prayed his mother had one more trick up her sleeve. 

“Salamo ʿalayka, al’asad,” she said, lacing her fingers together at her waist with bent elbows. Her full skirts swished loudly as she stepped closer. “Qadira came to speak with me again this morning.”

“Commiserations.” Jahmil slipped past her shoulder, pushing a breath out through his nostrils to avoid inhaling her overpowering floral scent. His bare feet were silent on the white marble as he crossed to a divan near the center of the cavernous bedchamber. 

“Why won’t you just sleep with the shrew?” 

Jahmil scoffed and snatched up his soft leather boots. “Please, don’t hold back, Mother. Tell me how you really feel.”

“I don’t understand your hesitance, Jahmil.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting I sleep with her before we are married.” He looked to her clear diamond eyes, anticipating her answer and wary of it all the same.

“Qadira is no virgin. She’s never once had a patriarchal protector standing guard over her womb…”

“Then she’s well overdue.”

His mother gave a queenly roll of the eyes. “When a woman sleeps with a man, she draws him into her confidence.”

“Thank you for educating me on the ways of women, Mother. Allah knows, I have no experience.”

She scowled, the skin under one eye twitching. “Back when you were running around with General Bakr and those Orkeshi hoodlums, I questioned if a single woman remained in the court of Shihala whom you had not taken into your bed.”

“That is nonsense.” Jahmil blanched at the mention of the old, yet incredibly persistent, rumor. “I know a man is judged by the company he keeps, but I was never a party to my friends’ indiscretions.”

She eyed him suspiciously, as she always had. The damage his association with Bakr had done to his reputation had proven insurmountable. Still, Jahmil would not have given up any part of their friendship. Not a single minute. 

“I keep a list of the women just in case any bastards should crop up, nauzubillah.” She scowled and her eyebrow twitched. “If you care to see the list, you’ll have to come to my chambers. The roll is far too long and heavy to carry across the palace grounds.”

Jahmil’s muscles tightened. He rolled his wrist until it cracked and stroked his trim beard. “Whether I was unerringly chaste in my youth is of no consequence. Allah eagerly forgives sins for which we cannot even forgive ourselves.”

“Inshallah,” she sighed, then took a quick step closer. “You are only twenty-six, Jahmil. Your youth is not over.”

“I beg to differ.” He dropped his shoed foot to the floor with a hard thud.

Her upper lip curled so hard that vertical wrinkles formed around the edges. “My charming, handsome son, if only you would lie in her bed, I’m certain Qadira would finish falling in love with you.”

“Qadira loves no one and nothing but herself, and even on that she has but a tenuous grasp.”

“It would cement our position and, I dare say, give us some degree of security.”

“I thought the whole point of abandoning Karzusan and coming to this ostentatious nightmare of a city was that you thought we would be safe. If you feel threatened, maybe you’d rather go back to Shihala.”

Her face hardened to stone, tiny wrinkles crackling in her lips. “That is not funny, you ungrateful, self-absorbed man child.”

“I would rather be eaten alive by Vespars than by Qadira.” 

“We must employ every resource at our disposal.”

Jahmil smirked. “If you’re so keen, why don’t you sleep with her?”

Another wrinkle formed in her lower lip. “The deal has already been struck and there is no changing it.”

“Thanks to you and your deal, Qadira has taken our fortune, our titles, and our dignity.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, trying to keep his blood from boiling over. He still held out a vague hope of avoiding the entire affair, but informing his mother of his plans could only serve to exacerbate her. He didn’t want to give her the opportunity to meddle any more than she already did. “You’ve lashed me to her golden string to make me a puppet. She sees me as nothing more than a dispossessed refugee with no inherent value but the nobility of my blood.”

“Then allow her to see you for the beauty of your body.”

“I am not a bed-slave!” White plumes of fire ignited around his fists. Jahmil burst from his seat and flipped the coffee table. It smashed against the near wall, shattering into a cascade of splinters. “Qadira’s embrace is that of a constrictor. Her kisses are iron spears impaling my flesh. And for this, you expect me to fall down and be grateful?”

“Jahmil, we have all sacrificed.” His mother lowered her gaze and shook her head. “You have already agreed to marry her. You would not back out.”

He couldn’t tell if the last statement was a question or a threat.

Chuckling coldly, he rolled his head back until his eyes came to rest on pearl-encrusted chandeliers lit by the smokeless yellow and white fires of his servants. How ridiculous to be constantly couched in luxury, yet still lack the funds to buy even a new set of clothes. “Even now, Qadira takes Vespar lightly,” he said. “Shihala fell, but still she is confident Buhayra’s waters would repel the tides of Iblis himself. But she is wrong. When her beloved citadel is breached and overrun by Spiders, which it will be, Qadira will remember the ally she has made in me. And she will fall on her knees to beg for my help. Perhaps I will even grant it.”

His mother cleared her throat and swallowed hard. “If making yourself indispensable is the goal, what better way than to impregnate the queen?”

“Impregnate her?” His breath was harsh, shaking in his chest, and his words came out caked in blood and venom. It was the first time his mother had ever made the suggestion outright, though the implication had been there since he signed the document of trothplight. Never mind his abject disgust and hatred for Qadira; he would sooner die than see his own children as princes of Ahmar, forced by barbaric practices to fight and murder each other to decide who would inherit their mother’s throne. He wanted to be incredulous that his mother would suggest such a fate for her own grandchildren, but given the depths to which she’d sunk since fleeing their homeland, he put nothing past her.

“I will do anything for my kingdom,” he said, trying a hand at diplomacy, “but I will not sire a child until I retake Shihala, and smokey fire no longer burns in Orkeshi. Until our people are no longer refugees scattered throughout the Nine Kingdoms. And every Vespar lies dead in a puddle of his own filth.”

She met his gaze, flashes of white and yellow shimmering in her irises. “You sound like your father.”

The skin tightened around his eyes. She meant it as an insult, but the words pleased him nonetheless. “If I can never call myself king of anything more than smoldering rubble, there will be no heir. I would sooner our family line die out completely than leave such a legacy.”

“Only Allah can know what the future holds,” his mother said, her voice colder than the kiss of Janu’ub. “If you refuse to lay with Qadira on your wedding night, there will be severe consequences.”

“I am a prince and a general, not a stud horse to be bred at will.” The fire wreathing his knuckles burst brighter, and he punched the wall. The thick brocade covering the wall ripped, and wood shattered beneath, flares of smoky orange fire igniting the splinters. 

His mother’s eyes flashed white before she shook her head coolly. She snatched a goblet of water from the central table and tossed it on the smoldering wall without looking. “You are a proud fool.” 

“I am contractually obligated to lie with Qadira on our wedding night, and I always honor my obligations. I will do it once, and I will make her scream my name so loudly every ear in this gilded prison hears it, so that they may bear witness that our contract can never be annulled, no matter how she grows to hate me. But on that night, I will drink poison to ensure that my seed is rotten and will not sprout in her rancid womb.”

His mother cast her gaze aside. Her eyes were silver mirrors, shimmering in tones of starlight like backlit diamonds. His own eyes.

“We must all endure scourges,” she said.

He stood silently for a moment, gazing at the hole he’d punched in the wall and tempted to make it larger. Instead, he turned to his mother with a sneer. “Queen Qadira would be upset to learn you’ve wandered outside the harem.”

She cocked her head to one side, registering his threat, and somehow stood even straighter. “Fine, I’ll go. But I warn you, your continual refusals of her advances only make the queen’s fire for you burn brighter.”

“Your concerns have been duly noted, dowager Zalika.” A growl simmered in his throat. “Now, go from me.”

For a long moment, she did not move. Even the colorful fractals in her eyes held still. Then, with a heavy sigh, she disappeared in a puff of white fire. Relieved of her oppressive presence, Jahmil’s nerves began to relax. He walked to his bed and picked up his jacket, pulling the blue leather tight over his shoulders and fastening the buttons. There was no point in being angry with his mother, as much as he despised every word she said. He had to keep Qadira happy. If his other plans fell through, the capricious queen was his last hope. Though he couldn’t help worrying that the amount of time he was forced to expend on his backup plan was hurting the chances of his first plan being successful.

Jahmil glanced at his sword resting against the wall in one corner. The double-edged obsidian blade had sat untouched for months, and gray dust had formed on the scabbard. As always, it occurred to him to strap it over his shoulder, to proudly wear the symbol of his people like he used to before his mother and Vespar stole his dignity. But as always, he let it be. 

Closing his eyes, Jahmil pulled on his fire and opened a small tear in the fabric between worlds to slip through the veil into Ard—the world of sunlight and the birthplace of Muhammad, sall Allahu ʿalayhi wa sallam. He aimed for his favorite city, the capital of the so-called Ottoman Empire, which stood at the center of the world. A crossroads of trade that showcased all the best human beings had to offer. Qadira could not resist the pretty trinkets humans produced, which was lucky since they were freely obtained by any djinn brave enough to venture into their world. Besides, Jahmil needed a moment to compose himself, to bask in the illusion of freedom Ard’s sunshine always provided. If he was going to convince Qadira to give him what he needed, his smile had to be at least partially genuine. 

He had always been a terrible liar.

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Interested?

Find this book on Goodreads, IndieStoryGeek and Amazon.

Connect with Laya on Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. Get updates on her website. Connect with Kyro on Twitter, Instagram and Vanilla Grass Writing Resource blog. Follow Eight Moons Publishing for updates on books!

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Cover Photo by vaun0815 on Unsplash