Sandstorm

3:33 A.M.

SAFIA’S MINDcould not grasp what the woman was saying.

“Impossible,” Kara said. “My mother died when I was born.”

“You share a father, not a mother,” the hodja clarified. “Safia was born from a woman of our people.”

Safia shook her head. They were half sisters. The peace she had experienced upon waking moments ago had shattered. For ages, she had known nothing about her mother, only that she had died in a bus accident when Safia was four. Nothing was known about her father. Even among the vague memories of her childhood before the orphanage-foggy glimpses, scents, a whisper in the ear-there had never been a male figure, a father. All she had left from her mother was her name, al-Maaz.

“Calm yourself, both of you.” The woman raised her hands, one palm toward each. “This is a gift, not a curse.”

Her words drained some of the wild beating in Safia’s heart, like a palm placed on a thrumming tuning fork. Still, she could not bring herself to glance toward Kara, too ashamed, as if her presence somehow fouled the good memory of Lord Kensington. Safia’s mind went back to the day she was taken from the orphanage, a terrifying, hopeful day. Reginald Kensington had chosen her above all the other girls, a mixed-blood child, taken her home, put her in her own room. Kara and Safia had instantly bonded. Had they, even at that young age, recognized a secret bond, an easy comfort of family? Why hadn’t Reginald Kensington ever told them of their secret sisterhood?

“If only I’d known…” Kara gasped out, reaching out to Safia.

Safia looked up. She read no blame in her friend’s eye; the anger of a moment ago had been snuffed. All she saw was relief, hope, and love.

“Maybe we did know…” Safia mumbled, and leaned into her sister’s embrace. “Maybe we always knew down deep.”

Tears flowed. And just like that, they were no longer just friends-they were family.

They hugged for a long moment, but questions eventually pulled them apart. Kara kept Safia’s hand in her own.

The hodja finally spoke. “Your shared story goes back to Lord Kensington’s discovery of the statue at the tomb of Nabi Imran. His remarkable find was significant to us. The statue dated from the founding of Ubar, buried at a tomb tied to a woman of miracles.”

“The Virgin Mary?” Safia asked.

A nod answered her. “As guardians, one of our number had to get close, to examine the funerary object. It was said that the keys to the Gates of Ubar would reveal themselves when the time was right. So Al-maaz was sent.”

“Al-Maaz,” Safia said, noting the pronunciation was slightly off.

“ Almaaz, ” the hodja repeated more firmly.

Kara squeezed her hand. “All the women here are all named after jewels. The hodja ’s name is Lu’lu. Pearl.”

Safia’s eyes widened. “ Almaaz. My mother’s name was Diamond. The orphanage thought it was her family name al-Maaz. So what happened to her?”

The hodja, Lu’lu, shook her head with a weary frown. “Like many of our women, your mother fell in love. In investigating the discovery of the statue, she allowed herself to get too close to Lord Kensington…and he to her. They both were lost to each other. And after a few months, a child grew in her womb, seeded the natural way of all women.”

Safia frowned at the strange choice of words but didn’t interrupt.

“The pregnancy panicked your mother. It was forbidden for one of us to bear a child from a man’s loins. She fled Lord Kensington. Back to us. We cared for her until she gave birth. But after you were born, she had to leave. Almaaz had broken our rule. And you, a child of mixed blood, were not pure Rahim.” The old woman touched her teardrop tattoo, the ruby symbol of the tribe. Safia had no tattoo. “Your mother raised you as best she could in Khaluf on the Omani coast, not far from Muscat. But the accident left you an orphan.

“During all this time, Lord Kensington never gave up his search for your mother…and the possible child she carried. He scoured Oman, spent fortunes, but when one of our women wish to be unseen, we are not found. The blood of Biliqis has blessed us in many ways.”

The old woman glanced down to her staff. “When we learned you were orphaned, we could not abandon you. We found where you were taken and passed the information to Lord Kensington. He was heartsick to hear of Almaaz, but as the desert takes, it also returns. It gave him back a daughter. He collected you and pulled you into his family. I suspect he planned on waiting until you both were old enough to understand the complexities of the heart before revealing your shared blood.”

Kara stirred. “On the morning of the hunt…my father told me that he had something important to tell me. Something that, on my sixteenth birthday, I was woman enough to hear.” She swallowed hard, voice cracking. “I thought it was only something about school or university. Not…not…”

Safia squeezed her hand. “It’s all right. Now we know.”

Kara glanced up, her eyes full of confusion. “But why did he still pursue Ubar? I don’t understand.”

The hodja sighed. “It is one of many reasons we are forbidden from men. Perhaps it was a whisper across a pillow. A bit of history shared between lovers. But your father learned of Ubar. He sought the lost city, maybe as a way of being closer to the woman he lost. But Ubar is dangerous. The burden of its guardianship is a heavy one.”

As if demonstrating, the old woman hauled herself up with considerable effort.

“And what of us now?” Safia asked, standing with Kara.

“I will tell you along the way,” she said. “We have far to travel.”

“Where are we going?” Safia asked.

The question seemed to surprise the hodja. “You are one of us, Safia. You brought us the keys.”

“The heart and the spear?”

A nod. She turned away. “After two millennia, we go to unlock the Gates of Ubar.”