Chapter 1

When Ranma and Akane were seven years old, Akane was sent to visit her betrothed in Jiya. Queen Kurumi consulted with her wise women and they told her it was necessary for the princess to see her betrothed at least once before the engagement.

“Don’t be afraid, my darling,” said the dark-haired Queen as she knelt and kissed her daughter goodbye. “Remember that you are a lioness of the desert. Nothing will harm you.”

“She is still just a little cub!” roared Akane’s guardian, Qiyar Al- Nasrullah, the famed warlord of the steppes. He was Akane’s uncle, a giant and dusty warrior, who had always seemed to loom over little Akane.

Al-Nasrullah had come back from the war on the lower hills only to escort the little princess. Although Jin and Jiya were wary allies, and with Cantos and the smaller kingdoms had continued to war with the Arun over the seven years, there seemed no sign that their attack would lessen. The armies still fought to keep the hordes back.

Akane traveled to Jiya in the presence of her uncle and a regiment of soldiers. Kurumi had heard tales of Genma. Akane sat in a silk covered palanquin atop a caparisoned camel. The curtains protected her complexion from the desert sun and wind, also allowing her privacy.

She peeked through those curtains until Jin was out of sight. She had never been so far from home before. What would Jiya be like? She knew it was her birthplace, but that was all she knew.

When they reached Jiya, Akane found it to be much like Jin in appearance, crowded with men and women in desert robes going about their business, black-skinned and golden-skinned slaves carrying the closed palanquins of rich women who would not expose themselves to the public eye, naked brown boys playing on the dusty streets, the buildings made of white stucco and mortar, or gritty white limestone. Minarets rose here and there, priests standing at the highest points, sending out calls to the faithful to attend afternoon prayer.

Vendors and merchants hawked their wares in corners, their stalls bulging with cottons, silks, spices, jewellry, and all manner of bric-a-brac. Camels and oxen trudged along drawing carts or simply being led to market to be sold. Akane could smell curry, strange perfumes, oils, and underneath it all the stink of garbage. In one corner, she could see slaves on a platform, being auctioned. The white sun beat down on the city relentlessly, like a hammer on an anvil.

Finally, they reached the palace.

The whole court had turned up to meet her. Here was one of their princesses, returned from a foreign land. They were surprised at her beauty, her large, dark eyes and soft, silky black hair. Her sisters’ hair was brown. Akane had roses in her cheeks and she was a sturdy child dressed in the flowing desert caftan of Jin.

Genma and Ranma were away in training, which everyone considered a blessing. Nodoka gathered her child into her arms and held her close.

“Oh, little Akane!” Nodoka’s tears had dried up a long time ago, but she felt a twinge in her heart when Akane looked up at her with her serious brown eyes. "You've grown so tall!"

Akane’s sisters stared at her. Kasumi and Nabiki had grown into pretty young princesses, but their glances constantly assessed the need for flight, and they hid behind their mother and her handmaidens. Akane smiled at them. She wanted to talk to them but was hustled away by the Queen to be fed and bathed. Later, when she saw them hovering behind a servant, she smiled at them again and skirted the servant to stand before them. 

“Hello. My name is Akane.” 

The two girls stared at her wide-eyed. Then the taller one spoke. “My name is Kasumi.” She glanced sideways at the shorter girl. “This is my sister, Nabiki.” 

“I’m your sister, too!” Akane piped up, enormously interested in the two girls. They looked at her in shock. 

“No, you’re...” 

“Hush, Nabiki!” Kasumi sent her younger sister a warning glare. She smiled at Akane. “Please feel welcome here, Akane. We...just don’t get many visitors. Certainly not anyone as young as you!” Kasumi looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Would you like to see our rooms?” she asked. Akane nodded happily.  

A few days later, the King and his foster son returned and Akane met her fiancée for the first time. They considered each other solemnly. Akane saw a young boy, dressed in loose white linen trousers and a blue tunic, his hair tied back in a braid behind him, his eyes a shocking blue in his sun burnt face. Those blue eyes examined her from head to foot.

Genma turned a cold glance on her. She stared back up at him, at the man who had sired her, tried to see if there was anything of herself in him. There was nothing. 

“I won’t have her presence corrupting him,” he said. “She will see him at dinners and that’s all the contact necessary.” Akane decided she didn’t like Genma at all.

She watched Ranma when she saw him in the halls or hallways. She would have approached him, except Genma never seemed to be very far away. She watched Genma, too. She knew that Ranma was the real son of her foster parents and that he was a prisoner of war, as she was. But whereas Soun and Kurumi lavished her with love, she could see that it was not the same for the young prince.

Genma believed strongly that only harshness and intense training would create Ranma into the invincible warlord Genma wanted as his successor. He showed Ranma no love. He was merciless by nature, as far as Akane could tell.

The prince walked around the palace with a proud, angry set of his shoulders. His easy arrogance and chilling blue glance did not invite closeness or confidence. The guards posted over him after his first attempt to escape followed him deferentially.

Akane followed them once out of curiosity. The prince and his guards went down a deep, spiraling staircase down to where Akane imagined the dungeons must be. There, the guards opened an iron door and ushered the prince in. The door clanged shut on him.

Akane walked forward. Was this where he lived? One of the guards saw her and stared.

“Open the door. I’d like to meet him,” she said.

The guard shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Highness. I’m sure His Majesty would not…”

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The guard shoved Akane into an empty room. “Stay there till I come get you.”

Akane heard a voice. She peered around the door. It was Jso, Genma’s male lover. At least that’s what Akane had heard someone call him. She had seen him around the palace, a prancing, evil man with a high-pitched laugh who caressed the king in a manner that made Akane uncomfortable. He held a whip in one hand. He strode past the guards and pulled open the door. He disappeared inside.

Akane heard the clink of chains and then some kind of sound, staccato and rhythmic. She strained her ears, but she could hear nothing more. Heeding the guard, she waited and waited. The open door of Ranma’s cell blocked her view.

She heard Jso come out and scream at the guards, “He's fainted already! Who has been drugging him? When I find out I’ll have your ears!” The guards murmured some reply, and then silence.

Finally, she crawled out of the room. She could hear Jso’s steps receding up the stairs, and she turned and walked quietly into the room.

Ranma hung from manacles, his tunic shredded from repeated blows. His guard was taking him down and she could see his bloodied back.

His trousers hung around his ankles.

His head hung to his chest, but some sound she made caused him to stir, glance up unseeing, and Akane nearly stepped back from the rage glowing in his cobalt eyes.

Later, the guard came to summon her to him. She found him sitting on his bed, bandages wrapped around his pale child’s torso.

He smiled icily when he saw her.

“Akane Tendo, my fiancée.” He studied her. “They say if you had been a boy that I would have been spared this hell.”

Akane flushed. She stared at him.

“I would take your place if I could,” she said defiantly.

“You?” Ranma began to laugh, and he laughed until he coughed. “You are just a girl. You are weak, and your body would never be able to live and take the kind of punishment that mine does, daily.”

Akane clenched her hands. “Girls can be strong, too!”

“Come here, Akane,” Ranma said. She hesitated. Ranma stood up, and went to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her. Then he leaned down and brushed a soft kiss across her lips.

Ranma made a soft sound. “I wondered what it would be like to be touched by a female for a change.” Akane didn’t understand his words or his meaning. His guards escorted her back to her rooms.

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The city of Dara was made almost entirely out of black marble. Its palaces and markets gleamed jet, and its minarets rose like tall ebony needles to the pale blue desert sky. It was considered to be one of the wonders of the civilized world and scholars often travelled great distances to study the sheer impossiblity of a city that appeared to have been created from one stone ever since its birth centuries ago.

“How did they do it, Father?” asked young Tarou, agog with wonder astride his perambulating camel.

“Sorcery, my lad! How else do you think?” Beside him, Happosai tapped his pipe and rode his own camel. “You’d imagine all this black would soak up heat like a sponge, wouldn’t you?” He shifted in his saddle. “So here’s the real mystery. When you put your hand to one of those black walls, the marble will be as cool as though it was the hall of a Caliph’s palace.”

 Beneath the beasts’ long, padded feet, black gravel glistened oddly. The bustle and noise of the city grew louder as the cititzens began their new day.

“Khaitan’s feet! Is that true?” Tarou exclaimed. "It is like the City of Night!"

"Dara is known as the Black Diamond of Sidon," Happousai said said, frowning. It certainly glittered like one. The black walls were eerie, especially to a nomad like himself. They made their way up the streets towards the black, gleaming palace, where Happosai had an appointment.

Inside the palace, as they stood before the huge, carved doors of the throne room, Happosai turned to his son.

“Stay out here until I return, Tarou. Don’t go anywhere!”

“Yes, Father.” Tarou had been itching to see what the mysterious King Kunou looked like, but his father’s punishment for disobedience was always harsh. He only caught a glimpse of a young man with large glasses and long, dark hair in a white Chinese robe before the doors swung shut

Inside, Happousai bowed to the throne and then looked up to face the hooded figure seated on it.

Kunou drew his hood back and considered Happosai.

“So you return, Happosai. What news have you?”

“Jiya, Jin and the smaller kingdoms are fighting our encroachment of the desert, your majesty. We have captured some of Jiya’s western land and two of Jin’s farming towns. Progress is slow.”

“Excellent.” Kunou brought his gloved and ungloved hand together. “Would that this could go faster, but the prophecy says it will only happen in the sixteenth year of the Great Star, and that is still nine years away.” He motioned with his gloved hand, which seemed somewhat stiff.

“You must be patient, my lord,” Mousse spoke soothingly. “We have done all we can to bring Jin and Jiya into a temporary truce. The engagement has taken place. Things are proceeding as we planned.”

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Akane only saw Ranma once again before she left. It was an early afternoon and she had gone down to the training field in hopes of practicing her own kenpo. As she neared it, she heard peculiar sounds coming from the field. She heard screaming. But there was another sound. It sounded like…

…Cats. The yowling of hundreds of cats. She ran up against the fence and peered through the slats. She could see the edges of a pit, and Genma was perched at the lip, peering down into the darkness. It was from there that the screaming and the yowling came.

Even then Akane did not quite understand immediately. Then Genma began to pull up on the rope he was holding, and as the coils of rope on the ground began to grow, Akane was seized by a horrible idea. It was a child’s certainty that held her, the part of her mind that told her that that there WAS a monster under the curtains of her bed, a certainty with no reason or need for one.

She knew before she saw Ranma’s head appear, before she saw his body emerge from the pit and he collapsed on the ground, still screaming, covered with bites and scratches. Genma held him down easily.

Akane began to scream herself. She thought her screams must come in sympathy to Ranma’s own. Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she gripped the slats tightly. Genma looked up.

Hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away. She held on until only her chubby fingertips grasped the slats until they turned red, and then they lost purchase with the rough wood. She was lifted and carried, still crying, over the huge shoulder of her uncle. He began to jog away from the field.

“No, uncle, go back! Go back!”

“Hush, little cub,” said Al-Nasrullah in an oddly muted voice, his strides lengthening. “When you are full grown I will allow you to return for that monster, but until then I will see to you.”

And Akane was too out of breath from her tears and being jolted to reply. She hung like a small, damp rag-doll on Al-Nasrullah’s back. They left for Jin that very night.

“I’ll grow strong, Ranma. I will!” Akane vowed in her small palanquin, staring back at the city of Jiya. “And then I’ll come back and save you!”

Tbc…