Malek threw down his cigarette and walked back into the building. He could hear Zanari’s moans, louder. Pitiful. When he walked into the room, the jinn turned.
He caught Raif’s eye and the little prick walked up to him, his body stiff. “Please help my sister.”
“What will you give me in return?” Malek asked. Life is business, he’d once told his brother. Everything is a negotiation.
“What do you want?”
“The ring.”
Raif’s fists clenched and Malek threw back his head and laughed. “No, that wouldn’t be very sporting, would it?” Malek said. He looked over to where Zanari still lay with her head in the healer’s lap.
“Tell you what?” Malek leaned against a pillar, milking this for everything it was worth. “You just stand right there. Don’t move a muscle until I say. And we have a deal.”
Raif narrowed his eyes. “This is obviously a trick.”
“No trick. It’ll take just a few moments, but I don’t want you interfering.”
“If you hurt my sister—”
Malek raised his hand. “On my honor—”
“You have no honor.”
Malek smiled. “Well, you have me there. A deal, then?”
“I need a little more to go on,” Raif said.
“Ah, you have some business savvy after all.” He turned to Nalia. “This involves you, too, my dear. Might as well join us.”
Nalia walked over to where they stood just outside the circle of jinn. Her violet eyes shot daggers at him.
“This is my offer—my only offer, so take it or leave it. Nalia, I want you to kiss me. Kiss me like you mean it. Right here, right now.”
It was a foolish gamble, Malek knew, but maybe if Raif himself could see the connection Nalia shared with him, it’d drive at least a slight wedge between them. Malek knew that if he could just latch his chiaan onto Nalia’s, she wouldn’t be able to hide their connection. He’d felt how powerless she could be against it and he needed Raif to see that, too.
Malek wanted a fighting chance at her heart. He’d play dirty, break the rules—he didn’t care. He wanted to stay in the game and this was the only way he knew how.
“Absolutely not,” Raif said.
Nalia looked at him. “I can speak for myself.”
Malek snorted. “Absolutely not? You’d rather your sister die after being tortured by imaginary scorpions than see Nalia give me one kiss?”
“You’re a bastard, you know that?” Raif said.
“I am, actually, that’s quite accurate. Don’t even know my father’s name.” A bitter smile slashed across his face. “I suppose your reluctance to agree to my terms is simply because you’re just the slightest bit afraid you’ll see that Nalia’s time in my, shall we say, employ, was not all work and no play?”
“If you were the last living creature in any realm in the universe I would never want you,” Nalia said, her voice shaking with anger.
“Darling, we know that’s not true.” He leveled his eyes at her. “I’ve shared a bed with you. You’re a good liar, I’ll grant you that. But not that good.”
“Nalia . . .” Raif’s voice trailed off and he looked at her, waiting.
She turned to Malek. “I kiss you—”
“Like you mean it,” he interjected.
Nalia rolled her eyes. “Like I mean it, and you will help Zanari right away, right after?”
“Of course. I’m a man of my word. Well”—he smiled, devilish—“in this case.”
Before either of the men could say anything, Nalia stepped forward and pressed her lips to Malek’s. They were soft and she smelled like amber, just as he remembered. He stepped away.
“Nalia. I thought we had an agreement,” he said.
“I kissed you!”
“Like you mean it.”
Raif growled as Malek laughed softly and crooked his finger toward Nalia. It was all the more fun with their audience. The Dhoma watched them with poorly concealed interest.
“Let’s try again, shall we?”
“I hate you,” she said.
“I love your pillow talk,” Malek murmured.
She grabbed his face with both hands and stared into his eyes. He let himself get lost in her and as he pulled her closer, Malek pushed his chiaan into her skin. Her eyes widened and he smiled, soft. He forgot about Raif, about the jinn who stared at them, about Zanari. He’d have her now, in front of all of them, if she’d let him. Nalia’s lips parted and she kissed him. Slow, soft. He opened her mouth and tasted her, felt her gasp as his tongue touched hers. His hands slipped down her back and she bit his lower lip, tugging gently. He moaned against her. Her kiss unmade him. Remade him.
Nalia stepped back and the lack of her was cold and empty and wrong. He stared at her, his eyes a bright crimson, drunk on her chiaan and the feel of her skin against his.
“Time to hold up your side of the bargain,” she said. Then she swept past them, out of the room.
Raif stared after her, gutted.
Malek took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s see about this sister of yours, shall we?”
Raif stood nearby while Malek hypersuaded Zanari. He’d never felt so impotent in his life. Phara’s fingers were holding back his sister’s eyelids so that Malek’s magic would work. Zanari seemed unaware of her surroundings, lost in the misery in her mind.
“There are no scorpions on your body,” Malek purred as he stared into Zanari’s glazed eyes. “There never were. It was a bad dream and you will never have it again.”
It took less than one minute. When he’d finished, Malek stood and dusted his hands.
“I’ve done my good deed for the day,” he said. “I suggest we all get some rest. Put this little interruption of sleep behind us.”
“That’s one messed-up pardjinn,” Anso said after Malek sauntered over to the corner he slept in. All of the jinn had refused to manifest a mattress for him, but the skag lay on the stone floor as though it were a king’s bed.
Raif nodded. “Yeah.”
Samar motioned for Raif to follow him over to a quiet section of the room.
“My friend, do not let him get to you. Her kiss meant nothing, anyone could see that.”
“I’m not so sure.”
Any fool could see the heat between them. Gods, when she’d bitten his lip . . .
The Dhoma leader lay a heavy hand on Raif’s shoulder. “Talk to her. She must be feeling very unhappy right now, no?”
How many times would Nalia have to use her body to get something she needed from Malek? And how many times would Raif’s pride keep him from comforting her afterward?
“You’re right.”
He’d let her down after she’d stolen the bottle, allowed himself to dwell on what had happened between her and Malek. It had cut Nalia to the core. Here he was, doing it again, just hours after she’d nearly died on the dune.
Idiot.
He grabbed a torch off the wall and went in search of her.
Nalia was deep in the recesses of the building, huddled against a crumbling stone column. The mosaic floor at her feet was inlaid with mother of pearl that caught the fire’s light and held it. She was tracing it with her finger, but as he came near, she looked up, her eyes glassy.
Raif set the torch in a brazier and sat on the floor opposite her.
“I’m sorry he’s such a skag.”
She tried to smile. “Not your fault.”
It looked like you wanted him was what he longed to say. But he didn’t.
“Zanari?” she asked.
“Good as new.”
“Thank gods.”
Their eyes met and Nalia looked down, hesitating.
“What?” he asked softly.
“I want to do something really selfish.” She raised her eyes, and the feeling in them tempered the misery that was eating him up. “Something . . . wrong in light of our recent conversation.”
She crawled across the space between them and s
lipped onto his lap, her legs straddling him. He drew in a sharp breath and she placed a finger against his lips.
“I don’t want the taste of him in my mouth. I don’t want him to be the last person I ever kiss.” Nalia wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body closer. “What you saw when I was with Malek . . . I was imagining you. It was the only way I could kiss him as if I cared. I was kissing you. That’s what you saw.”
“It . . .” He coughed. “Did look pretty . . . intense.” And he believed her because he could feel how much she wanted him right now, could feel the love she was trying to deny them both.
“Can I kiss you?” she asked, her lips inches from his own. “Even though we can’t be together? Even though it will be the last time?”
He reached up and tucked a small strand of hair behind her ear. “It won’t be the last time, rohifsa. Not if I can help it.”
He closed his mouth over hers and Nalia’s chiaan poured into him, somehow ragingly powerful and sweet at the same time. He hated that Malek had tasted her lips, that his tongue had been in her mouth. He kissed her again and again and again, his lips covering her face, her neck, the soft skin just above her breasts. His name became a whispered gasp as his hands moved over her body and slipped under her clothes. She pulled off his shirt and pressed her lips to his heart. He felt her tears drip down his chest and he tightened his arms around her.
“I’m here,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I wish you could promise that.”
But he couldn’t.
Later, they walked back, her hand in his. As they reached the entrance to the room their party had commandeered for the night, she stopped. He knew what she was going to say: that this couldn’t happen again, that it was wrong for them to love each other. Selfish. Dangerous.
Raif brought her hand to his lips. “You’ll change your mind.”
He let go and walked away. He didn’t turn around—he knew she was watching.
31
THE WALLS OF THE SUBTERRANEAN CAVERN GLISTENED as the jinn’s chiaan swept over it. The rock was a swirl of color, a river of stone frozen in motion. The rainbow of light emanating from their hands dispelled some of the cave’s gloom, but the darkness beyond their reach hovered, waiting to consume them. It was cold and damp, the air heavy with a musty, mineral scent—a grave. The constant drip drip drip of beads of water falling from the honeycomb ceiling onto the rocks below threatened to drive Malek insane. He didn’t like to think about how far below the Earth’s surface they were. Malek wasn’t prone to fear, but the idea of being buried alive did not appeal to him. He turned as Raif stepped through the grate.
“You the last of us?” he asked.
Raif nodded. As soon as he jumped down onto the rocky path, there was a rumble, as though a thousand tanks were suddenly driving through the City of Brass. Dust rained down from the cavern’s roof. Malek and Raif looked at one another, their enmity suspended for one brief moment.
“Run!” Raif shouted.
They sprinted down the path toward the others, but just as soon as the cascade of rock started, it stopped.
“What was that?” Samar asked.
Malek returned to the grate, struggling to catch his breath. For a minute there, he’d had a horrible vision of being forever buried under a pile of rubble, the amulet denying him the mercy of death. The other side of the metal was covered by rocks, the entrance into the city obscured.
“My guess is that Antharoe created some kind of safety valve,” he said when he’d rejoined the others. “We can’t go back the way we came. It sounded like the whole city fell apart out there. The only way out is through.”
Nalia nodded. “That makes sense. She wouldn’t want us to be able to retrace our steps, to return here with others if we can’t find the sigil the first time.”
It cheered Malek to no end that the journey held innumerable ways for Raif to meet his demise. He felt the old ruthlessness returning, as if that stint in the desert with Nalia had simply been a head cold that had taken Malek out of the game for a while. Seeing Saranya had shaken him up, it was true. No one likes to be reminded that he’s killed his own brother. But here, far away from his sister-in-law’s eyes and closer to the sigil than ever, he forced the cold inside him to grow.
They walked for hours down the natural path. The rock flowed beside them, sinuous as a naked sleeping body. Deep blue stone swirled into rosy peach, turning the cave’s wall into a canvas. Crystals of every color grew from the ground like wildflowers, shimmering beneath the chiaan and the harsh glare of the flashlight Nalia had manifested for Malek. They passed under a natural arch and entered an enormous cavern, its ceiling reaching far above them. Stalactites hung from its domelike roof, and its floor was covered in a maze of thick, sinister stalagmites that reached up, their tips nearly touching the daggers that hung from above. From where Malek stood, the structures resembled a monster’s gaping jaws.
“Well, this looks delightful,” he said.
Nalia raised her hands, her palms glowing violet, beaming her light across the rocky expanse. Malek couldn’t help but rest his eyes on her lovely profile, sharper now with her short hair. This all would have been so much easier if he’d gotten a male jinni, or one that looked like a hag.
“See any stars?” Zanari asked.
Nalia shook her head. “I think we have to sort our way through this mess. I just hope Antharoe doesn’t have any surprises for us.”
Umbek directed his sapphire chiaan over the rocks, staring doubtfully at the narrow paths weaving between them, likely wondering if his big frame would be able to get past some of the trickier sections. “I thought the whole point of the stars was to help future Aisouri find this thing,” he said to Nalia. “Seems to me like your ancestor was hoping to kill whoever came looking for the ring.”
“Seems that way to me, too,” she said. “Gods, I wish we could see the other side.”
The light from their chiaan cast as many shadows as it banished, which made the rocks all the more menacing. No matter what, Malek would have to go through this thing the old-fashioned way, but the jinn would’ve been able to evanesce across if they could picture where they were going.
“I have a feeling this is going to be unpleasant,” Anso muttered.
Nobody moved.
Malek clapped his hands. “No time like the present.”
He stepped past the group of reluctant jinn and strode into the forest of rock. His heart beat just a little too fast—he couldn’t die, of course, but Malek didn’t relish the thought of one of those stalactites goring him.
He turned. “Coming?” he said to no one in particular. He caught Zanari’s eye and she looked away.
I shouldn’t have saved her, he thought. After he’d hypersuaded away her scorpion illusion, Zanari hadn’t so much as thanked him. Since you used your power to try to kill me, I’d say we’re even, she’d said. All Malek had done was make sure there was one more person to fight him when it came time to get the ring. Weak—that was what he was. All Nalia had to do was threaten to never forgive him and he’d come crawling after her.
Malek turned and strode past the trunks of rock that rose from the cave’s floor, ignoring the fear that clawed his insides. Samar and Noqril assumed their fawzel forms and floated in the air above Malek, skirting the stalactites high above his head. The others followed, chiaan bouncing in the air, lighting their way. The rocks looked eerie in the jinn’s light, as though they were traipsing through the skeleton of a primordial beast.
A whoosh.
Cold air slicing just past his head.
Then rock, biting into the ground from above.
He looked up just in time to dodge the needle point of a falling stalactite. The jinn screamed as the thin columns of rock became the jaws of a monster gnashing its teeth. Up, down, up, down. The cave floor tilted, forcing Malek to brace himself against the stalagmites on the ground. To his horror, he saw new rock pushing through the cave floor, breaking u
p what few pathways the deadly labyrinth contained. He hurled himself out of the way as a stalagmite’s point burst from beneath his feet and pushed toward the cave’s roof.
The jinn stumbled blindly though the gauntlet, narrowly avoiding the stone knives that moved in tandem all around them. He looked at the faces he could make out in the half light, searching for Nalia. He saw a flash of violet chiaan, just to his left. She was helping Phara, who’d fallen to the ground, turning the rock around her into dust. Nalia leaped aside as a falling stalactite carved a hole in the place where she’d been standing. She turned, as if sensing his gaze.
“Duck,” she called.
“What?”
Nalia pointed to a spear of rock sailing through the air, not bothering to do more than that. He jumped to the side and it stabbed the ground. He looked toward Nalia, but she had already moved forward, darting around the gnashing teeth with graceful leaps.
It took the longest twenty minutes of Malek’s life to get through the rest of the gauntlet unscathed. By the time he reached the other side, sweat was pouring off him and his arms were covered in scrapes from flying shards of rock. Phara attended to the jinn. Several had deep gashes in their skin or dust in their eyes. Once the last jinni stepped safely to the other side, the rocks closed like a clenched jaw, barring any attempt to go back the way they’d come.
Nalia ran her glowing hands over the walls, the ceiling, the floor. She shook her head. “I don’t see it.”
“I’d use my voiqhif,” Zanari said, “but it doesn’t seem to work in the cave.”
This was news. Malek didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. He certainly would have liked to know what waited for them on Earth. He wondered if Calar knew what they were doing. She had to—no doubt she would have tortured it out of every jinni in that Dhoma camp by now.