Nalia smiled. “Don’t tell me you’ve come all this way just to turn around.”
As if on cue, there was the now familiar rumble of rock as the tunnels leading into the cavern collapsed. The sound of every exit being cut off had become all too familiar.
“Considering it’s impossible to turn around in this place, no.” Raif took her hands. “I just want you in one piece when this is all over.”
Behind her, Noqril whistled. “Holy gods and monsters, it really exists.” He stared at the altar in the center of the chasm. “Solomon’s godsdamned sigil.”
He and Samar each held one of Malek’s arms. He’d become subdued almost as soon as they brought him into the cavern. Now he blinked, his eyes opening as though he’d just come out of a trance.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said. His voice was hoarse from all the hours of screaming.
Nalia turned. “Malek?”
His eyes were clear and there was no hint of the madness that had been lurking in them since Haraja had whispered in his ear, and yet he seemed dazed, uncertain. He struggled against Samar and Noqril, and Nalia felt that tug in her stomach again—the wish.
“You have to let him go,” she said, the misery plain in her voice. “Or else I’ll have to make you.”
“You’ve brought him to the location,” Zanari said. “You’ve fulfilled your obligation, sister.”
Nalia shook her head as the pain in her stomach radiated through her. She pointed to the rock in the middle of the chasm. “That’s the location,” she said.
The thought of Raif and Malek fighting for the ring on that tiny stretch of rock made her blood run cold.
She turned to Raif. “It must be the wish. It knows I can’t truly grant it unless he’s aware of his surroundings. It’s somehow . . . cured him. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Wish magic had never been an exact science. It was an enigma even the greatest mages had yet to truly understand. The only thing Nalia could hope for was that her hand moved more quickly than Malek’s. If she could somehow grab the ring first . . . another stab of pain in her stomach: the wish, it seemed, would not let her plot against Malek until she’d granted it.
“It’s all right,” Raif said quietly. “Let’s just get this over with.”
He flexed his fingers as Samar and Noqril released their hold on Malek. Nalia noted the look that passed between Raif and Samar. She could imagine the chiaan that ran through her rohifsa, just waiting to burst through his skin to take Malek down.
Malek stumbled toward her. “I’m dreaming. Right? This is a dream. Don’t let her wake me up, Nalia. Just let me stay here with you. Maybe she killed us both? But she can’t kill me. I don’t know. It’s been—”
“You’re not dreaming, Malek,” she said.
The pain in her abdomen receded as Malek moved toward her, free of his Dhoma guards. He staggered forward and wrapped his arms around Nalia. He smelled awful—sweat and fear, the body of a tortured, grieving man. He smelled human.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “The things she was doing to you . . .” He kissed her hair. “Hayati,” he whispered. “Hayati.”
Nalia pulled away. “It wasn’t real.”
Malek stared at her, a starved man. Whatever Haraja had done had broken him. The Malek Alzahabi who ruled Earth in Armani was gone. He gazed around him. His eyes landed on the rock in the center of the chasm. “Is that . . . ?”
“Yes,” Nalia said quietly.
She walked forward, toward the place where the ledge they stood on dropped off into the black hole surrounding the sigil. She reached out a hand and as her fingers brushed the space above it, she felt the impenetrable barrier she’d been expecting. She looked up. There, in a patch of her chiaan’s light, she saw a stain in the air, like oil on water.
“Antharoe put a bisahm around the sigil,” she said, pointing to where her chiaan glinted off the protective shield. No jinni would be able to evanesce past it.
Raif shook his head. “Why would she use a bisahm? Isn’t the ring here so that a Ghan Aisouri could find it if she needed to?”
Nalia pointed to the star carved into the rock at her feet. “But you’re forgetting: there’s an eighth star.”
39
THE STAR, JUST A BREATH FROM THE ENDLESS DEPTH OF the chasm below. Elegant text surrounded its elaborate points, and Nalia slowly walked the length of the rock’s lip, studying each character.
“What language is that?” Anso asked.
“Ancient Kada,” Nalia said.
“I’m guessing your fancy tutors at the palace taught you that, eh?” said Noqril.
“Yes.” For a moment she was a child again, sitting at the long widr table in the center of the palace library.
The wood is polished to a sheen and the air smells of old paper and sealing wax. Balls of light hang suspended above Nalia as she copies out the swirling script. Her penmanship is perfect, calligraphy elevated to an art form. Ink stains her skin. Nalia is ten summers old and she wonders why these long hours in the drafty old room matter. She cares little for this dead language, spoken only by ghosts.
Nalia knelt down and brushed her fingers across the words, her lips moving as her memory struggled to access the long-forgotten language. It had been over three years since she’d held the leather-bound tomes of the palace library in her hands, years since she’d had to copy down words such as these onto parchment.
ëjër: blood
Üŧæ: passage
She read them again. And again. Each time the meaning sank deeper, a stone thrown into a bottomless well. Blood Passage. A sacrifice.
Nalia could feel the others behind her, and the weight of their expectation lay heavy on her thin shoulders. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared across the chasm at the ring. She reached into her pocket and gripped Bashil’s worry stone. Had he held it before he died, too, when he was alone in the cell in Marrakech, waiting for Calar to kill him?
“Nalia?” Raif’s voice was soft in her ear and the feel and sound and smell of him lashed her heart.
I will love you forever, she thought. In the godlands, for all time.
Nalia swallowed her tears, then turned to the waiting jinn. She wanted to do this on her own terms. The Ghan Aisouri way.
“In Arjinna’s oldest days,” she said, “there was a practice called the Blood Passage. It was our people’s way of honoring the gods. This was before civilization. Before temples and priests. We were just tribes scattered across the land, warring. Nomads. All we knew was that we had power from nature and that someone had given it to us. We wanted to please the gods and we thought the best way to do so would be to offer up our most precious resource—one another. A life, given to the gods to appease them, or offered in exchange for an answered prayer. Our ancestors believed the life of the sacrificed jinni would provide a passage to the gods, that the blood would open up a doorway to our desires.”
“So someone has to die, is that what you’re saying?” Malek said.
Nalia now understood how love could be strength.
“Yes,” she said.
Malek turned to the jinn. “I don’t suppose anyone here wants to make a noble sacrifice?”
Raif suddenly understood what Nalia was about to do.
“No!” He lurched toward her, but she took a step back, the heel of her boot flush with the edge of the rock. The smallest touch would send her over.
“Nalia . . .” Raif’s voice was a strangled whisper. “Don’t do this.”
“Get away from me, Raif.”
He went absolutely still, his eyes warring with hers.
“I mean it,” she said. When he didn’t move, she dangled one foot over the chasm and he leaped back.
“Okay, Nal. Okay. Just. Okay.” He held out his hands. “Wait. Please. Not like this, rohifsa. Please. Not like this.”
Her eyes begged him to understand, but he couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
I could lose everything right now, he thought. Nalia, the revolution
. . . his mind. This was his greatest fear, right here. Haraja couldn’t have done a better job of creating it for him.
He turned to Malek, his eyes still on Nalia. “Do something, you fucking skag!”
Malek was watching Nalia, his expression unreadable. His eyes flicked to the sigil. To Nalia. Back to the sigil.
Raif shoved him. “If you love her, make this stop.”
Malek turned to him, his eyes red-rimmed, feverish. “I can’t undo the wish. It’s impossible.”
Nalia knelt down and slid the knife over her palm, then pressed it to the star at her feet. The bisahm began to shimmer until it looked as though the whole cavern were covered by a sky of silk.
Now, Raif thought.
He lunged forward and grabbed Nalia’s arm. She cried out as he pulled her away from the cliff’s edge and they tumbled to the ground. His elbow smashed against the stone, but he ignored the white-hot pain and held on to Nalia.
“You’re not killing yourself,” he growled.
“Raif. Please. Don’t make this harder.” She brought her hands to his cheeks and her lips covered his face. Her tears, his tears, the blood from her wound on her hand all mixing together.
“Nalia, please,” he begged. He heard a sob behind him and turned—Zanari, her hands over her mouth, eyes streaming.
“That life you told me about,” Nalia said, “with the field, the house, the children . . .” He could feel her leaving, even as he gripped her arms. “You’re going to have it. For both of us.”
“I can’t. Nalia . . .” He kept whispering her name, to remind her, maybe, of the girl who’d always refused to give up.
She wiped his cheeks with the backs of her fingers and he closed his eyes and held her against him. Saw her descend the staircase at Malek’s house the night they met. He’d never told her how she’d taken his breath away. He’d hated her then, but it hadn’t mattered. He saw her, fierce and lovely, battling Haran, becoming a tidal wave. He saw the lightning strike her, felt her shudder beneath him as they made love in the glowworm cave.
Raif opened his eyes and stared into her violet ones. The last Ghan Aisouri. A daughter of the gods. There was a reason she’d been the only royal to survive—he knew that now. Nalia was the true leader of the revolution. Maybe even the true leader of Arjinna. Raif brought his lips to hers one last time.
“Long live the empress,” he whispered.
Raif sprang up and bolted toward the cliff’s edge. Nalia screamed, a gut-wrenching wail, but he didn’t stop. The revolution would be fine. Nalia would live. For the first time in years, he had real hope.
Raif grinned as his hand broke through the bisahm, and his blood surged with the same rush he felt when he led his tavrai in battles against the Ifrit. The chasm opened for him, hungry, and he spread out his arms, welcoming death like an old friend.
Malek had never been able to see her cry.
He sprinted toward the cliff’s edge and grabbed the back of Raif’s shirt just as the boy’s body started to go over. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, Malek threw him several feet away from the chasm. Raif landed on his side and looked back at Malek, confusion, then sudden understanding, dawning in his eyes.
As much as he detested Raif, Malek had seen what Bashil’s death had done to Nalia’s spirit. He couldn’t bear for that to happen again.
“You always underestimated me,” Malek said, when he turned to Nalia. She was staring at him, her lovely mouth slightly open, eyes glistening.
He pulled her to him and pressed his lips against hers. She wasn’t his. Never would be. This would have to be enough. For once she rushed into him, and he drank her chiaan, drank until he was full. He felt something like love—maybe not love, but something like it, something warm and sad and rich—flow from her to him and it was enough, more than enough.
He pulled away. “Do you remember what hayati means?”
“‘My life,’” she whispered.
“Exactly.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lapis lazuli necklace that she’d thrown at his feet all those weeks ago. The necklace was so much more than a pendant. It was the best parts of himself, and Malek wanted her to have those. He took her hand in his and dropped the delicate chain onto her palm, his eyes locked on hers. For the first time in his life, Malek Alzahabi was at peace.
“Third time’s a charm,” he said.
Malek turned away from her and dove into the chasm.
“What do you think happens when we die?” Amir asks.
He and Malek are sitting under a pomegranate tree, hiding from their cousins. Their knees are skinned from crawling around and their hands sticky from the candies they stole when everyone was distracted with grief. One of their uncles has died.
Only Malek knows why.
“I’m not sure,” Malek says. “The Imam says we’ll go to heaven. But I think he’s a liar.” He looks over at Amir to see if he’s shocked.
“Is not!” Amir says. He squints at Malek. The sun is high and it beats down, relentless. “Is he?”
Malek shrugs. “You think Allah loves us? We’re cursed. Like demons.”
“Bismillah,” Amir says, pointing his finger at Malek as though it’s a magic wand. Malek clutches his stomach for a moment, but the pain passes quickly.
“See?” Amir says, smirking. “If you were evil, the bismillah would make you go away. But you’re still here.”
Malek grunts. What does it matter? He’s damned anyway. Boys who murder their uncles don’t go to heaven, he’s pretty sure of that. Even if those boys have a good reason.
The call to prayer breaks the silence: Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
The boys stand up and start making their way back to the family home. Malek shuffles his feet through the yellow dust. His leather sandals make a shushing sound.
“What do you think it feels like to die?” Amir asks. He kicks the stones in their path and Malek watches them roll away.
A shadow passes overhead and Malek looks up. A heron soars above them and cries out to its flock.
“Like flying.”
40
“MALEK!”
Nalia’s voice slapped at the air, the only sound in the vast cavern. The others seemed to be holding their breath, Raif included. After what felt like minutes, there was an almost indiscernible thud far below them. Raif thought he’d imagined it until a bright, golden light filled the room, soaking into the amethyst walls. Eight bridges appeared from the tunnel entrances surrounding the cavern.
The Blood Passage had been paid.
Nalia covered her mouth and sank to her knees. The hands holding Raif let go and he rushed to her. She fell against him and together they watched as the bridges of light became more solid. The sigil was so close and Malek was gone—the ring was as good as his. Raif held Nalia to him, dazed. Long live the empress. Had he really said that? The certainty he’d felt just before he’d planned to die echoed in him now: Nalia as the leader of Arjinna’s revolution, by divine right. This changes everything, he thought.
“I suggest we get the sigil before these bridges disappear,” Noqril said, looming over them.
Raif helped Nalia stand and they walked to the nearest pathway to the sigil. The bridges seemed to be made of sunlight. He could see dust motes moving through them.
Nalia stared at the darkness pooling below. Something like grief had settled in her eyes. “Why did he do it? He was so close . . .”
It had been difficult for Raif to watch them together. There was no doubt Nalia had felt something for her master. And yet, jealousy seemed petty.
“He loved you,” Raif said. “In a fucked-up kind of way, but still. How could he not?”
Nalia reached for his hand. “I don’t want you to think—”
“Shhhh,” he said. “It’s over. We’re together. That’s all that matters.” He lifted her hand and kissed the crescent scar on her wrist, the mirror image of the one on his own wrist. He stared at it for
a long moment, remembering everything that had brought them here.
“Raif?” she said softly. “What’s wrong?”
His mind was racing, jumping from one thought to the next, the revelation he’d had moments ago trumping his desire for the sigil: the tavrai would execute him, his mother would disown him, he was a disgrace to his father’s memory. And, oh gods, Zanari. Would she stand by him if he bent the knee and called Nalia his empress?
“Nothing,” he said. He squeezed her hand.
“Malek owed you big time, Nalia,” Zanari said as she joined them, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. “I won’t speak ill of the dead, but there’s a lot more I could say.”
Nalia nodded. “We better get what we came for and get out. It’s time to go home.”
Their journey wouldn’t be over until they were standing on Arjinnan soil. First the ring, then home. They were so close.
“Agreed,” Phara said, as she looked over the ledge. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to get out of here.”
Raif felt Zanari stiffen slightly beside him and he wondered what his sister and her lover had decided to do once they’d left the cave. He promised himself he’d talk to her about it later.
“Doesn’t seem very reliable,” Raif said, staring at the bridge. “I’m assuming evanescing won’t work. Or manifesting our own bridge. That’d be too easy.”
“I’m afraid to try,” Nalia said. “Gods know what protections Antharoe put in place.”
Raif tugged on Nalia’s hand. “Ready?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t cross together. Let me go first, just in case—”
“Together,” he said firmly.
Raif placed one foot on the bridge. He’d half expected his boot to slip through, but the bridge was solid, however ethereal it appeared to be. They made their way across slowly, with Raif in the lead. He was careful not to look down, all too aware of the dark beneath them and the terrible price that had been paid.
“We’re going to have some pretty great stories to tell our grandkids someday,” he said, forcing his voice to be light.