Freedom's Slave

  Don’t be so stubborn, she would say. She’d sit in his lap, give him that wise, all-knowing look of hers. You know what you have to do.

  Raif dug the heels of his hands into his eyes as the tears threatened to come again. He was thinking of her in the past tense—when had that shift happened? His mind knew she was gone; why didn’t his heart? Those dreams. He’d been in Malek’s mansion last night, the City of Brass when he’d collapsed this morning after the battle. He was certain of it. And Shirin had felt Nalia’s chiaan inside him just hours after he’d made love to her in that first dream. She was a daughter of the gods, magic incarnate. It could be real. It could be.

  His heart beat frantically, his mind spinning, faster and faster. Was it possible? Was it?

  “Please,” he whispered, “if you actually give a shit at all, would you please give me a sign?” Talking to the gods was a waste of time, but he was desperate—two seconds away from walking-into-the-Eye desperate. “I just need to know, one way or the other.”

  He could hear the faint song of the mourning round outside. It was an old Djan tradition: those who’d attended a burning sat in a circle, drinking and singing songs around an elder pine fire, the perfumed wood and the song honoring the spirit on its journey to the godlands. They would be at it until dawn. He should be out there, but he didn’t have the heart.

  Raif lay awake for hours, knowing he should be thinking about the battle he’d lost, the jinn who’d died, the monstrous creatures Calar had created. But all he could see were those dead baby’s eyes.

  So Raif prayed and, for once, the gods decided to answer.

  Sleep came, and when it did, it was heavy, pulling him under so fast it felt like drowning in pure night. And then he realized: it wasn’t sleep, it was the Eye.

  This was real. He knew it in his bones. This wasn’t an imagined landscape, an illusion. Raif was in the Eye—in the present. He recognized its cold scent, the wrongness of its lack of sound or shape.

  The gods had brought him to her.

  He could barely make Nalia out in the dark, but he saw a faint tendril of purple chiaan, so dim it would sputter out at any second. He didn’t dare risk using his chiaan for more light—he couldn’t see the ghouls, but he knew they were out there. She started as he approached, terror lashing her face. But then she recognized him and immediately began weeping, this jinni who’d once refused to cry, ever.

  “You’re here, you’re really here,” she sobbed. Her voice was so hoarse, he could barely understand her. “I’m not sleeping, I’m not. I know it. You have to believe me, Raif, please—”

  “Nal. Nal, look at me.”

  She did.

  “I know. I know.” He pulled her to him, his entire body shaking. She cried out in pain and he jumped back.

  “What? What happened?” he said.

  “My . . .” She curled into herself, her body shuddering as though pain were a knife slicing through her. “My arm . . . the ghoul . . .”

  “What can I do?” he asked, frantic.

  She was in pain, so much pain. He’d only seen Nalia a few hours ago in the City of Brass, but Raif realized that the Nalia he’d seen in those two dreamlike meetings wasn’t the real Nalia in the Eye. Five, almost six, days without food or water. A broken arm and gods knew what other injuries. She was emaciated, her lips parched, gray dust covering every inch of her. Her clothing was in rags, blood all over her. She smelled like a ghoul and he could imagine how intense that fight had been for her to be drenched in its scent.

  “Nal, tell me what to do,” he whispered again, helpless.

  She tried to smile, but it was more a grimace than anything else. Even now, she was trying to be strong, to downplay her pain.

  “Get me out of here?”

  He laughed softly, bent down, and brushed her lips with his own. “I will. We’re gonna make it. Just hold on, rohifsa. Hold on.”

  Raif looked around, as though a solution would suddenly present itself. The gods had confirmed everything he wanted to believe: she was alive. They’d brought him here, so obviously he was meant to save her. The relief warred with his concern over Nalia’s health. She swayed on her feet, her eyes fluttering as she fought to remain conscious. He had to get her to a healer immediately.

  “Rest, Nal. I’ve got it. You don’t have to be brave anymore, okay?”

  She nodded and he helped her sit down. She drew one knee up and rested her forehead against it, her breath shallow.

  What the hell was he going to—

  Zanari. Of course. Hahm’alah. Since he was here, maybe he could bring her—

  But he’d be putting his sister’s life at risk. It was so much to ask—she’d yet to recover from that first trip into the Eye. And she’d told him that even if they found Nalia, Zanari would need the energy of thousands of jinn to traverse it and return home alive.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “What?” Nalia’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Zan can bring the army with her. And our healer. Since we’re here, she’ll have an actual location. If we hurry—”

  He lifted his hand, connecting his energy to his sister’s. He felt her, faint, because they were so far away from each other, then stronger. It was the middle of the night—she’d have been sleeping. A puff of emerald smoke appeared on his palm. Zanari’s face, eyes heavy with sleep.

  He heard Nalia gasp and he whirled around, the connection with his sister lost as Raif ran to Nalia. She’d collapsed. He fell to his knees, cradling her, careful not to touch her broken arm.

  “Please.” He grabbed her hand, pushing his chiaan into her as tremors wracked her body. He barely felt her energy, and just like in the desert when she’d first arrived at the Dhoma camp, all he had wouldn’t be enough. He tried, anyway. “Stay with me. Please. I love you so much—”

  Raif felt a tug, as though invisible fingers were pulling him from behind. He shouted as Nalia slipped from his grasp and he fought like hell against gods knew what. Nalia’s eyes followed him, her lips turning up in a sad, resigned smile.

  “Nalia!” he screamed. “Nal—”

  And then, suddenly, he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He felt whatever had been grabbing at him let go. He pushed toward her, but it was as if he were in quicksand. Raif could do nothing but look down at her, blinded by a blazing white light that suddenly filled the space above her. He could see more clearly now: Nalia was lying on her back, arms and legs splayed out, the left arm at an unnatural angle. Her face was covered in cuts and bruises, her bottom lip swollen. And her eyes . . . her eyes had closed.

  He watched her, sick to his stomach. When he saw her chest rise, he nearly sobbed with relief. He was going to lose his mind, just lose it completely—

  The light over her pulsed and Raif was able to make out a shape in the stark illumination, then . . . more than a shape.

  A white phoenix: harbinger of the death of a hero.

  No! Get away from her, you fucking bird, get away—

  But the words could only be thought, no matter how badly he wanted to speak them.

  The phoenix flew closer to Nalia, then stood over her body, protective. Possessive. Its ancient amber eyes met Raif’s in a challenge, claiming Nalia as one of its honored dead.

  The phoenix parted its beak, and as the first trill of its song fell on Raif’s ears, the Eye closed around him, the light disappeared, and Nalia was gone.

  The sign from the gods couldn’t have been more clear: Nalia was about to die.

  Singing.

  Wordless and enchanting, the song seemed to slip under Nalia’s skin, twine itself around her bones. It was a call, but to what or who Nalia didn’t know. And then Raif was gone; she felt him go. Despair rushed through her, worse than ever before—

  Nalia forced her body upright through an agonizing act of will. When she opened her eyes, there was a blinding sunburst of white. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust, to see more than the light. She stared.

  No. Please, no
. Not yet.

  In the old stories, the heroes saw the white phoenix just before they were taken to the godlands. Having a white phoenix appear at one’s death was an honor, a favor of the gods. Like any Aisouri, Nalia had hoped that one day she would be worthy of the phoenix. But she thought she’d be centuries older, not a mere eighteen summers old, longing for her rohifsa a world away.

  The palace temple is bordered on all sides by pillars carved from lavender marble. They reach toward the vaulted lapis lazuli dome that arches over the mosaic floor. Each pillar belongs to an empress who has passed into the godlands. They tower over Nalia, ancestors set in stone, looking down on her with disapproval. She is twelve summers old and has a lot to learn. Suddenly self-conscious, she crosses to her favorite pillar, where Antharoe looks out from the stone, eyes fierce, cape billowing behind her. Above her likeness is the white phoenix. Made of hundreds of diamonds, its body shimmers in the sunlight that streams through the thousand-pane lotus window. Its wings are outstretched and flames made of glittering rubies burst from behind the bird, a halo. Antharoe has one hand raised in victory and in her hand is her jade dagger—the actual dagger—embedded in the stone. But it is the phoenix that most interests Nalia. She reaches up, tracing her finger along its outstretched wings. Nalia wonders what it would be like to see such a creature.

  19

  RAIF HADN’T SET FOOT ON HIS FORMER OVERLORD’S plantation since the night Dthar Djan’Urbi freed his son from the shackles that had once bound Raif to his cruel master. He hated this land, wanted to see it burn. The moment he evanesced, he spit on the ground.

  Zanari shuddered as they slipped past the unguarded gate that circled the property.

  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, Raif.”

  “We won’t be long,” he whispered. “Promise.”

  “I mean,” she said, “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be—”

  “Zan, drop it.”

  She’d come rushing into his ludeen the night before, trying to figure out why he’d briefly contacted her using hahm’alah. He’d told her everything, then lain down on his bed without another word. There had only been one comfort, but it lifted a great weight from his heart: the presence of the white phoenix meant that Nalia was in the godlands, with Bashil. He no longer had to worry about her unburned body, an eternity in the shadowlands. The phoenix would do right by her, and for this Raif was grateful.

  This morning he’d made himself get out of bed. He trained, harder than ever. He didn’t speak a word unless it was absolutely necessary. Then he went to the gate and told Touma what he’d seen. The Ifrit was still there, refusing to leave until the year and a day was up.

  There was no good way to grieve the love of your life.

  “We’re here to do a job,” Raif said now. “Let’s just focus on that, okay?”

  “All right, little brother,” she said, her voice soft.

  Neither of them had good memories of the plantation—they had the scars on their backs to prove it. Since Calar had freed the serfs, many plantations had become refugee camps of sorts, filled with crime, disease, and fear. Raif and Zanari were here because word needed to go out to all the plantations and villages about Calar’s shadow creatures. Tavrai all over Arjinna were doing the same. The jinn deserved to know what had been unleashed.

  “Gods, I hate this place,” Zanari muttered.

  Even though it’d been years since Raif had tilled the fields and carried water jugs twice his size, the sense of being trapped, the loathsome feeling of injustice, hit him just as hard as it always had when he’d been under the Shaitan overlord’s thumb.

  “Listen,” Zanari said. She crossed her arms, bit her lip—small tells that she was about to say something he didn’t want to hear. “I know this isn’t great timing, but I’m hoping you’ll . . . okay, I . . . I’ve been thinking—about the portal, the Dhoma, all of that.”

  “Yeah. . . .”

  “So . . . as soon as the portal opens again . . .” She had a wild look about her, as though she were going to jump off the highest cliff into the Arjinnan Sea. “I’m going back to Earth. I think you should come with me.”

  Raif stared, all the breath leaving him in one burst. “What do you mean you’re going back to Earth?”

  “I’m . . .” She swallowed. “I’m leaving Arjinna. As soon as the portal opens.”

  Raif’s hands curled into fists. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Zan.”

  She shook her head, her bottom lip trembling. “I love you so much, Raif. So much. But . . . it’s over, little brother. This place—Calar and her shadows, all the ghosts here. I’m done with it. I’m done fighting my dead father’s war.”

  Zanari reached out her hand, but he pushed her away. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled. “Don’t . . . gods, I can’t believe you’d—after what happened last night—”

  The dark hole in his chest stretched wider, deeper. He’d never find his way out. He bit back a scream, pure rage that would have made their stealth pointless.

  “That’s why I’m saying it now. Raif, being here, it’s killing you.” Zanari’s eyes pooled with tears. “It’s killing me, too.”

  “It’s our home, Zan. Everything we have is here.”

  “Not everything,” she whispered.

  Ah. Phara. He should have realized that right away. A part of Raif knew that was bad of him, not to have remembered his sister was in love with a jinni on the other side of a closed portal.

  “If Nalia were on Earth and you had the choice—”

  “But she’s not. She’s dead. She died so that we could save our land, our people—”

  Zanari shook her head. “No she didn’t. She died for you. There was nothing here for her to go back to.”

  It was like being shot, only worse. This wasn’t something a healer could fix. I have no one left.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Raif turned away, hands on hips, looking out at his old prison. This whole land was a prison.

  “I made the choice to leave Phara,” Zanari began. “At the time, there was really no question. I was so certain we’d win this war, that Nalia would reopen the portal, that everything would . . .” She sighed. “I loved Nalia, Raif. I love you. And I . . . I love Phara. And Earth, for that matter.”

  He turned, eyes wide. “You love that hellhole? With its iron and wishmakers and dirty air?”

  He’d hated every second he’d been on Earth. Nalia had been the only good thing about it.

  Zanari flushed. “I liked cheeseburgers. And the desert. Most of all, I liked the Dhoma. I don’t mean just Phara,” she hurried, when he rolled his eyes. “What they’re doing, the way they live—it makes sense to me. It feels right. And I think . . . I think you could find peace there. Maybe even happiness.”

  Peace and happiness . . . not for him. But maybe for her. And she deserved that. Raif had never considered the possibility that Zanari would leave him, that she’d choose another person or another realm over him. It hurt. He wanted to be angry at her, to lash out. What would Nalia say? He could almost hear her voice, gentle but firm: How many times had his sister risked her life, forgone happiness, so that she could stay by his side? How many times had he not done the same for her?

  If Zanari felt for Phara what he felt for Nalia . . .

  “You should go,” he said.

  “Raif—” Zanari’s voice was choked and he pulled her to him.

  “I don’t mean now,” he said, more gently. “When the portal opens. You’re right. This land, it’s a lost cause.”

  “Come with me. We’ll get as many jinn out as we can.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’ve gotta see this through. You know that.”

  He motioned for Zanari to follow him across the dew-spattered land. He could have found his way to the serf cabins in his sleep. The simple wooden structures were situated on the far edge of the property, behind a grove of widr trees. He stopped when he reached t
he stand of trees, the sight calling forth his father.

  “Do you remember when—” Zanari began.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “I remember.”

  He was seven summers old again, planting the widr seedlings with his father, both of them on their knees in the rich dirt, coaxing their chiaan into the roots. Raif gazed up at the widr leaves that now shivered high above him. Just as he had matured, so had they.

  “I don’t know if Papa would have been ashamed or proud of me,” he said.

  Zanari squeezed his hand. “He always told us to follow our hearts. You’ve never had trouble doing that, little brother. He’d be proud.”

  “And Mama?” he asked.

  He’d only seen his mother a handful of times since coming home. Ever since the council meeting when he’d seen the disappointment in her eyes, Fjirla Djan’Urbi had been conspicuously absent whenever he’d been in the common areas of the camp.

  “Of course she is,” Zanari said softly.

  But he heard the lie. Raif caught a faint glow in the distance, candlelight in the windows of what used to be the serf barracks. The bunk beds would still have thin mattresses and blankets that were little more than frayed scraps of cloth. Few jinn would have been able to conjure something better, unless they’d actually seen a real blanket. Most of the overlords had forbidden their jinn to manifest anything. The shackles wouldn’t let their serfs manifest, even if they’d tried. Now, free of the overlords, the jinn knew nothing of soft bedding, good clothing. They were good at conjuring sickles to till the fields or nets to fish the sea, but little beyond that. A comfortable serf is a lazy serf, Raif’s overlord had once said. A dart of pure hatred shot through him at the memory.

  “We should get going,” Raif said, tugging at Zanari’s arm. “Before another Ifrit patrol comes by.”

  His sister let out a strangled gasp when a burst of bright-green evanescence swirled just in front of them. They’d forgone evanescing so as not to attract attention, but it seemed their presence had already been noted. Raif raised his hands, chiaan glowing at his fingertips, but when the smoke cleared, they fell to his sides as he took in the wizened jinni before him.