The light went out of Calar’s eyes. “No one can find her. And you think this means she’s dead, do you?”
To her credit, Fazhad didn’t flinch at the sudden harshness in Calar’s voice. “My Empress, to my understanding, it would be impossible for any jinni without Zanari Djan’Urbi’s powers to cross the Eye. I believe it is safe to assume the Aisouri dead, yes.”
Calar’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe I should send you into the Eye to find out.”
Now Fazhad blanched. She bowed her head once more, taking a moment before she straightened. “As you wish, My Empress.”
Kes turned to Calar. “She’s my best captain. There’s another way to find out whether or not the Aisouri is dead, am I right?”
“Her true name,” Calar said softly. Hahm’alah.
Jinn only exchanged true names with their spouses during the wedding ceremony, and with their closest family members. It allowed them to contact one another, no matter how far away they were. Calar had stolen Nalia’s true name from the girl’s brother. Even now the memory of what Calar had done in Morocco to that innocent child filled Kes with sorrow and disgust. Bashil hadn’t been much older than Yasri. He’d grieved for that boy. But with Nalia’s true name, Calar would be able to keep track of her, torture her with endless threats through the images that jinn passed to one another when using hahm’alah.
Kes turned to Fazhad, anxious for her to leave before Calar ordered her into the Eye. “That will be all for now, Fazhad. We’ll discuss this further in the morning.”
She bowed once more, then turned on her heel, hastening out of the room. When the door shut behind her, Calar slipped out of bed and crossed to the flames that licked the air in the corner of the room. She set her hands inside them, waiting for the fire to fill her with its chiaan, then dropped to her knees, closing her eyes. Kes watched her, tense. Did he want the Aisouri to be dead? He wasn’t so sure anymore. Since Calar had closed the portal, there’d been no way to use Nalia’s true name. The portal’s closure had effectively cut off all communication between Arjinna and Earth, a barrier to their magic. But the Eye was a loophole. If Nalia were alive, Calar would know.
After a few long moments, Calar’s eyes snapped open and she began shaking. She turned to him, her hands pressing against her cheeks. “I can’t . . . I can’t contact her. She’s dead, Kes. She’s gone.”
Laughter spilled out of her then, a girlish trill, pure delight. She jumped to her feet and vaulted into his arms. Disappointment washed over him, but he tried to mask it—Calar would feel that in his chiaan. It was muddled up in a confusion of other, conflicting feelings: relief that the Ifrit wouldn’t go back to royal subjugation, fear that Calar would continue her reign.
She pulled back and Kes searched the face he knew so well. Her emotions moved like a bird of prey on the hunt, fast and fleeting. Joy, anger, sorrow, all in one moment.
“You’re not happy,” he said.
“I am. I just . . . really wanted to kill her myself.” She tilted her chin up, searched for his eyes in the darkness of their room. “But I’ll take what I can get.” She pressed her lips against his, as though she were a soldier just come home from a long, hard war.
He felt nothing. The tenderness of those moments before Fazhad had knocked on their door had been washed away by her maniacal glee over Nalia’s death, this unending desire to take life.
Kes pulled away. “What about this new army? We still have to reckon with them.”
“That I am most displeased about.” Calar frowned. “If we move quickly, we should be fine. My work in Ithkar is almost finished. The creatures are absolutely magnificent. Everything I’d hoped for—and more.”
Her shadows. Kes’s skin crawled just thinking about them. Calar was the only one who controlled those monsters of hers. Even the Ash Crones who’d helped her create them had no power over them. There’d be no way for Kes to predict how Calar would use her newest weapon. What little advantage he had was slipping through his fingers. As quickly as she was working to ready the creatures for battle, he had to be that much faster.
She moved toward him again, but he dodged her. “Calar. The tavrai may outnumber us now. We should consider the possibility of a peace treaty—”
Her lips curled. “A peace treaty?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice more forceful than he’d had the courage to make it in years. “They could slaughter our people. Gods know what they’ve brought back with them from Earth.”
Her eyes bored into his, narrowing.
“Get out.”
“What?”
Calar pushed him. “I said, get out. I can’t even look at you right now.”
He crossed the room and angrily donned his uniform. “Why are you fighting this war, Calar? Who are you fighting it for? Because it’s sure as all hells not for any of us.”
Pain—slicing through his head, needles plunging into the soft tissue of his brain. Kes dropped to his knees, his palms against his temples, but before he could scream it was gone.
He looked up to where Calar stood across from him, so thin and fragile in her black shift. Her eyes glowed crimson, but she was staring in horror at him. Kes felt something drip off his chin and he lifted a hand to wipe his face: blood. He grabbed a handkerchief and held it against his nose.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Kes—” Her bottom lip trembled and he stood, turning away.
“Good night, Calar.”
Leaving her right then was selfish. He was supposed to stay and placate her, make sure she trusted him. Now that the Aisouri was dead, Kes just might be the only hope Arjinna had of ridding itself of Calar.
But he’d be damned if he spent one more second in her company tonight.
10
RAIF WANTED TO DIE.
He sat on the edge of his bed, the one he’d hoped to share with Nalia, staring at the wall of his ludeen. He’d awoken hours earlier from a drug-addled sleep after drinking an entire bottle of tonic. Whatever Aisha had given him, it’d been strong enough for a squadron. His body was made of lead, he was a sinking stone. He’d first stumbled out of bed an hour before, confused—Nalia, Nalia—and his mother had sprung from a nearby chair, blocking his path to the door. He’d been hoping the memories of those last moments in the Eye had been a nightmare: Taz and Samar, saying they were leaving Nalia. Hallucinations, that’s all. A side effect of a ghoul’s bite, perhaps.
But then he remembered, all at once in a rush: Nalia was dead.
The sound that came out of Raif then was more animal than jinn and when his mother tried to comfort him, he pushed her toward the door. He was breaking he was breaking and she had to go before he hurt her—
“Get out,” he snarled.
She stared at him, as though Raif were a stranger.
“Get. Out.”
She lifted her hand and ran her fingers over his cheek. “I felt the same way when your father died,” she whispered. Her hand dropped to her side. “Mourn tonight, my son, but tomorrow your people need you.”
He waited until the door had closed behind her before he started throwing things.
Now he sat on the bed, surrounded by shards of glass and splintered wood. His hands were bloody with stinging cuts. He went from being numb to feeling everything at once. Raif leaned forward, gripping his hair in shaking fists. They should never have gone into that cave, into the Eye. He should have run away with her as soon as the portal closed. They could have hidden anywhere. Calar never would have found them.
And now she was, she was . . .
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Nalia’s beautiful skin, shredded by a ghoul, her heart in its mouth, her blood dripping down its lips, her soul trapped in the shadowlands, forever stuck in limbo because her body didn’t burn, he’d never see her, never again—
Raif sank to the floor and curled into a fetal position as the memories tore through him, each one cutting deeper than the one before.
“Can I kiss you?” she asked, her lips in
ches 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.”
“Whoa,” he said, looking down at the sheets. “What’s this?”
“Silk.” She blushed. “I wanted it to be nice.”
“Ah, so this is what it’s like to spend a night with the empress,” he said with a wicked smile. “A lowly Djan like me . . .”
“Shut up,” she said, hitting him. He laughed and pulled her closer.
“Come on. Tell me watching me kill ghouls isn’t sexy,” she said.
In answer, Raif pulled Nalia to him, his lips crushing hers. The battle disappeared and it was just the jinni he loved more than anything and her chiaan that filled him with liquid light. He pulled away, though gods knew that was the last thing he wanted to do. . . .
“Keep killing these ghouls and there’s more where that came from,” he murmured against her lips.
Her eyes gleamed, wicked and lovely. “Promise?”
“I always keep my promises.”
But he couldn’t keep this one.
The evening prayers began and he screamed at the gods, screamed until his throat was raw.
A brown glass bottle sat a few feet away from him, remarkably still intact. Another sleeping tonic. He reached for it, threw off the cap, and poured its contents into his mouth. He was out in seconds.
The dead empresses of Arjinna surrounded Nalia, towering over her in their regal gowns. They were incandescent, glowing with wispy violet light, spirits from another plane. Each wore the Amethyst Crown, each had Nalia’s purple eyes. They’d saved her life, their voices pulling her from the shadowlands, where she’d been lost in that midnight sea. Now they regarded her, silent witnesses to her resurrection.
“Thank you,” she said.
Her voice was a barely audible whisper. Her kingdom for a glass of water. But this was the Eye—she could search a whole lifetime and never find a drop of water.
The empresses remained expressionless as they began their retreat. It seemed their work was done—for now, anyway. Before Nalia could utter another word, they disappeared, the black arms of the Eye enfolding them. For a few moments, bright spots of white and violet light danced before Nalia’s eyes and then those, too, were gone, leaving her in utter darkness.
“Raif?” she whispered.
There was no response. She reached out a hand, hoping to feel his warm body nearby—perhaps everyone was sleeping, resting after the long battle. Maybe this was all a strange, Eye-induced dream. Her skin grazed flesh, but it was not Raif. It was wet and cold and her finger snagged on what could only be a claw. Nalia jerked up, crying out as blinding pain traveled up her left arm—only a ghoul’s claws could do that.
There was no Raif, no Zanari, no army—just the rank smell of death, the dust in her mouth, her nose, covering every inch of her skin.
She remembered now: the ghoul, so fast, dragging her through the Eye, Nalia screaming as the lights of the jinn grew fainter. The vicious fight with the monster. She couldn’t find her dagger, must have dropped it along the way. She’d wounded the ghoul, but it seemed it wanted to stay alive long enough to take her into the godlands with him. She grappled with the enormous creature for what felt like hours, until the last of her chiaan bled out of her. She felt the moment of total depletion, like the last gasp of a drowning person. Her magic was gone. It was all too easy for the ghoul to break her then. The darkness was its ally, and while she stumbled about, blind and bleeding, it latched onto her scent, then pounced. When the ghoul snapped her arm, the agony nearly knocked her out. The creature used the last of its strength, bashing her head against something hard and unyielding before crashing to the ground beside her. She didn’t remember anything after that.
Awake, she could feel that the ghoul was dead. She could smell its flesh decaying.
“Raif,” she said again, louder. Her body began to tremble with fear—fear like she’d never felt before, a monstrous wave of it crashing down on her—
“RAIF.” She screamed his name this time, consequences be damned. He wouldn’t be far. He’d never leave her, she knew that. They’d find each other.
But the darkness swallowed her cries; deafening silence was its answer.
Nalia pulled herself to her knees, crying out when she accidentally put weight on her broken arm. The bones in her wrist, too, seemed to be shattered.
She wouldn’t give in to the panic. He was alive, somewhere, he was looking for her. Raif would never leave her, never.
The Brass Army shouldn’t be hard to find. She’d see their lanterns from miles away. She just had to start moving. Nalia struggled to her feet. Yes, they were looking for her, and soon she’d be in Raif’s arms and a healer would fix her broken bones and someone would have water and food—gods, food!—and this would all be one more bad memory in a string of bad memories.
Nalia raised her hand and the tiniest flicker of chiaan answered her call for light. Not nearly enough to get her through the Eye. She could taste the burnout in her mouth, like charred meat. The emptiness inside her felt too much like those desolate days of grief after Bashil had died. If Malek were here, he’d be smoking one of his infernal clove cigarettes and cursing the entire Brass Army for their incompetence. She would have died in the Sahara if it hadn’t been for him. Now she was in the same position—no chiaan, no water, no food.
No Malek.
You are not going to die, she growled to herself.
“You are not going to die,” she said, aloud.
Water. Food. This had to be her priority. The Eye had little of either, but the ghouls had been able to survive on more than the occasional jinn tourist in their midst. The ghouls: her wan light would be a beacon in this darkness. But she had no choice. She was adrift, waiting for a rescue that might never come.
I am Ghan Aisouri.
The dead empresses of Nalia’s realm hadn’t woken her just so that she could die. Unless they’d been a dream. But they’d seemed so real.
I am Ghan Aisouri.
One foot in front of the other, so slow. So hungry. Parched. It was like being back in the Sahara, back in the bottle, the darkness, pressing closer and closer and gods what was out there? The panic built, a bird trapped in her chest, gnashing its beak against her skin, desperate to be free. Nalia fell to the ground, her broken arm wedged beneath her body. She screamed as the pain shot through her. Tasted blood in her mouth.
Nalia rolled onto her back and, for the first time in her life, she gave up.
Raif!
He sat up in bed, gasping. Cold sweat covered Raif’s body, the sheets twisting around him, the blanket thrown to the floor. He’d heard her, plain as day, as though Nalia had been right beside him.
She’d been terrified. Pure, unadulterated fear was in that voice that called to him.
“Nal?”
The room was empty. He knew it was, but he just wanted to hear her name.
Judging by the moonlight drifting in through the window, it was still the middle of the night. Raif grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. He’d go crazy, maybe already had gone crazy, knowing that she was out there, alone and scared and maybe hurt and there was nothing he could do because he was a useless Djan and fuck the gods, fuck them all to the depths of hell.
Raif got out of bed and crossed to where a small throne to Tirgan, the Djan god, sat. He drew back his bare foot and kicked it, relishing the pain. He kicked it again, then again.
The earth flew in every direction and the statue hit the wall, shattering. “You’re a useless piece of shit god if you can’t even bring one jinni back.”
Anger felt good. Felt right. He’d almost understood when the gods took his father: Dthar Djan’Urbi had been ready and his son was left to complete the work he’d set out to do. But there was no one no one who could replace Nalia.
He left the pieces of the altar whe
re they were and slipped on a pair of shoes, then evanesced to the far eastern portion of the wall separating Arjinna and the Eye. It was a deserted section he could be certain wasn’t guarded by the Ifrit. His destination was the gate, but it was best to approach with caution, as Calar’s patrols often went past it. He headed west, walking along the wall, careful to keep well away from the main roads. The stone was covered with tavrai graffiti, the colors faded but still swirling. There was the image of his face, an iconic sketch over the words Kajastria Vidim—“Light to the revolution.” A repeated image of broken shackles in a swirl of rainbow-colored evanescence—a symbol that had begun to crop up the year before—filled much of the wall’s empty space, as well as a few crude remarks about Calar, scratched into the stone itself. As he neared the gate he noticed a lone figure standing before it. Raif went still, but when the jinni turned to face him, he relaxed—Touma. He’d once been annoyed by the jinni’s devotion to Nalia, but since losing her Raif had found that this Ifrit was the only jinni carrying the same hope for her survival that Raif had within himself.
Touma stepped back as Raif drew closer. “Just in case,” he said, in explanation for his presence at the gate.
Raif understood.
“I’ll leave you be for now.” Touma put a hand on Raif’s shoulder for a moment, then walked toward a nearby hill covered with lavender grass. It wasn’t until he’d disappeared that Raif stepped up to the gate.
He wanted to be alone with her.
It was hard to breathe, knowing Nalia was out there. She was his rohifsa. He’d know if she were gone. She wasn’t. He felt her . . . somehow he could feel that the thread between them hadn’t snapped, not yet. Raif held on to his hope like a life raft.
He refused to let go. To let her go.
Raif wrapped his hands around the bars, now repaired in order to keep any ghouls from venturing into Arjinna from the depths of the Eye. The iron burned, sickmaking, but his body barely registered the pain. The gate itself had always terrified Raif. It was an evil-looking thing, made of Ithkar’s volcanic rock and the iron so anathema to jinn, with spires that ended in deadly points. The star-studded night sky stopped just above those points, the blues and greens and purples of the aurora shifting instantly to black. He remembered childhood dares to touch the gate or stick a hand through it, the thrill he’d gotten from not knowing what was going to happen burning through him. Kir had once claimed to hear breathing on the other side of the gate, but Zanari, only nine summers old at the time, their elder nonetheless, had refused to believe Kir by virtue of the fact that his hand hadn’t been eaten.