“How many Ifrit?” Raif asked.
“A few hundred is my guess,” he said.
Tazlim arrived with Samar and Noqril behind him. “Do we need eyes?” Samar asked.
“Yes,” Raif said. “Take care, though.”
Shirin was confused until she saw what Samar meant: in seconds, he and Noqril began to evanesce, only instead of leaving, they hovered above her, transformed into two large black birds, one with a white breast, the other with an orange one.
“Report to one of us as needed,” Raif said.
Samar cawed in answer and then they shot toward the clouds, disappearing into the black night.
“Shirin, gather the vanguard,” Raif said. “Taz, have every soldier ready, but only bring a regiment. Have runners prepped to bring reinforcements.”
Zanari rushed toward them. “Calar’s at the village, or at least she’s planning to be,” she said. “I saw her in my voiqhif. Something’s not right.”
“Of course something’s not right,” Shirin snapped.
Zanari glared at her. “I mean she shouldn’t be there. This seems like a routine raid. Something’s . . . off. I don’t know. What if this is some kind of trap?”
Shirin frowned. She was well acquainted with Zanari’s inaccuracies due to her lack of psychic training. The jinni had a gift, no doubt, but Shirin wanted only knowns. These foggy possibilities simply set the tavrai on edge, made them fight blind and sloppy.
Shirin pulled out her scimitar. “Well, I guess we’ll see what’s there when we’re on the ground.”
“I wish I could come with you,” Zanari said.
Shirin could see that she wasn’t healing quickly from the ghoul’s wound. Her face was pale, eyes drawn.
Raif leaned in close to his sister and Shirin had to strain to make out his whispered words. “Even if you were okay I wouldn’t let you go. I can’t lose anyone else, Zan. I can’t.”
Zanari hugged him, hard. “Neither can I.” She pulled away and rested a hand on Shirin’s arm. “Take care of him, sister.”
Shirin forced a smile. “Always.”
Zanari headed back to her ludeen, walking slowly, slightly bent over.
Raif glanced at Shirin. “What’s your count this week?”
“Five. You?”
His lips turned up, the old cocky Raif, if only for a moment. “Fifty-four. Ghouls, but who’s comparing?”
She laughed. “Looks like I have some catching up to do.”
Happiness pooled inside her, warming Shirin from the inside out. Maybe she could bring him back. Maybe there was hope for her. Shirin left Raif to organize the tavrai while she went in search of her most trusted fighters. If Calar was there, Shirin needed her best on the field. She found Jaqar replenishing his chiaan on a pile of rocks at the edge of camp. He glanced up at her, wary.
“You going to bash my head against a wall, too?”
She shrugged. “If you do something to deserve it again, then yeah.” His sweat on her skin, his hands up her shirt.
As if he knew what she was thinking, Jaqar gave her a twisted grin. “Got any plans after the battle tonight?”
“Calar’s come out to play,” she said, ignoring his implied invitation. She was done screwing him in the forest. “Want to take a crack at her with me or not? Your choice, of course. If you’re too busy licking your wounds . . .”
He laughed, a harsh bark. “That’s the Shirin I know. You worried me earlier with Djan’Urbi.”
She stiffened. “You were asking for it.”
“I was. The bump on my head was worth the look on his face.” Jaqar stood, huge and looming. “How do you think our esteemed commander will fare tonight?”
Shirin looked to where Raif was giving orders in the center of camp. He looked more himself than ever. Colder, though. She wasn’t quite sure what he was fighting for anymore.
“I think we’ll find out.” She hit Jaqar lightly on the arm. “Don’t die on me.”
Shirin crossed back to Raif. “You ready?”
He nodded and held out his hand. “Same as always, right?” he asked.
She slid her hand into his. “Ye—yeah. Same as always.”
Raif’s chiaan simmered against her skin, nothing intentional, just the result of bare skin against bare skin. She nearly stepped back as it flowed into her, searing, unlike any chiaan she’d ever encountered.
“What?” he asked, noticing the expression on her face.
“It’s just . . . your chiaan feels different, somehow.” She’d known Raif since they were kids, was well acquainted with his chiaan. It wasn’t the same.
He stared at her, asking the question as though her answer were the most important thing in the worlds. “How?”
“It’s . . . like . . .” She paused, searching for the words.
“Lightning?” he whispered.
Her eyes widened. “Yeah.” She looked more closely at him. His eyes were too bright, his cheeks suddenly flushed. “Are you okay, brother?”
He shook his head, joy and terror flitting across his face. “I don’t know.” He looked out over the camp, but he wasn’t seeing it, he wasn’t there.
“Let’s go,” he said, his voice far away.
In seconds, clouds of evanescence surrounded them, Raif’s smelling of sandalwood, hers of cedar. She squeezed his hand as the magic pulled their bodies into the air and they became a whirlwind of smoke, racing across Arjinna. In seconds they’d landed on a small bluff overlooking the village, shifting automatically so that their backs were against each other’s, affording them the best defensible position. Shirin could hear the screams even from this distance—women, children, frail old fisher-jinn. Red chiaan blazed over the few bits of blue Marid magic that tried to defend the village. She hated that a part of her was also aware of Raif’s warmth and how good it felt to be fighting with him again.
Raif swore under his breath. “See a maniacal ruler anywhere?” he asked.
Shirin scanned the field below—the empress was nowhere in sight, but she could easily have been hiding.
It was a bloodbath down there.
She felt the air shift and then Jaqar landed beside them, smoke billowing around his feet. “Where do you want me, Shirin?” he asked.
“Ask your commander,” she said, her voice even.
Jaqar ignored Raif, who was hardly paying attention anyway as he scanned their surroundings with hawk’s eyes. “Do I have to ask him for permission to go into the forest with you, too?”
Raif turned to him, eyes blazing. “Get the fuck down there and kill some Ifrit.”
Jaqar gave him a half-assed tavrai salute, a fist over his heart. “As you wish, Commander.”
As he evanesced, Raif gave her a questioning look. Shirin shook her head, mortified. “Not important.”
“If he’s giving you a hard time, Shir—”
“I’m fine,” she snapped. “Let’s go kill things.”
In seconds Raif was a swirl of emerald smoke, descending on the village, Shirin evanescing just behind him. She landed with her scimitar pointed out, stabbing an Ifrit in the stomach before shooting a blaze of chiaan at a soldier dragging a jinni out of her home. The whole place smelled of fish and blood, and it was difficult to gain purchase on the sandy floor of the coastal village.
“Hey, pretty girl,” said a deep voice behind her.
“Who, me?” she said, turning around and affecting the helpless voice of a Shaitan overlord’s daughter.
The soldier was thick and neckless, his armor reflecting the hut that blazed behind her. He smiled, hungry, and she grinned back, deftly sidestepping his hands that burned with poisonous chiaan while at the same time reaching into her boot for the dagger she kept there. The Ifrit swung toward her and she feinted, driving the dagger point into the exposed flesh just under his armpit, where the armor couldn’t reach. She felt the knife enter his heart, a satisfying pressure on the blade.
As the Ifrit went down, she caught Raif out of the corner of her eye. He was like a machine, hi
s eyes dark, devoid of all emotion. An ear-splitting shriek behind her made Shirin whirl around. An Ifrit was exiting a hut, something hanging from his hand. The jinni behind him was grabbing at whatever the Ifrit held and the soldier turned, slitting her neck in one quick movement. There was a wail and Shirin looked down, realizing that the Ifrit was holding an infant by its foot. She threw herself at the soldier just as the woman had, but it was too late: he’d already thrown the baby. Time seemed to stand still as the child catapulted through the air and landed in a crumpled heap on the rocks near the shore.
Shirin stared in horror, rooted to the spot as the battle waged around her. She saw a blur in the corner of her eye and then Raif bashed his body against the soldier, throwing the Ifrit to the ground. Shirin blinked, back in the fight, and when she had a clear shot, she sent a needle-sharp stream of chiaan to the Ifrit’s face, giving Raif time to stab his neck. Raif didn’t bother to retrieve his dagger as he stumbled to where the infant’s body lay at the base of the rock.
Shirin pulled his dagger out of the dead Ifrit’s throat, wiping the blood on her pants as she crouched beside her commander. “Raif. Raif.”
He was staring down at the child, whose eyes gazed unblinking at the sky above as blood pooled around her head.
“Purple eyes,” he whispered.
The child was a Ghan Aisouri.
15
RAIF LEANED OVER THE INFANT, STARING AT THOSE EYES. Nalia’s eyes. The first truly innocent Ghan Aisouri he’d ever seen. What did it mean that a Ghan Aisouri child had been able to live in a Marid village without Calar ever knowing? Gods, were there more?
Maybe that’s why Calar’s here.
“Did you know about this child?” Raif asked Shirin, his voice hoarse.
She shook her head, speechless.
He could still taste Nalia from the dream the raid on this village had woken him from, smell her on his skin. Don’t leave me here, she’d begged. What a mindfuck his nights had become. And yet there was a flicker of hope inside him. Shirin had felt Nalia in his chiaan. Maybe she’d always been there, inside him, or maybe he hadn’t been dreaming. It was impossible, he’d woken up in his ludeen. But nothing was strictly impossible where Nalia was concerned. Yet having hope, only to have it be dashed again—Raif wasn’t sure if he’d make it through that.
A dream, he reminded himself. Just a dream.
He made himself look at the child, to bear witness to what the Ifrit were capable of. He felt sick, the bloodlust draining away and replaced with horror. This was what they’d come to: infants getting their heads bashed on rocks, mothers having their throats slit. Why had he ever thought the jinn race was worth saving?
They should never have come back.
Or Raif should have put the sigil on the moment he found it in the cave. If he had, this child would still be alive. Raif had tried to do what Nalia wanted, but without her here, without her power, Arjinna was a death trap.
“If I’d put on that ring when I found it, then—”
“Shut up,” Shirin said. She placed her hands on either side of his face and forced him to look at her. “Vi fazla ra’ahim.”
You are a sword, nothing more.
It was something he told his soldiers, when they lost faith on the battlefield. He nodded and Shirin let her hands drop. He closed the baby’s eyes with the tips of his fingers. He was glad Nalia hadn’t seen this—it was the only good thing about her not being on the battlefield with him right now.
“To your left,” Shirin said.
An Ifrit had caught sight of them and Raif ducked, narrowly missing the ball of poisoned fire that flew toward him. Samar dove down from the sky, pecking out the Ifrit’s eyes, just as he’d done with the sand soldiers in Morocco.
“Holy gods and monsters,” Shirin said. “I thought I’d seen everything, but . . .”
“Pretty handy to have them around,” Raif said, his voice still dazed. He wouldn’t think of the baby, of Nalia. You are a sword, nothing more.
All around him, the battle raged. The Brass Army proved to be a formidable opponent for the Ifrit. Taz commanded with ease, his voice calm as he shouted orders to the soldiers. For once, it was a fair fight. Raif dove back into the battle, relishing these minutes, then hours, free of grief and thought. Both sides brought in reinforcements and somehow this little village was becoming the site of the biggest battle that had ever been fought between the Ifrit and the resistance. There was only the chiaan in his body, the scimitar in his hand. Sweat and adrenaline.
Looking across the sandy beach, he caught sight of a large jinni with a scar that cut across the left side of his face. Raif recognized him instantly: Kesmir Ifri’Lhas, Calar’s lover and general of the Ifrit Army. Unlike the other Ifrit military leaders, who normally stood off to the side while their forces toiled against the enemy, Kesmir was in the thick of the fight, indistinguishable from his soldiers except for that telltale scar. Like Raif, he was covered in blood, his uniform sandy and torn. A burst of tavrai chiaan surged toward one of the Ifrit wounded and Kesmir threw himself in front of his soldier, taking the brunt of the magic’s force, which would have killed the already-injured soldier. He went down, hard. Raif moved toward him, but before he could take advantage of Kesmir’s fall, the general was on his feet, a scimitar in each hand, wielding them with chilling efficiency. The blades sliced through the air, but when they came down he stopped short of killing the tavrai who ran at him from all sides. Instead, he disabled his opponents, slicing into skin so that the soldiers were too hurt to attack a second time, but still alive.
What? Why wasn’t he butchering Raif’s soldiers?
Before Raif could help the tavrai who bled over the sand, a female’s cry pierced the air and Raif whirled around, his stomach turning as he caught sight of what was happening outside one of the burning Marid homes. Two Ifrit soldiers had a jinni pinned to the ground. One of them was already on top of her, pants around his knees. He shoved into her and Raif took careful aim, then threw his scimitar. The blade turned over and over in the air, then landed squarely in the Ifrit’s back just as the soldier who’d been waiting his turn for the Marid cried out, a burst of crimson chiaan colliding with his chest. Raif turned. Kesmir was stalking toward the soldier, blood dripping off his scimitars, his face filled with fury. The remaining Ifrit stared at Kesmir in fear and dropped to his knees, his hands held out in supplication.
The Ifrit commander did not slow his pace as he raised his scimitars and slashed through the air, crossing them just as he neared the soldier’s head. The blades landed on either side of his soldier’s neck, instantly decapitating him.
Raif bolted across the sand dunes, dodging chiaan daggers and leaping over corpses as he made his way toward the Marid woman, who lay sobbing beneath the body of the soldier who’d been raping her. He raised his hand, emerald chiaan pooling in his palm as he prepared to force Kesmir away from the woman. He didn’t know why Kesmir had helped her—didn’t trust it was for any good reason. Maybe he wanted her for himself, Raif didn’t know. Calar’s lover wasn’t capable of mercy—Raif knew that for a fact.
He and Kesmir reached the woman at the same time and they both halted, staring at one another.
“Get away from her,” Raif snarled. He pulled the corpse of the soldier off the sobbing jinni, then bent down to help her up, his eyes never leaving the scimitars Kesmir still gripped in his hands.
“Shundai, shundai,” she sobbed, looking from Raif to Kesmir. Thank you.
Kesmir dropped to one knee before the woman. “I will not burn their bodies,” he said, his voice low and surprisingly soft. He looked up at the woman, his crimson eyes fierce. “You have my word.”
He would condemn the soldiers to an eternity outside the godlands—a just punishment, one Raif himself would have given if he’d caught a tavrai behaving in just the same way. Still . . .
Raif kept one hand on the woman, the other holding his scimitar. “I’d kill you right now,” he said, “but I have my hands full at t
he moment.”
“Until next time, then,” Kesmir said.
The general bowed and backed away, red evanescence swirling around him. Then he was gone. Raif stared after him for a moment—he didn’t have time right now to consider what it meant that the leader of the Ifrit army didn’t seem to enjoy killing tavrai but was quick to execute his own soldiers.
“You’re safe now,” Raif said to the woman, drawing her to a section of the beach the tavrai had set aside for civilians who escaped the battle.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
The sky was beginning to lighten when the fighting stopped. Raif only knew they’d won because when he turned around, there was no one left to stab. The dawn prayers began then, a mournful song to the gods, each pajai’s singular voice undulating, crying out, high then low, swooping over the jinn on the beach. Do you see this? Raif wanted to scream to the gods. Do you see what’s become of us?
The dead Ifrit lay around them like uprooted weeds. The Marid villagers crouched on the beach in terror, nearly as frightened of the Brass Army and the tavrai as they’d been of the Ifrit. It didn’t feel like a victory. Not with all these bodies.
Then he saw her.
Calar stood atop a low hill, her pale skin glowing, her lips and eyes red as fresh blood, her general standing beside her. Kesmir looked less like the fearsome warrior Raif had encountered earlier and more like an uneasy witness. That was new.
“Come on,” Raif said to Shirin as she came to stand beside him. “We’ve got big game to kill.”
He headed closer to the beach, skirting the village, taking care to crouch below the boulders that stood between the village and the shore. He caught Taz’s eye and nodded toward the hill before pushing down the beach. A few seconds, later, Taz had joined them. Raif could see Samar and Noqril flying above, scouting the area behind Calar.
“What’s the plan, brother?” Taz asked.
“I want to know what Samar and Noqril see before we do anything,” Raif said. “This doesn’t make sense. Her soldiers have just been massacred and she doesn’t seem to have reinforcements on hand. So what’s she here for?”