“Zanari needs our best healers. Now. She’s in danger,” he said.
“Where is she?” Fjirla asked, moving from overwhelming emotion to intense focus—the tavrai way, born of the constantly shifting tides of war.
“The Gate of the Eye,” Raif said.
He’d hardly got the words out before his mother was sprinting toward the healers’ ludeen, one of the few tree houses of the forest built within a trunk and not the branches in order to better accommodate the wounded and ill.
Shirin stared. Now the gray dust and the haunted look in his eyes made sense. “Raif, you didn’t . . . I mean, you didn’t come through there. Did you?”
“Not everyone made it out,” he said, his voice flat.
“But how—”
“Antharoe and the Blind Seer.”
It took Shirin a moment to get what he meant, but when she did . . . Gods and monsters. He was saying that the ancient story of the legendary Ghan Aisouri, Antharoe, and her blind seer had come to life. Until today, they’d been the only jinn to cross the Eye and live to tell the tale. So Zanari had used her voiqhif to get them through the Eye, just like the blind seer? But Antharoe—who could possibly—
Bitterness filled Shirin: of course—Raif’s Ghan Aisouri. The new Antharoe.
Emerald evanescence began to plume under Raif’s feet. “I’ll see you at the gate,” he said. “We have . . . visitors.”
“Visitors?”
Gods, what other horrors had he brought with him?
“I’ll need your help settling them in,” he said, not bothering to explain. “They’re going to draw a lot of attention, so make sure we have tavrai keeping the Ifrit well away from the gate.”
Then he was gone, just smoke in the cool night air.
The tavrai camp was all confusion. Jinn were running in every direction, shouting and grabbing weapons. Shirin stood in the center of it all, stunned. It took her a minute to process what was happening around her. After what felt like minutes but was only a matter of seconds, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Instantly, all activity stopped. The tavrai looked to her, frozen in place. Shirin felt a faint glimmer of satisfaction. She’d done well in Raif’s absence—there was no question who was leading their ragtag army.
“To your stations!” Shirin called, signaling for her best jinn to join her—ten battle-scarred males and females who she trusted with her life.
“What in all hells is going on?” Jaqar said.
She filled them in on the little that Raif had told her, the words clipped, edged. He was here, then he was gone. That was really all she knew.
“And if the Ifrit attack in full force while these ‘visitors’ are here?” one of the tavrai said.
“I didn’t expect us to live out the night, so any time afforded us beyond that is a little something extra from the gods,” Shirin answered. “Now get out there and spill some Ifrit blood.”
She didn’t wait to see them off. Shirin grabbed her scimitar and evanesced to the gate in a swirl of earthy smoke. When her feet touched down on a small mound of earth overlooking the Gate of the Eye, she couldn’t help but stare. The Three Widows shone silver over the spectacle before her.
“Fire and blood,” Shirin breathed.
The gate was . . . open. Not just open—utterly destroyed. The Ifrit guards who’d been standing before it lay in puddles of their own blood.
But that was nothing compared to what was streaming out of the gate itself—jinn. Not the ghouls from the stories of her childhood who lurked in the impenetrable darkness of the Eye. Hundreds of jinn—thousands, maybe—poured out of the gate. They were dressed in the uniform of the tavrai. Had Raif truly recruited all these jinn for the war? Many of them looked the worse for wear, but this was no surprise, not if they’d just crossed through the Eye. But how in the gods’ names had Zanari managed it?
“Who are they?” asked Jaqar, coming to stand beside her. His bright-blue Marid eyes were glued to the unknown jinn.
She could almost see the calculations he was doing in his head: how many could he cut down if he had to?
“I have no idea.”
Her eyes searched frantically among the crowd and then—Raif. A tall Shaitan with molten-gold eyes and a strange-looking jinni with a white stripe in his hair stood near him, deep in conversation while Raif leaned over his sister. Zanari was lying on the ground and Aisha, the tavrai’s most experienced healer, bent over her. Shirin made her way toward them, unease unfurling in her stomach like a tattered flag.
The jinn surrounding Raif looked her over, each one as battle-worn as Raif seemed to be. Raif himself didn’t register her approach at all, but that was to be expected. He was crouched, staring intently at his comatose sister, his lips moving in a soundless prayer as his mother and the healers worked over Zanari. With the ash covering her braids, his sister looked like an old woman. A nasty wound cut across her stomach and Shirin covered her nose at the stench of rotting, infected flesh.
“Ghouls,” Aisha explained at Shirin’s questioning look.
“I’m Shirin,” she said to the jinn beside Raif, “second in command of the tavrai. Now who in all hells are you and why are you wearing our uniform?”
The question was a growl. Little wolf.
“I assume only a jinni of the most wonderfully ruthless character could take over the revolution in this one’s absence,” the Shaitan said, nodding toward Raif, who was entirely focused on Zanari.
“And you are . . . ,” Shirin said, eyes narrowing.
“Tazlim Shai’Majdak,” he said with a small bow. “Former slave of Solomon, the Master King, and prisoner of a terribly small bottle hidden in a cave for three thousand years. And,” he added, gesturing to the scores of jinn roaming around the broken gate, “the commander of the Brass Army. As to your other question: we wear the tavrai uniform because we are joining you in the fight against Calar.” The jinni’s smile was forced, an attempt to ease the tension.
It didn’t work.
Shirin had no doubt that this Tazlim had experience leading soldiers. He carried himself with the delicate grace of his aristocratic caste, but there was hard, trained muscle beneath his tunic, and authority in his voice. His gold eyes shone in the darkness and the moonlight danced on his skin—a light brown, the color of a widr tree’s wood. He wore the white armband of the tavrai, but his was braided with purple fabric. What did it mean?
“Raif recruited you?” she asked, careful to keep her voice low so as not to disturb Aisha’s work.
The healer worked quickly, eyes filled with worry. Zanari looked in a bad way. Shirin didn’t know what it would do to Raif to lose her. It was only a few years ago that he’d lost his best friend, Kir. Shirin herself had felt that death like a wound to the gut.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” said the jinni with the long white stripe of hair and bright Marid eyes. He stood beside an Ifrit with an orange stripe in his hair and a playful glint in his eye. What kind of strange company had Raif been keeping on Earth? And what was with the stripes—some strange Earth fashion?
The jinni with the white stripe caught her stare. He pulled at his hair. “It signifies our gift. We are fawzel.”
Shapeshifters. Godsdamn. Raif had been busy.
“Well you can’t stay out here,” Shirin said. “If Calar hasn’t sent troops over to find out what’s going on, she’s bound to at any moment. You need to gather your soldiers and . . .”
And what?
“We were hoping you might have some room to spare in your camp,” Tazlim said.
Shirin bristled. “It doesn’t look like we have much choice.”
Gods, Raif, she thought. Would a little bit of warning have killed you?
Zanari gave a rattled gasp and her eyes snapped opened as she cried out in pain. Raif and his mother exchanged a brief, relieved glance.
“I made it?” Zanari asked, her voice full of surprise as she took in her mother’s face.
“Yes, gharoof, you m
ade it. The worst is over, thank the gods,” Fjirla said.
Raif rested his forehead on Zanari’s shoulder and whispered something to her. “I’m okay,” she answered, soft.
Zanari’s eyes slid to Shirin’s. “Hey, sister.”
“Hey, there.” Shirin gave Zanari a tight smile. “You and Raif have a lot of explaining to do.” Fjirla frowned and Shirin added, “But first, you know, feel better.”
Zanari snorted, a faint smile on her face. “Thanks, raiga.”
Shirin shrugged. “I’ve never been good at . . .”
“I know.”
“Antharoe and the Blind Seer?” Shirin asked, a small corner of her lip turning up.
Zanari’s face darkened. “Something like that.” She turned to her brother. “Raif, there was no time. I swear, I never would have left Nalia if there’d—”
“You let them knock me out,” he said, his voice low and hard.
The conversation was unbearably private and yet Shirin couldn’t walk away. Who was Nalia?
A shard of fear cut into Zanari’s eyes. “I’m sorry, little brother. I loved her too—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t use the fucking past tense.” His jaw tightened and he stood abruptly, walking across the field and toward the forest.
Shirin watched Raif, the cracks in her heart growing longer, wider. What had happened to him out there?
A stream of tears slid down Zanari’s cheeks. Fjirla shooed the jinn away. “Go. All of you.”
“Who’s Nalia?” Shirin asked Tazlim, as soon as they were away from Zanari.
“Your empress.” Tazlim pushed past her, his eyes on Raif. “She’s dead.”
The Ghan Aisouri. She was dead. Dead.
“I have no empress,” she said, but the words were lost in the din and it didn’t matter because the Ghan Aisouri was gone and yes Raif clearly wasn’t happy about that, but maybe, just maybe she’d feel his lips against her own again, someday.
But did she still want that? Love, Zanari had said. Love.
“What happened to him?” Jaqar called to her, glancing in Raif’s direction.
“Nothing he won’t recover from,” Shirin said. Tavrai died every day and they kept going. Why should an Aisouri’s death be any different?
She organized the Brass Army into groups, barking out orders to the tavrai as they corralled the Brass soldiers, keeping physical contact with them so that they could evanesce together to the forest. She caught up with Tazlim and pulled him aside.
“I need to know what happened out there,” she said. “I can’t have my tavrai see Raif like this.”
“It’s almost impossible to explain the Eye,” he said. “Long story short, we were attacked by ghouls.”
“They killed the Aisouri?”
“I don’t know. I assume so. We couldn’t find her after the battle.” He shook his head, grief etched into the lines of his face. “We had no choice but to leave. Gods.” Tazlim cleared his throat, looking away.
Shirin looked over her shoulder, into that gaping maw of darkness.
Serves her right, she thought. It was a fitting punishment for an Aisouri. They’d given the overlords the power to rape little girls and kill their mothers. Each one of them belonged in the belly of a ghoul.
“How long has Raif been like this?” she asked.
Tazlim seemed to know what she meant by this. “Since yesterday—at least, I think it was yesterday. Time doesn’t really exist in the Eye.”
Jaqar joined them then, his eyes cold as he glanced at the Shaitan commander. He pointed to Shirin. “She’s in charge until Djan’Urbi gets his shit together. Forget that and I’ll make your jinn regret it.”
Her lover turned on his heel and stalked toward the group of jinn he was responsible for, throwing angry glances at every jinni from Earth he encountered.
“A jinni of few words, that one,” Tazlim said. “I take it we have some explaining to do?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Shirin took one last look at the gate before pushing ahead, leading her group into the safety of the forest.
8
KES FORCED HIMSELF TO WATCH.
It was a monumental effort to resist vomiting, to keep himself from running as far and as fast as he could. Take Yasri and never come back.
“He’s not bleeding enough,” Calar said to the soldier who was whipping the naked jinni tied to a pillar in the throne room. She motioned for him to stand down. “Not nearly enough.” Her voice was dangerous, soft.
This time the victim was a low-ranking Ifrit soldier with nothing in his head but the memory of his lover dying in one of the purges. Kesmir had warned Calar this would happen: the purges had been intended to wipe out resistance among the Ifrit, a reminder to return to their values of solidarity—not an excuse to murder at will. The purges had the opposite of their intended effect: they created resistance where there had been none before and had sown hatred—and fear—of Calar into the hearts of many Ifrit.
The hours of this evening’s torture had been a waste. From what Kesmir gathered, Calar had learned of only one tiny cell tucked into the Qaf Mountains. Just a few deserters from her army who had stockpiled human weapons hoping for . . . what? A chance to assassinate her? Fools, every last one of them. This was what happened when his contacts went against Kesmir’s advice. He’d told them to be patient. To wait a little longer. Kes himself was unscathed, if only because he wore the peasant mask for his clandestine meetings. Only his closest advisers in the resistance knew they were being led by Kes. Calar didn’t know how big the rebellion was—the jinni tied to the pillar had been the first of Kes’s recruits to be caught. But he’d never be able to give Kes up—all Calar would see in his mind was a jinni wearing a mask.
“Human weapons,” Calar purred, practically skipping toward the jinni.
Kes ground his teeth. The poor man’s flesh was already in ribbons—in some places, the bones were visible.
“You wanted to use them on me, didn’t you?”
“No,” the jinni managed. “Never, My Empress—”
Calar’s eyes glowed and Kes knew what would happen next. Dear gods, he knew.
The jinni screamed then, the sound of a tortured, braying ass. Blood began to flow from his nostrils, the corners of his eyes, his ears. Calar stepped away, breaking her connection with his mind. The jinni’s head slumped forward. He’d either fainted or died.
She turned to Kes, licking her lips. “That felt good.” She grabbed Kes’s hand, then turned and motioned for the guards who’d brought the prisoner three hours ago to take him down. “Kill him. He’s of no use to us now. Wasn’t much use to us before.”
Kill him meant throwing him into the cauldron. It meant a slow, agonizing death by fire laced with dark magic. It burned yet kept the victim alive for hours, even after the skin had melted off.
It was, Kes thought, the absolute worst way to go.
Calar pulled him onto the balcony that overlooked the Infinite Lake, leaning against it, her eyes shining as she watched the soldiers cut the prisoner down and drag him from the room. She tipped back her head and laughed, a joyous peal. Kes stared at her, horrified.
Calar moved Kes’s hand to her breast. “I want you to take me,” she whispered as she pressed herself against him, her breath hot against his ear. “Right now.”
“Cal . . .”
Inside, he recoiled with disgust. This was new—her absolute pleasure in watching a jinni suffer, the way it made her laugh, made her rip off his belt and slide her hand into his pants.
She touched him, frowning. “No one can see us, my love.” She slid her tongue along his jaw, kissed his chin. The things that once drove him wild with desire. She’d always found a way past his barriers—even when he was at his angriest with her, he always succumbed to the beauty of her body, the way her eyes would soften when he held her close. But he couldn’t do it this time. He couldn’t do what he’d been forced to for months now: pretend she was the maid who waite
d outside her bedroom door or imagine her hands were those of the handsome jinni who shined his shoes and gave Kes seductive, inviting smiles when no one was looking.
How could she want this, after what she’d just done? He took Calar’s hand and withdrew it from his pants.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, genuinely confused.
This—her cruelty, the way she’d come to hunger for pain—could only be the result of the dark magic she was drowning in, her work with the Ash Crones.
“Calar. What you just did—”
She cocked her head to the side. “Yes?”
“Was the pain necessary?” he asked quietly.
“I’ve never known you to get squeamish at the sight of blood.”
It was one of the things she’d always loved about him, Kesmir knew: his rage had been nearly as bottomless as her own. They’d once danced in puddles of Ghan Aisouri blood. Literally. He could still remember how easy it had been to slide across that floor, reveling in their victory.
But then Yasri came into their lives.
From the moment Kes saw his infant daughter’s eyes, everything changed. He’d cut down anyone who wanted to dance in her blood simply because her eyes were purple. And it got Kes wondering—had every single one of the Ghan Aisouri been evil? What would have become of his Yasri if she’d been forced to train under someone like Calar? He realized he no longer knew the difference between his lover and the Aisouri who’d slashed his face just so that the scar would always remind him of her “mercy” at allowing him to live after Kes’s entire family was slaughtered right in front of him.
“When blood flows justly,” he said now, choosing his words with care, “I have no cause for concern.”
“That jinni was a traitor,” Calar growled. “One of our own Ifrit, stealing our weapons and plotting against me. Can there be a more just reason to execute someone?”
“I’m not talking about the order for execution.” It was a pity the jinni had to die, but he knew the risk he’d been taking. Kesmir couldn’t save him, not without putting his fledgling rebellion at risk. “I’m talking about what just happened in this room.” He ran a hand over his face, hoping to hide the disgust there, the fear. “Calar, what you did to his mind . . . he screamed like an animal being butchered.”