“Pretty confident I can put up with you for that long?”
“Oh yeah.”
Nalia laughed and some of the tension spilled away. His heartbeat quickened as they neared the freestanding rock. For a moment, Raif wanted to turn back. The sigil would change Arjinna—but would it be for better or worse?
You’ve come this far, brother, he said to himself.
Nalia stopped. “Raif.”
He turned his head slightly. “Yeah?”
“What would happen if we didn’t take it?”
The sigil was only a few feet away. He couldn’t see it clearly yet, but the carved white marble of the altar shone as though it had just been crafted by a master.
“It would be the end. The Ifrit would have Arjinna. Maybe forever.”
“What if I killed Calar? Could you win then—without the ring?”
This time he turned all the way around. “Nalia—”
“Whether or not we get this ring, I’m killing her. What she did to Bashil—” Her voice shook and the pain in her echoed in him. “This ring scares me, Raif. It’s an evil thing. I just . . .”
Raif crossed his arms, thinking. He couldn’t believe he was second-guessing this, but the terror in Nalia’s eyes and the confusion he felt over what had happened inside him on the ledge gave him pause. A Ghan Aisouri who could swallow lightning and become lava was a considerable weapon to have at his disposal. At their disposal. He caught sight of Samar, waiting at the end of the bridge.
“Even if I changed my mind,” he said, “we made a promise to the Dhoma.”
Nalia’s face fell. “What if we freed the jinn from their bottles now and—”
“What’s going on?” Samar called.
Raif waved a hand. “We’re fine. Almost there!” He looked back at Nalia. “Rohifsa—”
“I know, I know. Let’s get this over with.”
He took her hand. Her chiaan felt jittery. It was so unlike Nalia to be afraid.
Moments later, they were stepping onto the rock. The others cheered, but Raif barely heard them. In the center of the altar, atop a mother-of-pearl mosaic of an eight-pointed star, sat Solomon’s sigil.
Raif sucked in his breath. “I can’t believe it’s actually here. Part of me thought it wouldn’t be.”
The gold on the side of the ring was worked in intricate detail and in its center was a large oval stone, a pale canary diamond. In the center of the diamond was an eight-pointed star that glimmered with its own light. He could feel the power emanating from it. The ring was heavy looking, masculine. Meant for a king to wear.
“We’re going to win this war, Nalia,” he breathed.
Nalia clutched his arm. “Raif. Look at me.”
She was shaking, her eyes full of terror. He’d never seen her so afraid, not even when she thought she was going to die.
“Promise me you’ll never wear the ring,” she begged. “No matter what. Promise me.”
Raif hesitated. He wasn’t one for making promises he had no intention of keeping. He was still trying to figure out what his role in everything was. He needed time and they didn’t have that right now.
“Raif.”
He placed his hands on either side of her face. “Nalia, I swear to all the gods, I swear on my love for you, I swear on everything: I will not put this ring on—unless there is no other option.” She paled and he drew closer. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. Do you trust me?”
Nalia rested her hands on his chest. “You—yes. The ring . . .” She shook her head. “No.”
Raif pressed his lips against her forehead. “Well, I’ll take what I can get.” He moved closer to the altar. “Before I pick it up, do these words say I’ll be killed on the spot if I touch the ring?”
He pointed to the ancient Kada scrawled all over the altar’s marble. Nalia shook her head. “No. Just old sadrs praising the gods and warning of the sigil’s power. Go ahead.”
Raif reached out, fingers trembling, and took the ring from where it had sat for three thousand years. The stone glowed and a beam of golden light shot out of the diamond as a rumble filled the cavern. The ring dimmed as the sound in the cavern grew louder and Raif went still, half expecting the rock they stood on to topple over. He blinked as a blinding shaft of light streamed down from above. Raif shaded his eyes as he gazed upward. There was now an opening in the cavern’s roof through which sunlight—real sunlight—poured into the chamber. After being underground so long, it was almost painful to look at.
The others cried out, joyful, but Nalia was silent, her head tilted back and eyes closed. Silent tears dripped down her cheeks. Raif took a leather string from his pocket and slipped the ring onto it, then stepped behind Nalia.
“It’s safest with you,” he said as he placed the makeshift necklace around her neck. If anyone could protect the ring, it was Nalia. She shivered as the metal touched her skin. Raif tied the knot twice, then pressed his lips against her neck.
She turned around. “We’ve come a long way from fighting in Malek’s garage,” she said.
He laughed. “Yes we have.”
His arm began to burn and he cursed, looking down at his skin. Nalia sucked in her breath at the same time, a small gasp of pain.
“Our tattoos,” she said. Nalia held up her arm. The eight-pointed star had disappeared, leaving behind a faint scar of its outline. So had his.
“When is your ancestor gonna be done fucking with us?” he muttered.
“Raif!” He turned at the sound of Zanari’s panicked voice.
“Apparently never,” Nalia said.
The bridge they’d crossed was disappearing. Raif turned in a circle, desperately hoping the other bridges had remained solid, but they, too, were nothing more than swiftly disappearing lines of light above the chasm.
“If Antharoe weren’t already dead,” Nalia said, “I could kill her right about now.”
41
THEY WERE STRANDED.
Nalia sat on the floor, leaning against the altar that had held Solomon’s sigil. The ring felt heavy around her neck. She was sorely tempted to throw it into the chasm.
“Try to get some sleep, Nal,” Raif said. “I seriously doubt Haraja can get us here and there’s nothing more we can do tonight.”
He was right. They’d spent hours attempting to figure out how to get back to the others. Evanescing across the chasm had been the obvious choice, but when Nalia tried, her smoke stayed by her feet and her body remained solid. The only way out was up, but evanescing through the hole at the top of the cavern was also impossible. As was manifesting anything. For the first time in the cave, they couldn’t manifest food, water—anything they needed to stay alive or escape. They could still access their chiaan, but there wasn’t much good it did them, other than provide a light source. Nalia wasn’t surprised. The whole cave had been protected by magic so sophisticated, she couldn’t begin to imagine how it worked. Antharoe had left them an exit, but no way to reach it. Her very last effort to keep the ring hidden. Not for the first time, Nalia wondered why Antharoe hadn’t simply destroyed the sigil. She clearly didn’t want anyone to have the godsdamned thing.
Home seemed farther away than ever.
Nalia’s voice was hoarse from shouting across the chasm and her bones weary from the volcano and those endless minutes staring into the darkness below, waiting to die. But her heart wouldn’t let her sleep.
“Raif,” she began.
“Yeah?”
“I have to say the prayers for him.”
There was a long silence, and the confusion and grief and shame she felt inside her seemed to jolt the air.
“Malek doesn’t deserve them,” he said quietly. “And, besides, they’ll do his soul no good, not without a burning.”
For so long Nalia had wanted Malek to die a painful death. Now she hoped it had been fast and that his last memory was of the kiss she had let him take before he jumped.
Her hand strayed to the lapis lazuli necklace around
her neck, that little bit of home Malek had given her, and she let herself mourn him.
Because nobody else would. Because, gods help her, she did mourn him. It didn’t make sense. Things like this rarely did.
“I have to, Raif.”
When he looked at her, his eyes were kind and seemed to understand, at least a little. He kissed the palm of her hand, relenting.
Nalia stood and crossed to the other side of the altar, the only private part of the rock they were marooned on. She placed her palms on the earth and whispered the prayer of the dead. The words were too familiar. Gods, she’d said them so many times in the past few weeks. The past few years.
Then she accessed the lightning inside her. Before, she’d had to find a fire source to ignite her Ifrit power. Not so anymore. Fire tore through Nalia’s fingers and she cast it down into the pit. It roared and blazed, a dragon free of its restraints. Solomon’s rock became an island in a sea of flames. She heard the jinn across the chasm scream and Raif call out to them, but she ignored it all. She prayed to Ravnir, god of fire, that he would take this dead half-child of his to the godlands so that Malek could see his brother and find the peace that had eluded him on Earth. He didn’t deserve it, Raif was right. But Nalia wanted Malek to have it, anyway. She wasn’t really sure why.
When the flames died down, she returned to Raif’s side.
“How can you forgive him?”
Nalia took his hand. “I don’t think I have, not completely anyway. I’m not really sure what forgiveness feels like. But he died for me.” Her throat tightened and she scooted down so that her head rested on Raif’s lap.
He wrapped his arms around her and as she drifted off to sleep, Nalia realized that this was her first night as a truly free jinni.
She was no longer on the dark caravan.
The dream began as it always did, right in the middle of hell.
Ghan Aisouri blood is everywhere. Thick pools of it soak into Nalia’s clothes, coat her lips, drip into her ears. Her blood, their blood.
But tonight something is different. Instead of lying beneath a pile of her sisters, Nalia stands against the wall. This is not real, not what happened, and she knows this, knows she is dreaming.
There are no Ifrit soldiers in the cellar with them. No Haran. Bullet holes are torn into the wall all around her. She doesn’t feel any pain. Why can’t she feel any pain?
The empress lies at her feet. Her eyes are closed. Her chest is crimson and wet. And still. The light from the torches on the walls licks the glimmering stones on the Amethyst Crown. It has fallen off the empress’s head. Nalia picks it up. It’s warm.
“Put it on.”
Nalia jumps, her spirit nearly flying from her skin. She knows this voice. She looks down.
The empress’s eyes are open, violet and searing, and yet her chest does not move with breath and her skin is pale and lifeless.
“Put it on, Nalia Aisouri’Taifyeh. It is yours.”
“No,” Nalia whispers. “You’re the empress. Not me. Please, not me.”
“Wadj kef, child. You do not have a choice.” Obey the blood. “Hala l’aeik.” It is the will of the gods.
Nalia raises the crown above her head as she stares at the bodies of the Ghan Aisouri.
“I can’t,” she says.
She feels a rush of chiaan and her hands press down and she cries out as her body, as her very soul, feels the weight of a kingdom.
The Ghan Aisouri who was once the ruler of Nalia’s race sighs. As her eyes close, she whispers, “Long live the empress.”
42
ZANARI LAY ON HER BACK, HER EYES WIDE OPEN, PHARA asleep beside her. Their cure for Haraja’s malice was lying dead at the bottom of the chasm. Zanari wouldn’t close her eyes again until she was standing outside the cursed cave. But as much as she longed for sleep and fresh air and an end to the muzzle the cave had put on her voiqhif, a small part of Zanari dreaded going aboveground. The days searching for the sigil had been nightmarish or just plain exhausting, but they’d also been a reprieve from the war, from the loneliness that had stalked Zanari all her days. Returning to the earth’s surface meant that the loneliness would return, too, worse now because she knew what it meant to have someone look at her the way Phara did. Zanari didn’t know how she’d say good-bye.
Her eyes grew heavy and she rubbed them, focusing on the moonlight that shone through the small opening in the cavern’s ceiling. Bright enough to see Haraja if she were going to make another appearance. Even from so far below ground, Zanari could see the stars covering the night sky like a decadent blanket. She didn’t care that they weren’t green like Arjinna’s: right then, they were perfect. Her eyes blurred . . . dimmed . . . closed.
At the sound of falling rock, Zanari’s eyes snapped open. She turned her head slightly, scanning the ledge. It was lighter in the cave now: dawn. She silently cursed herself: gods, how could she have slept?
Zanari tensed, her eyes darting everywhere, careful not to move lest she attract the intruder’s attention. Then, so small she very nearly missed it, Zanari noticed a figure crawling up the rock face from the depths of the chasm, moving swiftly toward the ledge where Zanari and the other jinn rested. For one wild moment, Zanari thought it was Malek, somehow alive after all, but then the figure scuttled through a patch of moonlight—she’d seen that curtain of dark, greasy hair before: Haraja. A jolt of fear cut through her, but Zanari ignored it. She had to attack before the monster was able to cast her paralyzing spell. To Zanari’s left, Samar peered into the darkness. She caught his eye and he nodded.
Zanari leaped to her feet and sent a stream of chiaan at the creature while Samar charged forward, a scimitar in his hand. Haraja screeched as Zanari’s magic found its mark and the sound of her cry echoed off the stone walls. It wasn’t enough to kill the little beast, though. In one quick movement, Haraja hoisted herself onto the ledge.
The sleeping jinn sprang to their feet at the sound of the commotion. Phara was standing beside Zanari in a moment, yellow chiaan zipping along the length of the ledge. A blast of violet and emerald chiaan came from the rock where Raif and Nalia were stranded. They stood side by side, tracking Haraja’s lightning-fast movement.
Anso stepped forward. “Allow me,” she said.
She held out her hands and a sickly puff of chartreuse smoke billowed from her fingertips. The disease-maker leaned forward and gently blew on the deadly cloud. It sped toward Haraja and as the smoke made contact, the monster let out an ear-splitting wail. She was close enough for Zanari to see the lesions that bubbled over her translucent skin. In a matter of seconds they were oozing pus and blood. Haraja clawed at her face as the skin began to split.
“Leprosy,” Anso said, a hint of pride in her voice. “Advanced stage. It won’t be long now.”
“Gods,” Zanari said.
Phara looked away. Zanari knew how hard it was for her to see sickness, even if it was in a creature like Haraja. She pulled the healer to her and Phara buried her face in Zanari’s neck, her body trembling.
It didn’t take long for the creature to die.
“That is some power you have, Anso,” Zanari said.
The other jinni nodded. “It’s rarely useful, but it does the job when it needs to.”
“Does it only work on one person at a time?” Zanari asked.
Anso tilted her head to the side, considering. “I don’t know. I’ve never had cause to make a whole group of people ill.”
Zanari remembered what Malek had called her—a biological weapon. The revolution could certainly use one of those.
“Is everyone okay?” Nalia called across the cavern.
“Yes,” Samar shouted. “And you?”
Raif waved a hand. “We’re fine.”
Noqril walked over to where Haraja’s corpse lay. It was now nothing more than swaths of skin covering bones. He kicked the creature’s remains into the chasm.
Phara sighed. “That one has no sense of decency.”
Zan
ari kept quiet. As much as she disliked the Ifrit Dhoma they’d had to spend the past several days with, she would have done the same thing.
She started back to her makeshift bed; now that Haraja was dead, she’d sleep like a baby. Zanari happened to look across the chasm before she closed her eyes, to check once more on her brother as she had countless times since he’d nearly made himself the Blood Passage. She blinked, then stared as a ladder appeared just above the altar. It seemed to be made of sunlight, each rung growing in substance as it climbed from the altar to the opening in the roof. The human call to prayer sounded outside the cavern and as the worshipper’s voice rose to the heavens, so did the ladder.
Prayer is better than sleep, sang the muezzin somewhere above the cave.
Nalia stared at the golden ladder, speechless. It was as if the gods had truly heard the constant, silent prayer that had been on repeat ever since they’d found the ring.
Please let us go home, she’d begged. Please.
“Why didn’t we see this before?” Raif asked.
“We rise to greet the sun and climb the heights of the self,” Nalia said softly. The words that were chanted every morning by the Ghan Aisouri before their dawn Sha’a Rho exercises were more ancient than she’d thought.
“I’ve got to hand it to her,” Nalia said. “My ancestor did everything she could to keep this ring down here. This is the ultimate guilt trip.”
It was as if Antharoe were standing with her in the cave, reminding Nalia of her promise to the gods. Reminding her that the ring could only be used by someone who had reached their very fullest potential—the heights of the self—and would do well by the responsibility.
Raif took her hand. “If the gods loved anyone, rohifsa, they have loved you. They’ve put you through hell, yes, but they want you to live, not spend the rest of your life in this cave. You’re not breaking your vow to them by taking this ring; you’re fulfilling your promise to serve your realm. Now climb.”
And she did.
Nalia gripped the rungs which, like the bridge, were solid despite their translucence. Still, she didn’t trust them. About halfway up she looked down at Raif, now just a speck on a rock.
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