by Sara King
“I’ve seen your need,” she finally whispered. “You can’t tell me you won’t touch me, djinni. I’ve seen you desire me. Even with the threat of shadows, you pollute me at every opportunity. If you lift your curse, I may be able to kill, but no amount of Third Lander tooth or claw can kill a djinni, ‘Aqrab. I am not a fool.”
He flinched, and for a moment, it looked as if he would simply flicker back to the firelands, his game forfeit. Stiffly leaning against a fallen tree, however, he reluctantly agreed, “That much is true. When you are not being a qybah, I’ve wanted you very much, yes.” He shrugged. “After all, when one is trapped with no other soul in sight for decades on end, one gets…desperate.” His casual shrug was belied by the way he was scuffing his toe in the gravel, concentrating on anything but her face.
His obvious discomfort giving her the strength she needed to continue, she ventured, “The girls I’ve spoken to that you’ve taken to room with you… The wolves, and before them, the harlots and the whores… Everywhere we go, they say you cannot bed them, when the time comes for the act. Is this true?”
He reddened, his body becoming rigid under her appraisal. He cleared his throat, glancing at his feet. “It’s true.”
A djinni cannot lie, she thought, stunned. While he could twist words to suit him, they always had to be true, by Fourthlander Law, or he would forfeit his power as a djinni. “Why?” she demanded.
The djinni moved gravel with his toes, digging them under the sand. It took him a moment to say, “Let it suffice to say I made a wish for myself, as a young fool.”
“What kind of wish?” she asked, warily.
He lifted his violet eyes to glare at her. “The stupid kind.”
“So you can’t bed women?” she asked, biting her lip against hope.
“I can’t bed women,” he growled in agreement. “Not that it’s any of your business, mon Dhi’b.”
A djinni could not lie. And Kaashifah could not see how he could twist those particular words. Immediately, she wondered what kind of curse a djinni could put on himself to leave him with such a fate.
“Then…” she frowned. “You bed men?”
“I can bed men,” ‘Aqrab agreed reluctantly. The words sounded as if they’d been dragged from his throat by a hyena.
“But not women,” Kaashifah insisted, just to make sure.
“I can’t bed women,” the djinni snapped. “How many times must I say it?” He almost sounded irritated that the words were coming from his throat, almost as if he hadn’t expected them to be true.
He couldn’t spear her. He couldn’t break her maidenhead. The knowledge was so utterly relieving to her that Kaashifah slumped back against the fallen spruce behind her, suddenly needing to sit down. “All this time, you let me believe…” she began, as her eyes darted unwillingly towards the silk covering his groin before she dragged them away again. “You were just being cruel.”
“The fact remains,” the djinni growled. “I can’t bed women. And, with your last wish still binding us, you have nothing to fear of me. Thus, free me of your damned shadows, mon Dhi’b. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I’m more afraid of you touching me,” Kaashifah growled.
Irritation flashed in the djinni’s violet eyes. “I told you I reached the point in my life where I could avoid touching you, if necessary.”
“Yet you haven’t told me you won’t touch me,” Kaashifah retorted.
“Of course I won’t tell you that,” ‘Aqrab snapped back. “Then what will I do if I need to save you again? You would have me take the time to swaddle you in cloth to avoid contacting you with my skin?” He gave a derisive snort and reached down to grab a pebble and toss it into the silty gray Yentna River.
“That would be preferable,” Kaashifah muttered, remembering the way her skin had broiled. Still, in comparison to hanging from an Inquisitor’s rack, her blood draining into a basin at her feet, she supposed it had been a small price to pay.
“Forgive me if I didn’t take the time to swaddle you before I rescued you,” ‘Aqrab growled, glancing at her. “You’ve heard my offer, mon Dhi’b. Your sword for your shadows. I’m not going to make it again.”
Still, Kaashifah hesitated, her eyes once more falling, unbidden, to the filth at his groin. She had the sudden need to delve further into the djinni’s latest revelation, to find the core of the matter. “This wish of yours… It was to never bed another woman?”
‘Aqrab paused in plucking another pebble from the beach and hesitated, staring down at the sand for several breaths before he stood up to face her. Kaashifah had learned that the djinni always made such pauses when he was about to weave words, and even as he opened his mouth to lie to her, she lifted a hand. “Never mind, djinni. I will not hear your twisted truths. What you did to curse yourself is your own business. Lift your deathbed curse from my shoulders, give me the ability to defend myself once more, and I will relinquish my hold on the shadows.”
Mouth still open, mid-lie, the djinni gave her a narrow look. “Very well. Let us make it official. Wrap it in Law.” Even then, his eyes began to glow a stark violet against the dying light.
“No!” Kaashifah snarled.
Immediately, the djinni’s eyes lost their luminescence. He frowned at her. “‘No?’”
“No,” she repeated. “I’ve spent too long watching you spin your words to allow you to wind me into another of your spells, djinni. We will do this as adults.”
He gave her an irritated look. “The last time you mentioned dealing with each other as adults, mon Dhi’b, you were telling me you wanted to cut off my head.”
“First,” Kaashifah said, ignoring him, “you will revoke your curse and return to me my ability to kill. Only then will I surrender my hold on the shadows.”
The djinni raised his eyebrows and laughed. “You want me to trust you?”
“One of us will have to go first,” Kaashifah told him, “and, considering the way you wove my last two wishes into oblivion, I am certainly not going to trust you.”
The djinni wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something foul. “It is not my fault you left gaping holes in your request.”
“You intentionally put them there,” Kaashifah snapped back. “You knew exactly what I wanted.”
He glared at her. “You wanted the ability to kill me, mon Dhi’b.”
“I wanted the same thing you’re offering now,” Kaashifah growled. “What gives me any assurance you are not once again twisting your words to suit you?”
“Because I offered it,” the djinni snapped back. “It’s a gift, you unlovable sand-mite.”
Kaashifah shrugged. “Then let it be a gift. That is my counter-offer. You go first. You trust me. Then I will return the favor.”
He blinked at her, obviously realizing his own mistake. For a moment, he only stared at her in silence. “And if you don’t?” he demanded. “If you simply take my gift and don’t reciprocate, I’ve lost my only real bargaining chip in all of this.”
“I think,” Kaashifah said, “that you are running out of options, djinni.” She glanced north, upriver. “Somewhere up there, I am going to find a dragon who would love to get his talons on a djinni. If I am not freed of my curses by then, he might just get it.”
“Might.”
Kaashifah shrugged. “With this many missing, the Inquisitors are taking them somewhere large. A compound of some sort. Close, because it would be difficult to smuggle them out of state. I might need a bargaining chip to gain the dragons’ help in an assault, if I must use my blood-debt to remove the Third Lander possession from my veins.”
For some time, the djinni only scowled at her. Finally, though, he muttered, “We might be able to work something out, mon Dhi’b.”
Immediately, Kaashifah’s suspicions surged. Never had the djinni been this willing to cooperate, and it was setting off her every internal alarm. “You have never been this complacent before, ‘Aqrab. What is your game?”
The djinn
i gave her a fierce look. “The events of the past day and a half have forced me to look at things in a different light.”
“What kind of light?” she asked, wariness building.
“The compromising kind,” he snapped. “Do you swear to me you will relinquish your shadow if I lift my curse? I want an oath on your Lord’s pendant.”
Kaashifah’s hand immediately went to the winged sword at her neck in horror. “Absolutely not.” She was not about to profane her symbol with an oath of concession to a male.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “And yet you expect me to believe you will fulfill your half of the bargain?”
“It’s not a bargain,” Kaashifah reminded him, all-too-careful not to mince words with a djinni, lest he ‘mistake’ her words for agreement to his ‘bargain.’ “You said so yourself. We are gifting each other something the other desires. There is no bargain involved.”
The djinni made a disgusted sound and turned on heel, his bare feet crunching against gravel as he strode down the riverbank, leaving her alone.
Realizing he was headed north, towards the dragons, Kaashifah unconcernedly began to follow him. In face of the djinni’s stubbornness, it would be many weeks before she could help the phoenix, especially with winter fast approaching. The snow in the mountains could sometimes get over ten feet deep, and the hundreds of miles of forest and riverlands between Skwentna and the Brooks Range would be rough and treacherous going. Fallen trees, tangles of brush, thin ice, and swaths of devil’s club made the woodlands a hazardous, painful trek, even without snow to hide its obstacles from the surface. The cold, too, would be difficult to withstand, even with her shields to shelter her. Temperatures in Interior Alaska often dropped to more than negative forty degrees Fahrenheit, during the darkest parts of winter, and Kaashifah’s coats and winter gear had all been destroyed by the Inquisitors.
Kaashifah just hoped she could reach the dragons in time…
A few hundred feet up the river, the djinni twisted back on her suddenly, his eyes aglow. Before she could pull away, ‘Aqrab reached out like a viper and grabbed her by the arm. His voice a concussive, triple-toned thunder powered by the magic of the Fourth Lands, he boomed, “Very well, Kaashifah, Maiden of the Sword, Angel of Vengeance, Erinyes of Grecian lore. I hereby lift the curse I made upon my knees, at the oasis of Tafilat.”
Even as Kaashifah was flinching backwards from the djinni’s touch, she felt the ancient weave that ‘Aqrab had long ago knotted around her soul unravel and fall away. Kaashifah gasped as that part of her mind unlocked once more, opening and stretching like a long-closed flower, granting her sudden and complete access to a wide range of thoughts that she had spent three thousand years trying to forget.
‘Aqrab released her brusquely as his eyes lost their luminescence. “It is done. You are able to kill, mon Dhi’b.” She saw fear mingling with the scorn in his face as he waited an arm’s-length away, watching her in silence.
Kaashifah glanced down at her hands. They were shaking. Gingerly, she reached down and pried a stick from the frosty sands along the beach, then hefted it. She felt nothing preventing her from swinging it at the djinni’s head, no threat of fire tingling her palms.
To test her theory, she swung, stopping the stick just centimeters from the djinni’s brow.
She received no burns, no tingles of warning. Realizing that the djinni had actually done as he offered, without catches or caveats or snares, Kaashifah stared up at him, stunned beyond words.
Unflinching, ‘Aqrab peered impassively down at her past the stick. “And now that the djinni has played his last card, like a fool, it is the Fury’s move.” Yet even under his aloof façade, she could see his fear. It burned within him like the fires of a forge, lighting his eyes well after the Fourth Lander magics had faded. Kaashifah lowered her stick, her heart beginning to thunder.
Standing like an ebony mountain above her, ‘Aqrab held her gaze for long minutes, waiting. He had given her his gift. Now he was waiting to see if she would gift him something in return.
He wants me to give him my shadows. The thought brought a whole new wave of terrors to the forefront of her mind, a whole new wave of suspicions. Why does he want me to give up my shadows? What could be so important to him that he gave her this?
“Mon Dhi’b,” the djinni urged softly, a gentle plea. “I’m so tired of the struggle. Will you return a gift?”
She looked into his eyes and saw sincerity in his face. He’d played his last card, and he knew it. When Kaashifah bit her lip and hesitated, however, she saw the openness to his face break, saw it twist in pain, saw his hopes crumble. The djinni made a weary, disgusted sound and turned away. With a feral snarl, he ripped a hole in the veil between realms and Kaashifah had to stumble back against the blast of heat as he prepared to depart for the firelands, likely for good.
…Which is what she’d wanted, right?
He trusted you, Fury, she thought, guilt hitting her like a blow. If there was one thing a Fury would die for, it was her word. Her honor.
“Wait.” It was a ragged whisper in her throat, but it was enough to make the djinni hesitate. He slowly turned to face her, anger in his face, his body blocking the heat from the portal between realms. “What now, Fury?” he sneered, his words filled with bitterness, his eyes dark with the hurt of betrayal. “You would have me remove the Third Lander, as well?”
Steeling herself, Kaashifah harnessed the wolf just enough to force canines through her jaw, then bit a ragged tear into her palm. Her adrenaline thrumming with the horror of what she was about to do, she reached out and placed her hand upon the corded muscles of the djinni’s forearm. When he flinched, frowning down at the first time she had willingly touched him in three thousand years, she reached for her awareness of the shadows. She started balling them up, wrapping her conscious perception of them into the blood that now oozed from her palm. Then, channeling the Third Lander again, she forced a claw into the djinni’s flesh and tore a hole in the skin of his arm.
As the djinni hissed and tried to yank his arm away, she held him in place with the strength of her Third-Lander demon as she ran her palm over the wound, pushing her blood into his body. Harnessing the ancient language of the Furies, she forced through a fear-tightened throat, “By my blood, I gift this djinni my mastery of the shadows until such time as he gifts it back.” It was a simple wartime trick of her order, one usually performed by shield-mates or sword-sisters or other beings that trusted each other implicitly. Here, she had to make do.
An instant later, she felt her awareness shift, felt a trickle of her energy sliding away, down her arm and into the djinni. At the same time, the djinni gasped above her, his black forearm stiffening under her like iron. Then, as if a light had been switched off in her mind, the world lost part of its depth, and Kaashifah could no longer sense the shadows. She could still see them, but her mental command of them had simply ceased.
Suddenly, quite thoroughly, she had left herself defenseless.
Oh gods above me, she thought, staring at her tawny fingers, light against the jet of the djinni’s arm, what have I done? Her pulse was suddenly a rushing thunder in her ears, her lungs unable to get enough air. She heard him let out an unsteady breath and her heart became a thunderous pounding in her chest, a thousand hammers from Hephaestus’s forge slamming against her ribs.
For a long time, she stared at where her small hand touched the djinni’s big forearm, wishing she could take it back. “Gods,” she heard him say, a strangled sound. She slowly pulled her fingers back, too afraid to look up at him, too horrified to retreat to the river to begin her ablutions. He moved away from the portal to the firelands, then, and Kaashifah took a step back, automatically, panic rising like pangs of acid through her veins.
Only afterward did she realize her mistake. She, a Sword Maiden, had retreated. It was all the excuse the djinni needed to step closer, until his chest almost brushed hers. Without her usual methods to deter him, Kaashifah kept her head do
wn, fighting despair. He’s going to touch me, she thought, miserable. Already, she could feel his taint in the wound of her hand, a throbbing ache as blood dribbled from her clenched fist to the frozen pebbles at her feet. She looked away, biting back tears.
In her periphery, the djinni fell to one knee before her. “Mon Dhi’b.” It was a whisper.
At least he wasn’t defiling her with a touch. Daring to lift her head to meet his gaze, she was stunned to see utter, open-faced gratitude in the djinni’s eyes. Still, she was not prepared for the djinni to grab her, to heft her body against his chest and tighten his arms around her, lifting her until her feet dangled as he laughed. “Oh mon Dhi’b, mon Dhi’b…” He kissed her then, even as she tried to twist away, pressing his lips to her cheek, her chin, her forehead, her ear…
“Enough!” she cried, struggling to pull herself from the iron bars that were his grip. “You dirty me with your touch, ‘Aqrab.” But the djinni just held on, his naked skin hot against hers, like a rock that had been left too long in a fire. Pulling her so tight to his massive chest that she began to have trouble breathing, he dropped his head to her shoulder and laughed against her neck until his breaths devolved into something that sounded like sobs.
It was the pathetic wrenching of his chest against hers that stopped her struggles and made her stare. He was as miserable as I was, Kaashifah realized, stunned. She had always thought his nasty quips and constant barbs to be an indication of his innate malice, but she began to wonder if perhaps she had read him wrong, if perhaps he had simply been weaving his spite as a tapestry to hide his despair.
The djinni held her for what felt like hours, until they had both gone silent, and the djinni was simply releasing slow, easy breaths against her shoulder. His extra body warmth, that which came from being a demon of the flame, was even enough to overwhelm the dirty feel of their skin contacting, the corruption of a male touching a Warrior-Priestess of Horus.