Dark Djinn (The Darkness of Djinn Book 1)

by Tia Reed

  “I want you to treat me like any other apprentice,” he said instead.

  “Like an apprentice Vinsant. You have already demonstrated you are not like the others. Which is just as well since it will raise no objections when the Majoria and I mentor you.”

  Vinsant opened his mouth, but was not sure what he wanted to say.

  Arun gave a light-hearted tut. “Be thankful it is so, or you would not enjoy the privilege of seeing Levi examine that fish.”

  Vinsant chuckled, and followed through the confounding hexagonal rooms into the chamber that had hosted the initiation ceremony.

  The members of the Inner Circle were standing around the altar, and there on the top was his smelly grapper, clear crystals arranged in a circle around it. Vinsant took a deep breath. There were crystals secured in sconces, and crystals hidden in the statue of Mahktos, crystals fast around the necks of mahktashaan, and crystals in the joints of djinn. If there was ever an opportunity to acquire one for Kordahla, it was here and now. Thinking hard, he edged closer to the table, watching Arun and Levi take their places on opposite sides of Errol’s scaly head. He jumped when the mahktashaan began a staccato chant. It sure had the beat of a military march.

  At the sudden cessation of voices, the crystals in the sconces went dull. The mahktashaan crystals flared, painting the room in awesome colours before the beams smashed into white over the grapper. One day soon, he was going to be able to do that. He wasn’t keen on perfecting the boring chorus the mahktashaan had resumed, though, all except Levi, who lifted a crystal and pushed it into the grapper’s mouth. He mimicked the mahktashaan when they clapped a hand over their crystals; knowing the gesture might give him an edge when he tried to work magic with his quartz. For the briefest of moments, the room plunged into silent dark. Then blinding light exploded from the grapper and the crystals around it. Vinsant winced at the pain in his eyes. The light had to be serious because Arun added his voice to Levi’s hurried chant. As the room dimmed, several of the mahktashaan dispersed to the edges of the room and held their crystals up as others burst into garbled discussion.

  “Djinn?” Vinsant asked nobody in particular when the conversation had petered out. The only point he had understood was that the mahktashaan were unsure what any of this meant.

  “Indeed. The only possible reason for such an astounding reaction from the crystals is if a djinn has tainted the fish,” a stout mahktashaan with a plum crystal and homely voice said.

  “Our crystals are djinn-sourced,” a taller man with a teal crystal explained. “That is how they are able to detect the creatures.”

  “Oh,” Vinsant said, grateful someone understood he knew diddlysquat about mahktashaan lore.

  “Thankfully, we don’t seem to have any in our midst,” the first mahktashaan added.

  Around the room, the coloured crystals remained inert in mahktashaan hands.

  “Majoria, a word,” Arun said, his voice grave.

  “Eh, Majoria?” Vinsant piped up before he lost his opportunity, “Can I have my fish now?”

  The Majoria signalled to the stout mahktashaan, a dismissive gesture that implied he was not to be bothered with such trivialities.

  “You may take it, my prince,” the mahktashaan said while removing the crystal buried in the grapper’s mouth.

  “Vinsant. I’m just an apprentice here,” he replied, eyeing the crystal. How stupid was he, to think the mahktashaan had forgotten it?

  “Then you shall do well,” the mahktashaan replied with a small bow. Vinsant gathered it was for his humility rather than his station. “I am Strauss, and this is Garzene,” the stout man said, indicating the mahktashaan with the teal crystal.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Vinsant said, remembering his manners before he snatched the fish. He affected a careless retreat from the table, sweeping three of the crystals onto the floor in the process. He had to hope his body hid the falling number, that the mahktashaan still in the room were not the pedantic sort who would account for each crystal before allowing an apprentice to leave. Squatting, Vinsant stuffed a crystal back into Errol’s mouth. He could always make up a story if he was caught, about wanting to practice magic or something. They couldn’t punish Arun just because he was an over-enthusiastic apprentice, though Levi was bound to notice his sweaty palms and racing pulse. He palmed the remaining two crystals and set them on the altar. Levi and Arun had their backs to him, and were moving into the temple. The other mahktashaan were filing out of the opposite door. Vinsant tucked Errol under his arm, and tried to act natural. Garzene and Strauss kept chatting as he walked past.

  “Majoria, a word,” Arun said, his concern rising, but he had to wait while the forward young prince made his request. The palace servants were going to be extremely unhappy if Vinsant kept the fish in his rooms. Just as the Minoria was less than enthusiastic about what he needed to divulge. Princess Kordahla had little enough freedom and more than enough scrutiny as it was.

  Inside the temple, Levi waved a hand. “Selos”. The air within the arches shimmered, sealing the room from prying minds and ears. “I did not expect you to stand in the prince’s name, else I would have forbidden it.” He dampened the rebuke by removing his hood.

  The deed was done. All was well, and Arun saw no need to comment.

  Levi was not so content. “The djinn have mischief afoot, to drop grappers from the sky. Terlaan has need of you, Arun. As Minoria. The Inner Circle’s talents, while considerable, fall short of your position. Do not relinquish your duties to the Shah for the whims of his immature son.”

  “It is no whim, Levi. Vinsant is keen. He has demonstrated talent, and Mahktos himself had an opinion about the child.” Even after all these years, the intensity in Levi’s expectant, black eyes disconcerted. How much more distressing must the breath-taking princess find his cerulean ones?

  “What had Mahktos to say of our youngest apprentice, Minoria?”

  Arun swallowed. As disturbing as it was, his duty to his order ranked above his loyalty to the prince. “Mahktos believes Apprentice Vinsant will betray our order.” As Levi took a rasping breath, he hurried on. “Better our fate is sealed by one of our own than an outsider. By granting Vinsant a crystal Mahktos owns as much.”

  Levi’s jaw clicked. His next words were little more than a breath. “It could well be.”

  “The god has decreed he may train.”

  “It is a gambit. One of our own can do much harm. In that regard, it is prudent to keep the child close.” The Majoria pursed his thin lips. “So, we were wrong. The grappers fell on Vinsant, not the princess. But he is not of marriageable age. What jest do the djinn play?”

  Arun forced his honesty between clenched teeth. “I believe the grappers are a separate matter. I believe the djinn attached to Princess Kordahla as we first thought.” His guts twisted to think the shah would entertain the idea of wedding his vivacious daughter to Lord Ahkdul.

  Levi frowned. “Explain this,” he demanded.

  “A still wind blew in her rooms when I collected the prince.”

  “But Vinsant was there. There is no way to determine which child was afflicted.” Levi clipped his words with spite.

  A long moment passed before Arun could bring himself to seal Kordahla’s fate. “Her veil has disappeared.”

  It was Levi’s turn to hesitate. No honourable mahktashaan would keep the garment, but still he asked the question with cutting sharpness. “Are there any who need discipline?”

  “It was a djinn, Majoria,” Arun said with finality. An embroidered corner had peeped between the scrabbling meatball sellers at the souk, to disappear in a tell-tale indigo shimmer when the mahktashaan hauled them to their feet.

  “Double her guard,” the Majoria ordered, spittle flying from his mouth. “She must remain in the palace.”

  Arun flinched. It was no secret that, under his powerful exterior, the Majoria harboured a conservativeness toward the womenfolk. This vehemence, though, bordered on cruel.

&nb
sp; Chapter Thirteen

  In the still of the summer night, cicada legs whirring in the gardens below his rooms, Ordosteen gazed at the woman sleeping beside him and knew she had to leave. He lifted a lock of the pale, jasmine-scented hair fanning across her back and brought it to his lips, a private parting gesture that caused her to stir. Such a small movement to pique his desire. When Rochelle opened her blue eyes, and lifted an elegant hand to his face, he knew he would keep her one last night. He dropped her hair so she might roll over and display her plump breasts. “Too energetic for sleep, my lord?” she murmured.

  The only possible response was to kiss her full on the lips, enjoy the feel of her hand in his white hair, her nails scratching the length of his spine. The delicious sensation made him shiver. He brushed a hand along her ample thigh, surprised to find it rough with goosebumps. He was rubbing them warm before the implication dawned. It near killed him to disentangle himself, to confirm her nipples were erect not with desire but cold. Groaning, he rolled off her. “You must go,” he said, swinging his feet off the bed.

  She bent her elbow to rest her head upon her hand, her long-lashed eyes more curious than offended. “And if I don’t?”

  He turned away. She ran a finger down his back.

  “Just go, Rochelle.” He would bring another to the vast emptiness of his golden bed tomorrow. There was no shortage of courtesans willing to accept what was on offer. Ordosteen was considerate in bed and out. If, in his hopeless situation, he had allowed a little flab to widen his girth, a little fat to wobble beneath his chin, he was still a shah.

  She swished a languid finger along the sheet. “Perhaps I should meet this djinn of yours, and see what manner of beast he is to curse you to widowhood.”

  He stood and faced her, knowing before he spoke his voice would crack, with fury and desire. “Where did you learn of this?”

  She sat up, gathering the sheet to her. “It is hardly a secret, Ordo. Five wives dead at their first birthing, no legitimate child surviving. Can Myklaan think other than that you are djinn-cursed?”

  He grabbed fistfuls of sheet. “Djinn-cursed. I, the Shah? Who spouts this nonsense?”

  “Don’t play the ignoramus, Ordo. All five of your wives whispered of a still wind on the night they conceived, and their midwives of an unnatural chill on the eve of each birth. They were very young, very scared.”

  He tossed the sheet onto her lap. “Yet no mage sought my counsel. And despite months in my bed you speak of it only now?”

  “Do you blame me? It is hardly a subject to raise in the throes of passion, my dear, foolish Shah. We are about to receive a visit for the first time in those rather delectable months, and still you deny it.”

  “Go. Get out of my bed. Return to your family’s estates, and if you speak a word of this, I shall have you thrown into the dungeons.”

  She tossed her hair, giggling in her throat. “How easily you are defeated. I am hardly your wife. What danger is there for us to enjoy each other? You have bastards enough to prove it can be done.” She allowed the sheet to slip from her hands, and reclined on the pillows, a temptress if ever there was one. His resolution dissolved as his arousal grew. Smiling, she held out a hand. “Come back to bed. My embrace will soothe you.”

  A moan escaped his lips, but he did as she asked, pulling a quilt over them to fend off the chill seizing the room on this clement night. The temptation to unburden his oppressed soul warred with his desire for her.

  “Adessa was not my wife,” he said, stilling her roaming hand.

  For the first time, Rochelle looked uncertain. “Her too?” she asked.

  “Her too.” Selfish in his need for companionship, he had sealed Adessa’s fate when he determined to name their firstborn heir. It had been pure conceit to think he could outwit that cursed djinn by refusing to marry. She had been little more than a child, sweet and attentive, and keen to ease the troubles of her Shah. For her devotion, he had condemned her to death. He had been a fool. Was a fool still.

  Rochelle lay back and looked at the flower and vine arabesques on the ceiling. “It is love then, that is your undoing.” Her insight lifted the burden of the years. She looked like a cream-fed cat as she said, “How touching it is to learn that you love me.”

  “And if I bed you once more, your fate will be sealed,” he warned as she turned her head to look at him.

  He did not expect her to kiss him, or her to be the one who pushed them apart. Sliding out of bed, she threw a robe around her shoulders, and began to dress, pulling her clothes off a gilded screen. “I do not imagine another man could fascinate me so thoroughly, in bed and out, but I am not willing to die for you, especially in so demeaning a manner as childbirth.” She was almost past the age, but that was no hindrance to a vengeful djinn. Ordosteen would not risk it. His heart would break beyond repair if he lost another love, and so he could do naught but impress every beautiful detail upon his memory while she rolled a stocking up her shapely leg.

  “Tell me, Ordo, what did the djinn promise for you to surrender love?”

  It was because she held curiosity and no trace of judgement that he told her. “Myklaan has peace with its neighbours.” Young, naive and by far too ambitious, he had almost begged the beast for a deal when it insinuated itself into his life.

  She crossed the room and picked up a hand mirror from a table, dark oak with fancy gold mounts. Surrounded by the precious metal, he yet possessed not a thing of true worth. Rochelle turned her face, examining her pretty cheek bones from different angles. “Ah. The man is poor, but the Shah is great.” She set the mirror down and turned, resting against the table. Myklaan has truly flourished under you, my love.”

  He sat up, panicked that she might misunderstand. “The wretched creature takes more than I agreed. I bargained with my loins not my heart. I agreed to remain heirless, not loveless. Yet he takes the heirs by killing the mother.”

  Once more she kissed him, quick and light this time. “It is the nature of the djinn, my lord. You know this as surely as you know our history. Have your meeting. I will send Katrine to you before the sun is up. Her interest has been none too delicate of late, and while her body is pleasing I do not fear you will fall for that fatuous one.” Were it not for the tear in the corner of her eye, an interloper might have thought she were the lady and he the diversion. He let his eyes linger on the door after she left, certain she would be gone to Zulmei with the dawn.

  An affected yawn drew his attention away. Ordosteen cursed aloud. Floating cross-legged at his right shoulder was the indigo djinn with the arrogant vermillion eyes. Four decades on, the creature was unchanged, right down to the repulsive taint of fish.

  “An interesting choice of confidant,” the djinn said. He linked and flexed his fingers, cracking his crystal knuckles. “Your candour surprises me after all these years.” He dropped onto the quilt, lying on his side, head on hand in imitation of Rochelle.

  Gagging, Ordosteen bounded out of bed. The search for a loincloth served as a pretext for moving away from the hideous creature. “What do you expect, djinn? In forty-one years, I’ve seen not a single hair on your head.”

  “I’ve been around,” the creature said with a wry smile. “I should have thought that rather obvious.”

  “You make a mockery of our deal. I never agreed to remain loveless.”

  The djinn transformed into an indigo-skinned Rochelle. Despite their distance, the whiff of the sea assaulted Ordosteen as fully as her perfume lured. “Then love from afar and keep it chaste. I have kept my end of our bargain. There is seldom trouble within your borders, and never along them.”

  Ordosteen swallowed rising bile. “I dispute that when porrin decimates my population,” he said after his stomach had settled. “You are selective in your enforcement. You have reneged, djinn. Give me back my life.”

  Returning to his true, hideous form, the djinn laughed. Ordosteen balked as the creature flew at his face, banking up just as the shah feared the creature woul
d smash into his nose. The momentum carried the creature into a backflip. With a twist, he floated upside down, drifting closer and closer to force the shah against the wall.

  “You remain ignorant of what mayhem your country has been spared, you self-centred insect. It is fortunate for you I have had my fun.”

  “Your mischief, you mean.”

  “Mischief, is it?” The djinn grew until his neck bent against the floor and his bloated body squashed into the corners of the room. Indigo flesh squashed against Ordosteen’s lips, and his heart hammered his tightening chest. He pressed back, clipping the edge of the screen and toppling it against the wall. He closed his eyes as he gagged, opened them to find the djinn floating beside the bed, one arm lying along the top of the square, jewelled bedhead. An indigo finger brushed down over an emerald, knocking it from its setting to the dent in the pillow where Rochelle’s head had lain. The creature sneered. “I release you from the deal. Does that not show you how magnanimous I am?”

  As often as he called himself so, Ordosteen was not in truth an imprudent man. Years of regret had turned him wise to the duplicity of the djinn, and though his heart leapt, his intellect screamed. “What fun will this release accord you?” Eyes narrowed, he strode forward. Far from driving the djinn back, his movement set it rising. He walked right under the infuriating creature, and had to wheel to face it with a slaying glare.

  One side of his mouth in a cruel curve, the djinn righted himself. “Take the offer or leave it. I care not either way, shah of insects, but there is a price. He clapped his hands, sparking the crystals in his joints. When his fingers parted, a green veil spread between them, its gold embroidery intricate and precise. A hand gesture sent it sailing onto the pillow. “If you return the owner of that veil to her rightful place, you will be free of our compact. If, and only then, insect Shah.”

  Ordosteen’s brow furrowed as he looked from the veil to the djinn. The creature was fading fast. “Whose…?” he started to ask, trailing off as the djinn disappeared with a soft whoomp of air, and a laugh that chilled him to the bone.