The Blind Wish

by Amber Lough

  Afran was running alongside me, carrying his bow. He notched an arrow and pointed it straight at me.

  The current poured into my mouth and I tried to spit it out. Then something hit my upper arm, and when I screamed, more water rushed in, cold and forceful. Tumbling, I rolled along the rocks, turning my body so that my feet faced downstream and then curling into a ball. Afran had shot me.

  I knew this portion of the river. The rapids did not last for long before the river split at a rise in the riverbed that formed an island just large enough for a few ducks to nest on.

  It was racing toward me, the slice of dirt and rocks that cleaved the river. If I could make the little island, I would have a chance. If I missed it, I would continue to tumble down the river, past the village, and to the next set of boulders.

  Tucking my knees beneath me, I swam, chopping at the water as hard and as quickly as I could, until I was directly in front of the island. It loomed, a dark slice in the even darker river.

  Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five feet. Now.

  I pressed my feet into the riverbed and pushed, launching myself toward the sandy point. Only my shoulders made it out of the water, but it was enough. I caught the earth and clawed my way onto it, into it, my fingers sinking in the wet sand and grabbing hold.

  For a moment, I feared the current was too strong and would pull me away again. But I held on, and one foot found the ground and pushed back. I climbed up out of the water and lay heaving on the island that was barely long enough to hold me.

  I was out of the water. My upper arm throbbed, and I found a broken arrow lodged inside. I was bleeding, but the cut was clean. I knew I should pull the arrowhead out, but I couldn’t bear to do it. Instead, I pushed myself onto my side and sucked in more of the cold air. When my eyes found a focus, I saw I was right in front of the village, and I was being watched.

  Afran had run along the river road, shouting at the village. Many people had come to the riverbank, carrying torches and oil lamps. Most were standing there, shock spreading like a fever across their faces, but some were screaming for rope or tree branches. Afran was screaming out that I was a jinni, an impostor who had taken Zayele’s form.

  “Stop,” a deep voice commanded. The crowd peeled apart, revealing the man I’d always thought of as my father. He took one look at me and cursed. Then he shouted over the river, “Why have you returned?”

  I pushed myself up onto my knees. Instinct told me to look down, to show him I was meek, but I was never one to live by instinct alone. I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I learned the truth about who I really am.”

  His face darkened, and my stomach twisted. He stood still, a solid form in the soft light of his lamp, while the villagers moved and flowed around him like water. Then he said, “Afran is right. This is not Zayele. This is a jinni who has taken her form, and we will leave her there to bleed out.”

  Then my—Yashar’s—mother came to the edge of the river. She was wearing the same clothes I’d last seen her in, but now her eyes were dark with worry. “Zayele,” she said, and I knew that although she wasn’t my real mother, she had loved me. She loved me still, even though I was only half-human. She held the hem of her hijab against her mouth and sobbed. She knew, without doubt, that I was truly Zayele. Her Zayele.

  I was not going to die on the island.

  Pushing into the gravel with my good arm, I stood up. My clothes clung to me, ripped and revealing too much. My hair was matted, plastered against my uncovered head. But it didn’t matter that they could see my body. All the villagers could see was a jinni. An impostor. The enemy.

  I pulled my shoulders back, wincing at the pain, and then looked at my father. “Hashim is dead.” Then I looked at my mother. “I found my sister,” I said, smiling. This seemed to surprise her, and her eyes cleared for a moment.

  Then I turned to the villagers. These were the people I had grown up loving and living for. These were the people who had raised me. My cousins, my aunts and uncles. My family. To them, I said, “I’m half-jinni, but I always have been. And I am the same Zayele you’ve always known. Hashim was using me, using our tribe, to deepen the hatred between jinn and humans, but he was stopped. My sister, Najwa, saved the caliph’s life and is now a consul to the palace. I came back to tell you that I’ve saved Yashar.” A lump formed in my throat, and I began to cry, coughing out the words. “You won’t have to be troubled by him anymore. I will take care of him.” My mother gasped and turned away. When no one said anything in return and my body had begun to shake uncontrollably, I whispered, “Mashila.”

  The water, the chill, and the pain all slipped into the air when my body twisted into flame and poured into the island, pushed through what little water lay beneath, and raced to the Cavern. To my home.

  A MEMBER OF the Corps, a man a few years older than me, happened to be standing beside Delia when I transferred into the Eyes of Iblis Command. He jumped in surprise and shrieked.

  A corner of Delia’s mouth twitched. “Najwa, come with me.”

  I nodded to Delia, gave the man a sidelong glance, and went with her to the room with the Eye of Iblis. The images I’d recorded shone on the flat crystal tiles, lined up in order. First there were the tables set for a feast, surrounded by many of Ibrahim’s higher-ranking soldiers. Then there were several of Ibrahim, one of the mysterious man with the braid, and more of Kamal than was necessary.

  “Those came in fairly soon after you left, but then there was nothing,” Delia said. “I was starting to worry.”

  “I’m sorry. I was in Kamal’s garden.”

  “Did they discover you?” she asked.

  I shifted on my feet. “Not exactly.” I wanted to look away. At the floor, at the smooth, bare walls, even at the Eye with its record of the evening. But she held my gaze. “Kamal and I spoke, after. I made sure he didn’t break his vow to his father, so he didn’t see me. But then…Ibrahim came in.” I ran a hand through my hair as I told her about the diamond, feeling where the gems studded the strands. Nearly every jinni had gems in her hair, but I was the first to leave one behind as evidence.

  “Before you return to the palace, I want you to strip off all those gemstones, and anything else that would mark you as a jinni,” Delia said.

  I pulled off one, a small chip of turquoise, and squeezed it in my palm. She was right, except that I wasn’t supposed to return.

  “Kamal said that if I came again before he was ready, he’d consider it a ‘breach of negotiations.’ ” The words tasted slimy, even though they weren’t my own.

  “Well then,” Delia said. Her face drew tight, until her mouth was pursed and her eyes were narrow. “You’ll have to not get caught next time. I don’t think Melchior will care much about these negotiations, and he is the master now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “You look like you’re going to collapse at any minute, Najwa. Tell me everything you saw and heard, and then you can go home.”

  —

  I left the Eyes of Iblis Command feeling like one of the caliph’s performing monkeys. Mindlessly, I watched the woman take the copper disk with my name on it off the wall of tiny pegs and set it in the tray on the desk. She said something about it being “nice out tonight,” but I was too tired to respond.

  Of course it was nice out. The weather never changes in the Cavern. The sun never bakes the cobblestones so that they burn your feet. The stars never shine down on the Lake of Fire; they never lead us north or outline pictures on our ceiling. There isn’t a need to know which way is north when you can see everything all at once if you only climb up a gypsum shard or two.

  I trotted over the dependable cobblestones, passed the fountain where Zayele first arrived in the Cavern, and went to the canal bridge closest to the school. It was halfway between the waterfall and the lake and made of cream-colored bricks, each printed with a phase of the moon. I leaned against the railing and traced my fingers along the curve of a crescent. It was both smooth and rough
, like pumice, except for the edges where, across the centuries, hundreds of jinn had set their hands so they too could lean out over the canal and watch the water flowing by. Most of them would have only stopped on the bridge during the Breaking, to throw in their pain, their memories. But others, like me, paused to hold on to something made by jinn long forgotten.

  Before I met Zayele, I’d never seen the moon. I knew of its phases only from these bricks. I knew only of its light and its absence of color from the books Faisal had given me to study. But someone, long ago, knew the moon and wanted us never to forget it.

  Of all the people who first came to the Cavern, I only knew one name, Iblis. All the others had been lost to time, their bodies gone back to the flames, and their memories caught in their Memory Crystals, ricocheting against the cold, glassy walls. Those, if they hadn’t cracked or been lost, would be set somewhere in the funeral plain, below the Cavern’s floor. Where Faisal had gone. Where my mother’s memories waited for me to watch.

  What did it mean to be a jinni? Or a human? What sort of being was I? And did I have to choose?

  The moon bridge would not answer my questions, so I left it and wandered aimlessly.

  —

  I was drawn to Faisal’s and Mariam’s crystals like a fly to honey. I was there before I even realized where I’d headed. This time, I nestled myself between the two of them, green on my left and yellow on my right, and told them what had happened that night in Baghdad. Then, without meaning to, I slipped into Mariam’s memories.

  I was lost in them. Although Faisal had only been able to recover a small number of her memories, they were intense. Her spirit was constant. She was strong, brave, and impulsive like my sister, but she was observant and quiet too, like me. She loved Faisal deeply, but he was like a brother to her and it pained her to know he wanted more and she could not give it to him.

  But nothing hurt her more than being cast off by her own father.

  I lived her memories, looping through them over and over again until I started to forget which were hers and which were mine.

  —

  I awoke with a cream-colored blanket wrapped around me and a satin pillow tucked beneath my cheek. Confused, I stretched and sat up, then found a tiny scroll tucked into my fist.

  I was still in the burial chamber. How long had I been here?

  Trying not to panic, I opened the scroll and read the handwriting.

  Najwa,

  Grief is a powerful force, but it will get easier if you let your loved ones go. You have a vibrant life of your own to live.

  Your friend from the lake,

  Firuz

  He didn’t have to say it, but it was clear enough that he thought I was one of the Haunted.

  Maybe I was.

  I STUMBLED INTO the house and was relieved to find Shirin there with Rahela. I sank to my knees, reached out for Rahela, and saw her mouth open into an O before I fell to the side. They rushed to me, and their voices were too loud. I tried to reach up to cover my ears, but my left arm wasn’t working.

  “What happened?” Rahela asked, filling my entire field of vision.

  “I went home. Zab,” I said. The words slipped out with a weak breath.

  Shirin was pressing into my arm, mumbling a wish. I sucked in another breath while Rahela cursed. A moment later, I was flooded with warmth and comfort, and I sank deeply into the floor. The marble was wrapping itself around me, like a cloud, and I let it. I welcomed it.

  —

  I woke up in the hospital to find Taja sitting beside me. Alarmed, I felt for the place the arrow had entered, and found it was nearly healed.

  Taja huffed. “You missed your lesson. Melchior isn’t too pleased.”

  “Well, he can go to—”

  “I can go where?” Melchior was on the other side of me, standing next to Razeena. They looked like a pair of chess pieces, calculating and deadly.

  “To Zab,” I finished. “To tell Yashar’s mother why he hasn’t come home.” I knew it was daring to talk that way to Melchior, but at the moment, I was too upset to care.

  Melchior blinked, like a snake. “It is my understanding that Yashar was not well treated in the village and that his parents would be relieved for him to find a place elsewhere.”

  I turned away from him and sought help from Taja, but she was purposefully looking at the tray of medicines on the table beside me.

  Anger, frustration, and desperation burned inside me. They twisted in my veins like a poison, consuming any care I might have had for my own safety. At last, the feelings bubbled up and I spit the words at Melchior.

  “Why haven’t you told me you’re my grandfather?”

  He smiled, but his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “It seems I didn’t have to tell you.”

  I pushed myself up into a seated position. I couldn’t face him looking like a victim. “How can you stand there smiling when you know you’re the reason all of this happened!” Razeena reached forward, and I knew she was going to use a calming wish on me, so I swiped her hand away. “Don’t do that,” I snapped.

  Melchior crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “I’m the reason all of what happened?”

  I groaned in frustration. “You made Hashim think all jinn were bad, so when he met my mother—who had been banished by you—he killed her and blamed it on a jinni! The war started because of that. Because of you. And you sit on your jinni throne and act like none of it’s your fault.”

  “That’s because it is not my fault. Angering a person does not make you responsible for their actions, granddaughter. I forced your mother to make a choice, yes, but she chose that life. Her fate was a darkness on us all.” He was tapping a finger against his arm, slowly.

  I could not believe he could cast it all off so easily, and the fire in my veins flashed bright. My skin began to pulse with an orange glow, and they all looked down at my arms.

  “Hold her down,” Razeena told Taja. Her eyes were wide in alarm, and that frightened me. She didn’t seem like the sort of jinni who was easily disturbed.

  I fought them at first, but my skin started to glow brighter, and I let it go. Razeena’s hand was on my forehead—she was whispering something—and my head rolled back.

  —

  This time I woke up in my house, with Shirin by my side. I shook off my blankets and she picked up my wrist and began to examine it.

  “What happened?” I asked. My throat was sore. Had I been screaming?

  “You got so angry, the fire in your blood started to boil everything. But I think you’re fine now.” Shirin was everything Razeena was not. Her touch was soft, and her eyes were luminous and caring. This was what a physician should be like, I thought.

  “Is that normal?”

  “Not for jinn, but you’re a little different. I think you were burning up the human part of you.”

  “Would that have killed me?”

  “I don’t know. No one knows. It’s not something anyone expected. It’s never happened to Najwa.”

  I sighed. “That’s because she never gets angry.”

  “Oh, she does. One time—”

  “I mean she doesn’t get as angry as I do. But even I have never gotten that angry before. Especially that quickly.”

  She squeezed my hand and set it on my stomach. “Rest for now. I’ll make you a tea that will calm you. You need to be ready for something big tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “When Taja brought you, she told me to get you ready. You’re training with the Shaitan tomorrow, so you need to be healthy.”

  While she left to make me tea, I lay back and thought about all that had happened that day. My adoptive father had sent me away because he didn’t want a half-jinni girl in the village anymore. And when I returned, he told them to let me bleed out in the river. Would Melchior have done the same if Mariam had managed to return home, bleeding from a wound made by Hashim?

  Melchior didn’t seem to have any regrets. This was the most dangerous sort of man,
and I could not afford to appear so angry before him ever again. Like him, I needed to be calm and calculating.

  I drew in a deep, slow breath and watched my new friend pour boiling water over a cup of herbs. While the steam rose, I tried to think of a way I could direct my anger the next time fire flushed in my veins.

  I RETURNED HOME without looking at another person, slipping in through the door without making any sounds. I was too tired to speak, too tired to say that yes, I spent the night in the burial chamber. Too tired to even lift my eyes, or my chin, or my hands.

  I was not prepared for what I found inside the house. Rahela was at her loom, working on a rug that looked nothing like all the others. It was full of color, as if a collection of precious stones had turned into something fluid and been poured onto the threads. She had finished two feet of the rug, but it was already glistening in the weak light of three oil lamps. This, however, was not what surprised me the most.

  A man sat beside Rahela, handing her whatever tool she needed next and sorting the jewel-toned skeins on his lap. I watched them for a moment, thankful that their laughter and the plucking of the warp had covered the sound of my entrance.

  I knew him. He had trained with my adoptive mother, Laira. He was one of the weavers, one of the spider-marked: Abdas. He had always been kind, laughing more often than not and bringing everyone into the conversation of the moment, but this was true of most of the weavers. But how had he ended up here, with a human girl who, up until a few weeks ago, had been afraid of jinn and was still not the sort of person to leap into conversation with one? Especially a man, alone.

  Her back was straight but relaxed, and her fingers moved assuredly across the loom. She was comfortable with Abdas, and although I was happy she had made a friend and had moved on from her darker rug colors, I hadn’t expected him here. He was all energy and smiles, and at the moment, I wanted none of that.

  “Rahela?” I asked. They both stopped and turned around, neither of them showing any embarrassment at their being caught alone.