The question seemed to take him by surprise. He squinted at the map as if he could unearth an answer from between the layers of lines and colors. Then, softly, he said, “Before my brother came to Madinne, he traveled the desert with his mother’s tribe. He’s seen much more of the world than I.” A fond, distinctly un-Omar-like smile tugged at his lips.
Aisha looked at him skeptically. It was impossible for a mapmaker to draw from memory when the landscape changed so often. After all, new oases sprang from the blood of slain jinn every day, and human villages were wiped off the map in the blink of an eye. Once, before it had been burned to the ground, her own village had been on a map like this.
Aisha shook off the memory of Sameesh before it could settle. Prince Hakim’s cartography skills were none of her concern. All that mattered was that his map was reliable.
She returned her attention to the route. “There will be fewer oases once we leave Ghiban, but there are caves built into the cliffs that will provide good shelter.” She traced the cliffs to the outskirts of the Western Sandsea. “The last outpost is right here, at the edge of the Sandsea.” She circled the area with her finger. “Your brother has marked caves that might lead beneath the Sandsea, but there’s nothing conclusive. We’ll have to search by foot when we arrive.”
The prince nodded absently. He was taking in the map like a starving man took in a feast. She forgot that while this trip was just another journey for her, the prince had never ventured far from Madinne. That this was, more or less, an introduction to a whole new world for him.
“So if Dhyme is here”—he pinned the city with his finger—“then the ruin where we found the relic is—” He abruptly went silent, expression morphing from one of wonder to horror.
Aisha was immediately suspicious. “What’s that expression for? You look guilty.”
He swallowed. “Guilty? No, the only thing I’m guilty of is injuring the merchant, and she’s fine now.”
Aisha watched him carefully. “You’re still thinking about that? It could be worse than injuring someone, you know.” She raised her brows. “You could be expected to kill them.”
“That’s different. You choose to kill jinn.”
The comment, said so flippantly, should not have bothered her. But perhaps because the memory of Sameesh was so raw, the words caused her thoughts to scatter.
In her mind’s eye she saw green-gold fields. She saw her sisters twirling through the high grass, her aunts lounging beneath the date trees, and her mother standing at the front door with a plate of luqaimat and calling everyone inside for dessert.
And then she saw everything—the fields, the house, the bodies—burned to cinders.
“What a foolish thing to say.” The words were soft when they left her lips, as faded as her visions. “Not all killers choose to wield a blade. Some of us do it out of necessity.”
The prince looked taken aback. “I thought Omar’s thieves sought him out because they wanted to kill jinn?”
Perhaps she ought to have been annoyed that the prince was probing for information, but it had been a long time since someone asked about her life before Omar, and she found she wanted to talk about it. Her past had never been a secret; maybe that was why no one found it valuable enough to steal from her.
“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “But it’s not as if I grew up desiring to wield a blade. I lived on a farm in Sameesh; the only sharp thing I was meant to handle was a sickle. But expectations change when your village is slaughtered by jinn. Farming tools didn’t keep me alive; a blade did.”
The prince looked at her dolefully. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
She looked away, unnerved at seeing such honest sympathy on Omar’s face. “I don’t need your apologies. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since picking up a sword, it’s that empathy is weakness.”
“You speak like…”
“Like a killer? You’ll get used to it.”
She fell back against his bed and closed her eyes. Her cloak flared open with the motion, and she deduced by the prince’s silence that he was looking at her scars. “It’s rude to stare,” she said without opening her eyes.
“I was just looking—”
“At my scars? Are they really so fascinating?” She sighed. “Some people hide their scars; I prefer to wear mine like badges. They remind me of everything I survived, and of who it is I must seek revenge against.”
Beneath the darkness of her lids she saw Sameesh again: bright, burning, dying. And she saw the smoky creatures standing amidst the destruction, eyes burning with hatred. The jinn travelers they had welcomed into their home—repaying hospitality with violence.
The prince’s voice was faint. “The jinn from Sameesh—”
“They are gone, but my bloodlust is not. That is why I am here, Prince.” She pried open an eye. “Don’t you have better things to do than gawk at me?”
The prince stood so abruptly he bumped into the table and nearly knocked over the satchel. His gaze darted to the window, to the sky now glowing with stars. “I forgot something in Ahmed’s residence,” he muttered. “I’d like to retrieve it before his meeting starts.” He walked off but hesitated at the door. “Aisha?” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes glimmering with… hope? “Thank you for opening up to me. I appreciate your honesty.”
Laughter burst from Aisha before she could help it. How amusing, that this prince thought her sharing her past with him—a past that was so clearly written on her skin—meant anything. She was still chuckling to herself long after the prince’s footsteps faded down the corridor. When she reached for his satchel and, out of habit, searched inside for the relic.
The laughter died in her throat when her fingers brushed against nothing.
29
MAZEN
He had forgotten the relic in Ahmed’s diwan.
The weight of his guilt was so heavy it nearly knocked him off his feet as he burst out of the inn. It was all he could do to keep himself from sprinting outright toward the wali’s manor. Maybe if he moved quickly enough, he could retrieve it before Aisha realized it was missing. He did not want her to think him more incompetent than he already was.
Ahmed is fine. He’s a hunter; there’s no way he’d fall under a jinn’s spell.
Aisha had picked up the collar in the ruins without flinching, after all. When Mazen had asked if the jinn tried to manipulate her, she’d scoffed and said, “I am not gullible like you.”
Still, the closer he drew to Ahmed’s residence, the more fearful he became. His dread became an anchor, pulling him back down into the dark waters of paranoia he’d been trying to surface from ever since his encounter with the shadow jinn.
As he hurried through Dhyme’s labyrinth-like streets, he became aware of the darkness twisting on the walls. Of the shadows with red eyes wrapped around palm trees and draped across lantern-lit pathways. Gullible, Aisha had called him. But how could his naivete be the cause of such morbid visions? Everywhere he turned he saw darkness encroaching. Inconsequential, it murmured in his ears.
Mazen tried to convince himself that he was hallucinating, that his nightmares were bleeding into reality, but the shadows would not leave him alone.
You thought you could escape. But I know your blood.
He was only streets away from the wali’s manor when a sudden nausea took hold of him and he was forced, on shaking legs, to make his way to the nearest alley so he could collapse against a wall. Sweat beaded his forehead, and he could feel his heartbeat in the soles of his feet.
And then the dark was pressing on him, clinging to his heels. Jinn killer! it screamed. You are not worthy of being my servant!
“Not real.” Mazen breathed out slowly. “Not real.”
He closed his eyes but succeeded only in plunging himself into a different darkness, one illuminated by the mosaics of the seven jinn. The shadow with the red eyes grinned at him. Mazen turned away from the image only to face another, more haunting depiction. He saw the third jinn: a woman holding a skull. The Queen of Dunes.
In the buried ruins, he hadn’t been thinking of Old Rhuba’s tale; it had not been until after that he connected the two jinn. He hadn’t brought up his suspicions to Aisha. She would think he was crazy.