The corpse gripped the ankle of its still-living companion and pulled. The boy fell. Ahmed was prepared—he caught the youth in the chest with a purloined blade. By the time the boy hit the ground, his eyes were glazed over.
Mazen crumpled against the wall, shaking with terror as an eerie silence washed over the diwan. The wali’s eyes slid over him as he turned toward the remaining six hunters surrounding him in a broken half circle. At the sight of his bloodstained face, they stepped back, weapons drawn like shields.
A twisted smile creased Ahmed’s lips as he reached down and plucked a sword from one of the corpses. “What’s wrong? I thought hunters did not fear death. Will none of you face me?”
When no one rose to meet his challenge, the wali snorted and snapped his fingers. Like puppets yanked up by invisible strings, the corpses on the ground shambled to their feet, eyes glazed and unfocused. “Fine, then. I will force you to look death in the eyes.”
The undead surged forward, and the hunters retreated into the forest. Mazen was numb—so numb that when Ahmed faced him, his legs would not move. Dread had frozen his limbs.
“I thought you were brave,” said the jinn wearing Ahmed’s skin. “But you’re a coward like the rest of them, aren’t you?” He stepped forward.
Move, Mazen commanded his body. Move, move! But it refused to obey him.
Ahmed pulled his blade back—and froze as the sound of crackling fire suddenly filled the diwan. Loulie al-Nazari had regained her footing. She stood behind them, holding up a dagger. A dagger that was, conspicuously, on fire. She stepped forward, and Mazen saw the fire from her blade reflected in her eyes. “I don’t know how you dug your claws into him, but the wali does not belong to you. Leave him be.”
“He does now.” Ahmed matched the merchant’s steps. When she sidestepped, he moved in the opposite direction, so that they were circling each other.
“Leave him now, or I’ll carve you out of him,” she hissed.
Ahmed blinked. Laughed. “Foolish girl. You cannot exorcise me with fire.”
The merchant shot forward like an arrow, embers trailing in her wake. Ahmed caught her dagger with his sword. But though he stopped her blade, he could not deflect the fire, which spat and hissed and stretched toward him. He drew back with a growl as it scorched his wrist.
“You might be immune to fire, but humans are not.”
“You would hurt the man you want to save?” Ahmed laughed. The sound was high pitched, almost desperate. “You humans truly are heartless.”
“No more heartless than a jinn who does not let the dead rest.”
The skirmish became a blur, a cacophony of metal shrieks. Ahmed was the superior fighter, but the merchant had fire. It burned brighter with each strike, and then it burst. Ahmed pulled back quickly enough to avoid the center of the blast, but the hem of his sleeve was burning so fiercely he had no choice but to lower his sword and focus on putting it out.
Instinctively, Mazen reached for his shadow on the wall and draped it over his head as the wali drew closer. Out of sight, he finally relaxed enough to retreat. He noticed two things as he inched away. First, that though Ahmed’s sleeve was aflame, his skin was unburned. It was as the merchant had said: Magic fire distinguishes friend from foe.
Second: the merchant was, impossibly, wielding her dagger with her injured hand.
But these were fleeting realizations, ones Mazen forced away as the fight took an abrupt turn. Ahmed was no longer rushing toward the merchant; he was running away from her, taking the diwan steps two at a time as she chased after him.
What are you waiting for? his inner voice screamed between panicked palpitations of his heart. You’re the Stardust Thief! You have to go after them!
The voice was wrong. He was not his brother, the fearless jinn hunter. He was Mazen, the coward prince, and every fiber of his being was screaming at him to run. But when he tried to run, tried to move, he saw the blood splattered on the floor and froze, heart rising into his throat.
He clenched his fists. Forced himself to breathe out.
There didn’t need to be any more killing. He just had to get the collar off Ahmed’s neck.
He forced himself to move, to follow the sounds of battle into the cluster of trees that formed the jinn-made forest. Adrenaline pushed him forward, through the trees with twisted, sharpened branches and past the skirmishes between the living and the dead. Every fight was a desperate clash; the living fought to stay alive while the dead single-mindedly sought to kill. Watching the fighting made Mazen feel as if he were in the middle of some morbid, deadly dance. One where everyone but him knew the steps.
He ran into the next clearing so fast he nearly put himself in the center of Ahmed and Loulie’s fight. He just barely dodged the merchant’s strike as she carved a flaming arc through the air. It was evident from the way she moved that her strength was flagging.
No sooner had Mazen thought this than she stumbled and Ahmed raised his sword.
Mazen said a prayer to the gods and threw himself at Ahmed, feeling the shadow slide from his shoulders as he grabbed the man from behind. Had Mazen been in his own body, Ahmed would have easily been able to throw him off. But beneath Omar’s weight, he stumbled.
“Grab the collar!” cried Mazen as the wali gasped beneath his grasp.
“How did you—” The merchant blinked, then waved her flaming dagger at him. “You grab the collar! You’re the one strangling him!”
By the time Mazen thought to get his fingers around the wali’s throat, Ahmed had regained his footing and heaved him back into a tree. The impact drove the air from Mazen’s lungs. He collapsed to the ground, breathing hard, as the wali turned.
When he lunged, Mazen ducked sideways, but Ahmed’s sword still sliced across his shoulder, cutting fabric and flesh. Mazen yelled in panic before he could help it.
“You are an abomination,” Ahmed hissed. When Loulie rushed toward him, he deftly turned and deflected her strike. “It is because of humans like you that my people suffer. Because of you that they are slaves, even beyond the grave.” He shoved the merchant away—or tried to. The fire on her dagger flared, and Ahmed was forced to pull back.
Mazen put a hand to his wound and felt blood beneath his fingers. Though the cut stung, it was thankfully just a flesh wound. The pain was unimportant. He rose to his feet, drew a blade, and ran at Ahmed.
He and the merchant both missed. Ahmed stepped back, a triumphant grin on his face.
That was when Mazen heard a rustle in the trees. Saw movement in the shadows.
Before Ahmed could turn, a figure darted into the clearing and jumped him from behind. Mazen recognized her voice, even pitched at a scream. In combat, the scowl on Aisha bint Louas’s face was lethal as a knife. Mazen saw it only briefly before she pinned Ahmed to the ground and clawed at his neck.
“Aisha—” Mazen said, breathless. He approached slowly, hand over his injury.
Aisha paused, collar in her hands, eyes cloudy. Mazen rushed toward her. She startled when he grabbed at the collar. It was that moment of surprise that allowed him to pull the relic away. He threw it at the merchant, who barely caught it before it fell.
“Keep it,” he wheezed. “I expect you to neutralize it however you see fit.”
An eerie silence hung over them, punctuated only by the harsh sound of their breathing. Aisha looked at Mazen. Mazen looked at Loulie. Loulie looked at the collar, face ashen.
And then there was a sound: a shuddering inhale from Ahmed, who was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice laced with such shame Mazen had to look away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
It was the merchant who went to him first, who tried to console him when the other hunters arrived covered in blood and grime. It was she who walked with him when the guards took him away. Aisha was about to follow when she noticed Mazen holding his shoulder.