Qadir’s voice, nothing but a memory, echoed in her mind. We jinn live on in the items most precious to us. It is how we guide the living, even after death.
Loulie did not know what had happened to the collar and the shamshir, but she knew the knife Qadir had given her all those years ago was important to him. Other than the compass, it was the only belonging he’d brought with him from the jinn realm.
Imad smiled at the horror on her face. “Ah, so I was right. You do have his relic.” He pocketed the knife.
Loulie swallowed. She needed that knife, even if it was just a piece of Qadir.
“I must apologize, al-Nazari.” Imad jerked his hand to the side. She realized only when her head was yanked in the same direction that he was pulling the shackle’s chain. “I don’t mean to hate you,” he said. “You are as much a victim in all of this as I, and yet you have prospered as I suffered. While I faded into obscurity, you became a legend.”
For a few moments, the chamber was quiet, the only sounds the crunch of gold beneath the men’s boots. Loulie focused on the sand spiderwebbed between the tiles. It was the only way to keep her panic at bay.
Imad stepped closer. He yanked her up by her hair, forced her gaze up. And that was when she saw his knife. Not Qadir’s blade, but a nondescript weapon she didn’t recognize. Imad pressed it to her throat.
“Such a blissful quiet this is. I wonder what it would take for you to break it. You ought to scream, merchant. The prince will never find you otherwise.”
She wasn’t weak. She would not scream. She wouldn’t—
The pain was sudden and fierce, lancing through her veins with an intensity that made her world flare white. An anguished groan left her lips.
“Have you ever stopped to think what you would be had we not killed your tribe, al-Nazari?” She could feel blood running down her collarbone, seeping into her scarves. “You would have been nothing. Just a woman, married to some Bedouin man.”
She could feel her heartbeat. In her head, her ears, her fingertips.
“Be grateful you lived a fulfilling life. That you were not like me, banished.” He loosened his grip on her hair. She collapsed to the ground, gasping.
Tears pricked her eyes. Don’t cry. Ran down her cheeks. Don’t cry.
“Even quiet, you’re as stubborn as a mule.” He tilted his head at her, gaze thoughtful. And then he said, “Hold her down.”
His companions grabbed her. Loulie managed to punch one man in the arm and bite the other on the wrist before they shoved her to the ground. “Turn her over and hold her legs.”
She writhed beneath her captors, but they were too strong. She felt the kiss of the knife against her ankles.
“Please.” She felt the needle pin her throat. Felt the pain shudder through her body. And she didn’t care. “Please.” Her voice climbed an octave.
“You ought to have begged for mercy earlier. Perhaps I would have taken pity on you.”
Imad stabbed the knife into her ankles.
44
AISHA
Nine years ago, when Aisha had become a thief, she’d made a promise to her king.
I will not run.
As a child, she had fled from danger. She had run through burning fields as her family was slaughtered and her village was destroyed. Then the jinn had found her, and they had carved a mark into her skin for every family member who died trying to save her.
So Aisha had promised never to run again. She had vowed to become powerful enough to face her adversaries head-on, so that they no longer had the ability to drag her back, screaming.
Nine years later, she had broken her promise.
The halls were a blur as she ran through the ruins, the world tilted and off-kilter as she struggled to see through one eye. She sprinted clumsily through the halls, the prince’s sword in her hands, and she thought, I do not want to die.
Imad had said she was replaceable. She’d always thought herself above such fears. But he was right; though she had been chosen by him, Omar would never risk his life for her.
She collapsed against a wall when she was sure her assailants’ footsteps had faded, using the moment of reprieve to gather herself and catch her breath. She needed to find the prince.
The prince who had, with some strange magic, saved her.
Aisha lowered herself into a crouch and glanced around the corner. She tried to ignore the throbbing pain behind her eye. It was useless now; she only hoped it wasn’t infected.
She heard the soft thud of footsteps behind her and whirled, heart beating in her throat as she searched the periphery for Imad’s men.
“Aisha,” a voice whispered from the ether. And then Prince Mazen appeared out of thin air. Or rather, his face did. Aisha stared, flabbergasted, at his floating head.
“It’s me,” the prince said. He sounded out of breath, as if he’d just sprinted through the corridor. “Mazen.”
She remembered the magic Imad had used to appear in Omar’s body. She raised her sword. “Prove it. In Dhyme, I said you were confusing two professions. What were they?”
For a few moments the prince just stared at her. Then he inhaled sharply and said, “I remember. You told me you were meant to be my bodyguard, not my nursemaid.”
Aisha suppressed a sigh of relief as she rose slowly from her crouch and approached him. She studied the magic he was wearing. It seemed to be a cloak—when she looked closely, she could make out the fuzzy outline of his body. “So that’s how you snuck into the chamber. What kind of twisted magic is this?”
“The useful kind.” He laughed weakly. “At least, it’s useful when you’re not being chased by magic-smelling ghouls.” He cast a nervous look over his shoulder. Seemingly satisfied that he was no longer being pursued by undead creatures, he peeled the magic off him, revealing both his previously invisible body and the cloak that had made it so. He dropped the fabric to the floor. Aisha watched in awe as it stretched into his shadow. “I think it’s from the shadow jinn.”
A realization snapped into place. Omar had confided in her that he hadn’t been able to find the shadow jinn’s relic after defeating it in the sultan’s diwan. Now Aisha knew why.
She snorted. “It’s a magic that suits you.”
The prince frowned. “Because I’m a coward?”
She paused, remembering she’d called him that in the Wanderer’s Sanctuary. That he would bring up such a flippant barb now, when they were in such peril, made her laugh. “That’s one way of putting it. It’s—”
Footsteps. Two pairs. Coming from around the corner.
Aisha moved on instinct, pressing herself against the wall and drawing her sword. Her grip on the foreign blade was awkward, but it would suffice. She was not sentimental about her weapons. All that mattered—all that had ever mattered—was that they could cut. She pressed a finger to her lips as the prince hurriedly threw his shadow over his head and vanished.
Soon the footsteps were right beside her. Aisha lunged. The men reacted too slowly. She looped her arms around one’s neck, pressed the edge of her blade into his throat, and glared over his shoulder at his companion. “One more step and I’ll cut his throat.”
The second man was undeterred. He rushed her with his blade.
But the assault never came.
One moment he was running toward her. The next, he was struggling in place with his sword arm bent awkwardly behind him. Aisha couldn’t see the prince, but she could hear his quavering voice coming from behind the captured man. “Tell us where the merchant is.”
The assailant beneath Aisha’s blade shuddered. “In our treasure chamber.”
Aisha hesitated. A trap?
The prince’s prisoner shifted. And then—he broke free, wrenching away Mazen’s invisible hand and throwing himself against the wall. The prince gasped.