Omar’s arm shot out. Mazen felt cold fingers on his wrist, an icy heat in his veins. Something shimmered unnaturally on Omar’s ear. His… earring?
Mazen gasped as the world faded into a canvas of muted colors. Beneath it, Omar’s voice was a barely discernible whisper. “If only you knew, Mazen, how terrible our father was.” The colors reshaped themselves into a crystal clear image of the sultan, who loomed above him.
“Look at your hands,” he commanded, and he had no choice but to obey.
His hands were covered in black blood. His blood.
“You have the blood of a sinner in you,” the sultan said. “You are a blight on this world.” Each word was like the lash of a whip. “There is only one way to remedy this.” He crouched down and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look into his eyes. They had the same eyes—he’d always hated that they had the same eyes.
“Show me you are not like her,” the sultan said. “The jinn are monsters; kill them.”
“And me?” His voice—Omar’s voice—was soft, weak. “Am I a monster?”
The sultan shoved a black dagger into his hands. He recognized it; it was the dagger the sultan had forced him to soak in his blood. Jinn blood can heal things, he had said. Let us see if your tainted blood can destroy them.
“That has yet to be determined.” The sultan pointed at the knife. “If you are not a monster, you will do as I command and slay the jinn. Do you understand?”
He swallowed. “I understand.”
The memory dissipated, and Omar stood before him again, smiling. Only, this smile was not coy or twisted. It was despondent. Pained.
“If you would blame anyone for this, Mazen, blame our father. He told me once that the only way to rightfully gain something was to steal it. This is nothing personal.” Omar hauled him to his feet and out of the chamber.
Phantom colors still danced before Mazen’s eyes, an afterimage of the vision he’d seen. It had to be magic, but he didn’t understand where it had come from.
He glanced at the black knives on his brother’s belt—the ones Mazen had used to decimate ghouls with only a strike—and at the smudge of black blood on Omar’s arm. You have the blood of a sinner in you.
The words hung over his head, an ax waiting to fall.
67
AISHA
Aisha saw Omar’s reflection first. He was smiling—the smirk he wore when he was flaunting a victory. It had never bothered Aisha before, but seeing it plastered on his face now, as he dragged Prince Mazen behind him, made her bristle.
Omar walked past without sparing her a glance. Mazen, however, lifted his gaze. The sultan’s youngest son looked as if he’d been in a fight; there was a smear of blood on his swollen jaw, and he was holding his arm at an awkward angle, as if he were in pain.
Aisha forced herself to look stoically back at him even as his expression crumpled and her heart fell. She turned her attention to the lamp Omar was holding in his other hand.
The object didn’t speak to her like relics did, and yet she had the distinct impression it was alive. Alive and unhappy.
Omar stopped before the merchant. “Midnight Merchant,” he said.
Loulie glared. “I see you’ve added patricide to your list of accomplishments.”
“You never were good at greetings, were you?” He gestured toward Tawil, who lowered his bow and went to stand behind Mazen. Then he glanced up at Aisha and made a flicking motion toward the merchant.
He commands you like a dog, the Resurrectionist observed.
Aisha wordlessly stepped away from Qadir and grabbed the merchant. The jinn looked up in alarm as she dragged Loulie away. Aisha managed to pull her back a couple of feet before the merchant broke free of her grasp, whipping around and grazing her with her knife.
Aisha stepped back. She glimpsed the red beading on her skin and exhaled shakily.
It didn’t matter that she had been brought back by an ifrit. She was still human. Still herself, and she would not let a conniving ifrit manipulate her.
The Resurrectionist sighed. The only one you are fooling is yourself, human.
Aisha scowled at the pity in the ifrit’s voice. She forced herself to focus on Omar, who was lowering himself into a crouch before the merchant. “I hope you were just as pleasant with Imad,” he said conversationally. “Which, speaking of, I must thank you for dealing with him. By the time I realized he was a threat, you’d made him into a corpse.”
Had the merchant been a jinn, Aisha suspected her glower would have set Omar on fire. “Is that what you do to thieves who get caught? You kill them to destroy evidence of the murders you had them commit?”
Omar’s smile fell. “Ah. I’m afraid in that regard, I take after my dearly departed father.” He stepped away from them. “‘Where jinn are involved, there are always casualties,’ he used to say. The kings’ relics are a closely guarded royal secret; it would not do to leave behind survivors.”
Aisha clasped her hands behind her back, breathed out softly. This story had never bothered her before. So why did it unsettle her now?
Because you realize the dead do speak, the Resurrectionist said. That even when they are gone, they speak through the loved ones they leave behind.
Aisha stared at the merchant. At the mournful slouch of her shoulders and the anger burning in her eyes. “So you killed my tribe because it was inconvenient to let them live?”
A shadow passed over Omar’s face as he looked at her. “Not all of us are lucky enough to die martyrs. For most, death is only ever happenstance. You think you are special, al-Nazari? That your tribe was special? You are all only human. Weak, fallible, and mortal.” His eyes flashed. “Ahmed believed himself to be invincible too. That conviction was his downfall.”
The merchant stiffened, her face going dangerously blank. “What did you do to Ahmed?”
“The wali was too curious for his own good. He thought to sneak around my palace and unravel my plans. He came close.” He sighed. “But even hunters can be cut down.”
Aisha, trapped in her own mind, did not see the merchant shift until it was too late.
Loulie lunged toward Omar, her dagger burning bright with fire as she thrust it forward—
And stabbed the prince in the shoulder.
Aisha was too shocked to move. Fire licked at her king’s clothes and face as he stared at the blade impaled in his shoulder. And then he smiled.
And disappeared.
A relic? Aisha thought at the same time the queen said, His earring. It is ifrit magic.
The merchant fell, still clutching the dagger she had driven into Omar’s shoulder. Aisha whirled at the sound of Omar’s voice, which was coming from her right. “Tell me, bodyguard. Are you the jinn king I sent my thieves to find all those years ago?” The prince stood in front of Qadir, completely unharmed. Aisha stared, uncomprehending.
Qadir did not respond with words. His eyes flashed red as he cut a hand through the air.
And set the prince on fire.
This time, Aisha saw Omar ripple like water before he disappeared. She startled when he appeared right beside her. “No matter.” He smiled. “My thieves may have failed me then, but I will have your relic now.” In a single motion, he pulled a dagger from his sleeve and ran it across his palm, drawing… black blood?
A memory sparked in her mind of black blood oozing from Prince Mazen’s wound. He had been in Omar’s body then. Aisha had assumed it was a side effect of the relic, but there was no bangle on Omar’s arm when he pressed his bloodied hand to the lamp.
There was a beat of silence, followed by a rush of intense heat. Aisha braced her feet as a dense smoke burst from the lamp and swept across the area. She could barely see, could barely breathe. But she could hear Omar’s voice beneath the crackling storm. “Jinn king!” he yelled. “You are bound to me and you will serve me.”
All at once the smoke withdrew. Aisha gasped air in through her lungs as she looked up.