Once the symbols had managed to sustain their eerie glow, Isuke shifted her gaze to Khalid. “Give me your hand.”
Shahrzad’s teeth stayed on edge as Khalid extended his palm. He did not flinch as Isuke used the glowing blade to slice a thin gash above the existing one. As the drops of crimson struck the dagger’s surface, the metal changed from a white-hot blue to a fiery red. It pulsed with a heartbeat of its own, its symbols rippling with the light of a passing star.
Everything around them darkened with the same sudden intensity.
Her face devoid of emotion, Isuke wiped the blood away and restored the blade to its jeweled sheath. She started to return the dagger to Shahrzad, but did not relinquish her hold on it.
When Shahrzad’s hand brushed across the metal sheath, it felt as cold as death.
“Use the key to open the book, but only when you are ready to destroy it,” the sorceress said to Khalid in furtive tones. “Repeat the same ritual you just saw: use this dagger to slice open your skin, and drip your blood onto the blade. Then pierce the dagger through the book’s pages before setting it aflame.” She stopped as if in consideration. “The book will fight you. It will scream. Do whatever must be done to set torch to it. For the fire will take your curse with it as the book’s ashes are scattered to the winds. This I swear to you, by my name and the name of my ancestors before me.”
Isuke’s fingers curved like claws over Shahrzad’s wrist, where the mark from earlier remained. Then and only then did she show any sign of emotion. Her lips drew back over her teeth in a sneer. Two vertical lines appeared at the bridge of her nose.
“Do what must be done, girl. Destroy the book and free us of a terrible burden. But fail, and its weight will no longer be my family’s alone . . .” The sorceress’s eyes bled into pools of obsidian. “But yours as well.”
TO SLEIGHT AND FEINT
SHAHRZAD WAS AT A LOSS.
She’d tried for three days straight.
For three days, she’d feigned interest in her father’s book. She’d sat alongside him in his tiny tent and listened while he explained the origins of its magic. She’d smiled as he’d tried to tell her how he’d gone about painstakingly translating its pages. Painstakingly memorizing its contents.
All under the pretext of saving her.
Saving her?
A likely story.
Especially now that Shahrzad knew his reasons for prizing the book so highly. For protecting it, even through his fog of delirium. Now that she realized how its evil paled in comparison to its possibilities.
The power to smite a kingdom.
To lord over others with impunity.
Before, Shahrzad would never have believed her father could be so enraptured by the thought of power. But the proof sat before her, day in and day out. Her father’s eyes pooled with a feverish light, his scarred palms stroking over his bare scalp, as if seeking a reminder of all that had occurred.
All that his actions had brought about.
Though Jahandar had said he did not intend for such death and destruction to strike at the heart of Rey—that all he’d intended to do was save her—Shahrzad could not shake the feeling of doubt that settled upon her.
For her father could not meet her eyes when he said these things.
As such, it had taken all her efforts to conceal her horror when her father revealed that Reza bin-Latief had requested his help with future endeavors.
Future endeavors? Of what sort?
Her skin crawled at the thought.
Tariq’s forces had already managed to secure two nearby strongholds along the border between Khorasan and Parthia. Shahrzad had warned Khalid last night, and though he’d begun to rally his bannermen to Rey several weeks ago, the city’s beleaguered state made the possibility of organizing a force to retake the border a difficult one. Rey’s standing army remained in shambles. It would take time for Khalid to launch a counteroffensive.
Time they did not have.
So Shahrzad continued to try to inveigle her father to turn over his book.
To rectify the curse’s blight in advance of the war.
Alas, Jahandar refused to let it out of his sight. He slept with the book pressed to his chest and its key hanging from a thin chain around his neck.
How was she ever to take the book from her father and deliver it to Khalid if he would not part with it, even for a moment?
I should simply tell Baba the truth. And ask him to give me the book.
Shahrzad had considered this many times. Especially that first day. A part of her had wanted to believe her father would be willing to do anything to give his daughter the love and happiness life had so often denied him.
But when she looked in his eyes as he spoke of the book in such reverent tones—as he discussed the sense of purpose its magic had given him—she knew he would not easily part with it. Even if it cost Shahrzad her happiness.
This realization pained her more than she cared to admit.