Blood Passage (Dark Caravan Cycle #2) (20 page)

Raif pointed at the camp. “The
Ifrit
are the enemy. Not her.”

“I'm not so certain.” Yezhud's eyes were filled with grief and she turned away, trailing her hand along the ship's railing as she headed toward where Samar stood at the bow, shouting instructions to the crew.

“You don't have to do this, Nalia,” Raif said again.

“Yes I do.”

Lightning blazed in the distance, an electric sword that plunged into the earth.

“
Erg Al-Barq
,” Malek whispered, coming to stand beside them. “Finally.”

NALIA GAZED ACROSS THE FLAT EXPANSE OF SAND AS the crew of the
Sun Chaser
fanned around her, their vessel docked between two dunes. The
fawzel
flew in slow circles, their wings fighting the downpour.

Lightning crackled as it cut through the sky.

“Kajastriya vidim,”
Zanari said to Raif, who stood just a few feet behind Nalia.
Light to the revolution.
“I never thought I'd mean that so literally.”

“Kajastriya vidim,”
he whispered. Nalia couldn't feel his
chiaan
anymore, but she heard the despair in Raif's voice, as though he were already grieving Nalia's death.

Zanari punched him lightly on the arm. “See you out there, little brother.”

Nalia swallowed the lump in her throat as Raif grabbed his sister in a crushing hug. She wouldn't let them lose one another.

Zanari let go and moved further down the dune, joining the Dhoma who waited for the
Sakhim
to rise. She didn't say good-bye to Nalia—didn't even glance in her direction. Whatever friendship they'd had was gone now. Nalia watched her go, hurt. She'd never wanted any of this: slavery to Malek, the ring, even her heritage as a Ghan Aisouri. All of it had been forced on Nalia by the gods and the slave trader who'd stolen her. Not for the first time, Nalia wished she'd died in the palace with the other Ghan Aisouri. What had been the point of surviving?

“Look at it,” Malek breathed. He stared at the dune in wonder, his eyes alight. Nalia had never seen something captivate him so completely. He was usually impossible to impress. “To think that just under that dune is the greatest treasure on Earth . . .” He laughed quietly. “That's a damn fine security system.”

“Why is it so important to you?” Nalia asked.

“You know what it is to feel powerless,” he said softly. “Do I really need to explain?”

Power. It was something she'd never coveted. All her life, Nalia had simply wanted to get through. To survive. First, the grueling practices and training of the Ghan Aisouri. Then, her enslavement to Malek. Nalia had been happy to fade into the background at court, to sneak away to play with her little brother, or roam the wild Qaf range with Thatur, his gryphon wings carrying them far above the peaks. She had never wanted
to be the one an army protected.

Samar came to her side. “The
Sakhim
will rise as soon as you get close to the dune. Don't try to fight them. We will guard you. Just get to the top as fast as you can.”

It will all be over soon,
she thought as she began to walk. Either she would die and be with Bashil and the rest of her caste or she would succeed and have another chance to kill Calar. Nalia didn't really care what happened, so long as the waiting was over. So long as no one else died in her place. The rain poured and she held her hands out, palms up, as she lifted up a soundless prayer to Lathor, goddess of water. The wind howled and she turned her face to its fierce kiss and prayed to Grathali, goddess of air. The ground began to shake and she sank her knees into it as the
Sakhim
rose from their desert tomb, sending her prayers to Tirgan, god of earth. The
fawzel
's
assault on the sand soldiers
began. The air filled with the sound of Dhoma battle cries, harsh, guttural songs of war.

Nalia stared at the lightning. It was time to honor Ravnir and hope he smiled on her as he had on Antharoe. He'd given her ancestor the lightning; would he take it away for Nalia?

She pushed across the field, Raif and Malek a breath away, on either side of her. The thin leather slippers Phara had given her sank into the wet sand, and the gauzy fabric of her Dhoma clothing clung to Nalia's skin. The earth bucked and swayed as the
Sakhim
materialized, but Nalia kept her balance. The years of
Sha'a Rho
made this walk through the monsters' den easier than it should have been. A beast of a soldier with a gaping black hole
for a mouth burst out of the sand to her left. The thing was at least eight feet tall and the sound of its roar put thunder to shame. The jade dagger that never left her side would be useless. Nalia turned away, following Samar's advice, her eyes on the lightning. A
fawzel
swooped down and pecked out the
Sakhim
's
rocky eyes and the creature stumbled, then crashed onto the desert floor, dissolving into the Sahara once more.

All around Nalia, sand flew into the sky, deadly geysers that pushed against the falling rain. The
fawzel
cried out to one another in their bird language, gathering into formations, then breaking apart with astounding speed. A sand spear whistled across the battlefield toward her, and Nalia flipped over it in a graceful arc.

“Still got the magic, I see,” Malek said, coming up beside her as she landed on her feet. He was panting heavily and his shirt was torn, his clothing covered in wet sand. She pushed him to the ground as an arrow made of hard-packed sand sped toward his heart.

“Not the kind that will help me up there,” she said.

It was slow going, a journey spent crawling on her knees as much as running for her life from a cursed army whose only command seemed to have been
destroy
. Malek stayed close, but Raif kept his distance, focused on the fighting. Nalia snuck a look behind her. Seeing Raif in action was a thing of beauty. He had a rough grace as he fought, agile and quick. Efficient.

The scent of battle threatened to overwhelm Nalia with a barrage of memories: the bitter tang of defensive
chiaan
,
scorched
earth, the stench of blood. And the primal roar of it all—death and life and now now
now.

Nalia reached the dune as the battle continued to rage behind her. It had been like running through a mine field. Her limbs shook, weak from illness and the loss of her
chiaan.
Malek lay against the sand, panting.

“If it's all the same to you,” he said, “I say we stop running.”

Nalia rested her knees on the dune, staring up at its peak. “No more running,” she agreed.

Raif was still on the field, his back to her, hands outstretched. His
chiaan
surged from his fingers and he dug his heels into the sand, as though he were trying to keep hold of a wild beast that strained upon its leash. But the beast was inside him and it wanted out. He let go and the
chiaan
landed on the cursed soldiers, turning several to piles of sand
.
Raif stumbled back, his shoulders sagging. Nalia wanted to wrap her skin around him, hide him in the stars—anything to strop the death screaming toward him from all sides.

“You ready?” Malek asked.

“It doesn't matter whether I am or not,” Nalia said. “I don't have a choice.” She pointed to the battle below, where the
Sakhim
continued their hellish punishment of protecting the cave. “And neither do they.”

Nalia stood and crossed to where Raif crouched on the sand, replenishing his
chiaan.
Scrapes from
Sakhim
arrows crisscrossed his arms, and he had a cut over his right eye. She could feel the energy flowing around him, not
chiaan
but a blood lust she'd never
had, a fierceness forged in his earliest years. This was the Raif Djan'Urbi Nalia had secretly observed on the battlefield during the last uprising, standing on a pile of rubble with a defiant fist raised to the sky while the Ghan Aisouri cut down his father.

“I'm going up,” she said.
Chiaan
of every color lanced the air, electric rainbows of light meant to kill an enemy that couldn't die. It was beautiful and terrible.

Raif stood, his hands dripping
chiaan
,
and angled his body toward Nalia, still keeping an eye on the battle below. He gripped her hand. “You can still change your mind.” His voice broke. “Nal.
Change your mind.
”

“It might work,” she whispered.

“It might not.”

Nalia leaned her forehead against his, just for a moment. “I love you, Raif Djan'Urbi.”

Then she headed toward the light.

The sand at the top of the dune was black. Thick tendrils of steam rose up from its surface as the heat of the electric storm made contact with the wet earth. The air was stifling, unbearably hot. Nalia stood just outside the lightning's range, waiting.

“Where does lightning come from, Nalia-jai?” Bashil is sitting with her on the palace roof, staring at a storm far away, over the Arjinnan Sea.

“From the gods,
gharoof
,” she said as the battle raged below. It was as if he were beside her, right now.

“When I get big, I'm going to chase the lightning,” he says. She hugs him closer, her arm around his shoulder.

“And what will you do with it?” Rain pounded Nalia's skin and she slipped out of her shoes and dug her toes into the earth.

“I'll eat it!”

She had chased the lightning across three continents, an ocean, and a desert. She had chased the lightning through the land of the dead, through the fog of grief that had taken over her senses. Running, running and for what?

For Bashil,
she thought, as sudden certainty swept through her. Because his death had to mean more than a vendetta. Because even though he would never see it, her brother deserved a world where he wasn't considered a
keftuhm.
A world where a Ghan Aisouri could love a Djan without fear.
For Raif.
So that he could survive the war and build the utopia he dreamed of.
For me.
This last realization surprised her, but it was true. She'd been chasing lightning for years, straining toward a freedom she never thought would be possible. Lightning was fleeting, true, but when it struck, it could burn through anything.

Even grief.

Nalia peeled off the wet layers of her clothing. The air seared her skin, as though she were on the surface of the sun. She reached
down and gripped handfuls of wet sand and spread it over her body—water and earth together. She drank in the wind and as it filled her lungs, Nalia dove inside herself, pushing deeper, past the surface fear and grief and into the depths. She grabbed hold of the part of her that had broken the bottle and she didn't let go as she rose to the surface, casting aside the despair she'd been drowning in. The elements would speak to her again. The gods would listen. She'd
make
them.

I am Ghan Aisouri,
she thought. Her mother's words came back to her:
Conquer fear and you conquer yourself. Conquer yourself and you conquer the world.

Nalia was not afraid.

“You can't eat lightning,
gharoof
!”

“You can too!” Bashil jumps out of Nalia's arms, and his
chiaan
flits around him as he stabs the air with little bolts of magic. “I bet dragons do it all the time. I bet it tastes like spicy peppers.”

She waited for a break in the lightning; then she stepped into the center of the blackened circle.

Nalia Aisouri'Taifyeh looked up and smiled. She opened her mouth.

Bashil was right.

Spicy peppers and fire, liquid, popping, bright

Burning inside and out

A rush of energy, the earth tipping on its axis, sand everywhere

Light, incandescent, startling, end-of-the-world bright, white

and nothing nothing nothing

Death and awakening in the center of everything

Light as air, hard as stone, breath of sky, tongue of flame

A rush of self, returning, molding, exploring

Yes yes yes

More and more, so much, not enough, too much

A burning boy, a lover's lips, just let go just let go

Blood on a stone wall, black teeth, teeth of eels

Scars on wrists, burning, endless caravan of horrors

A face in dreams, heart in hands,
shalinta
, Kir,
shalinta

Purple eyes, purple smoke, sandalwood and honey and amber

Gods, gods, filling every place inside her

Power, unstoppable

A coronation of blood

An empress is born.

RAIF CRIED OUT AS THE LIGHTNING TORE INTO NALIA. Thunder shook the earth, a sound like the end of the worlds. Her body became the flash of blinding light cast down from the sky. There was no Nalia, just the light, everywhere the light.

The bolt froze, suspended between sky and earth. Steam blanketed the dune's crest, covering the place where Nalia had been. Raif scrambled up the dune, flinching as a wave of wet heat rolled toward him.

“Nalia!”

He screamed her name, over and over. His feet slipped on the sand and he clawed at the dune, his arms propelling him up the slope. The heat was a wall and he could go no further. He waited while she burned, helpless. Terrified he'd smell the smoked-meat stench of dying flesh. The rain stopped. And—

Silence.

Complete, as though the universe were holding its breath. Raif turned. The battle below was over. The
Sakhim
stood, impotent, staring up at the place where Nalia had been just moments before, their faces a mixture of failure and relief. A gust of wind tore through their ranks and their bodies disintegrated, swept across the Sahara by Grathali's fists of air.

The Dhoma stood in a line, waiting. Zanari and Malek stared at the top of the dune in horror and awe as the lightning disappeared from the sky.

Raif caught the musky sweetness of amber on the wind. Not so long ago, that scent meant death and terror. It meant the Ghan Aisouri were near, scimitars in hand. But now it just meant home.

Raif's head whipped back to where Nalia had been standing only moments before, smiling up at the deadly sky. The steam on top of
Erg Al-Barq
cleared and a spear of violet light burst from a cloud of purple smoke. The light shifted and pulsed in the plumes of amber-scented evanescence, then dimmed until all that remained was the glint of skin in the milky light of a desert moon.

He sprinted over the dune's ledge. Nalia lay in the center of an eight-pointed star burned into the sand, her naked body curled in a fetal position. He couldn't tell if she was alive. Her body was so still. But whole. Unburned. Luminescent.

“Nalia?”

His
rohifsa
,
the song of his heart, turned her head. Raif fell to his knees as she opened her violet eyes.