Blood Passage (Dark Caravan Cycle #2) (21 page)

You cannot have the moon without the night. Its light needs the darkness to kiss. Who else can hold it but the shadows? What else can make it shine?

—The Sadranishta

BY THE TIME MALEK AND THE OTHERS REACHED THE top of
Erg Al-Barq
,
Nalia was standing beside Raif, once again wearing the Dhoma rags she'd discarded. In all his years on Earth, he'd never seen anything more lovely than the sight of Nalia's naked body cloaked in lightning.

For a moment, Malek stood on the lip of the dune, drinking in her violet eyes and the rosy blush that graced her cheeks. Nalia was alive. Impossibly. More alive than he'd ever seen her. He wanted to bend the knee, swear his fealty. There was no doubt that he was in the presence of royalty.

“Rohifsa,”
Raif was whispering, his lips against Nalia's newly shorn hair as he held her against him.

Rohifsa.
Malek hated the word. Hated that it had come out of
Raif's lips. He'd heard it before, a term of endearment between Amir and Saranya.

The stain of his brother's blood seemed darker now. After so many years of ignoring it, Malek couldn't stop thinking about what he'd done. What he'd taken away. It was as if Bashil's death had killed Amir all over again, only this time Malek couldn't stop
feeling
it.

Feeling hurt like a bitch. No wonder he'd avoided it all these years.

“The lightning is strong, no?” Samar said as he joined the circle forming around Nalia.

“That's a bit of an understatement,” Malek said.

Phara swept past Malek, her healer's robes billowing in the breeze behind her. “Nalia. What can I do?”

Nalia smiled. “Nothing.” Her eyes filled as she held out her hand. Phara gasped when she touched Nalia's skin.

“So
that's
a Ghan Aisouri's
chiaan
,” Phara said.

Nalia squeezed the healer's hand, then crossed the blackened circle, no longer the site of an endless lightning storm, and stood before Samar.

“Shundai,”
she said. “I owe you my life.”

Samar pressed his hand to his heart in reply. “The lives of my ancestors are payment enough.” He paused, searching Nalia's eyes. “You really are a daughter of the gods.”

“I'm not sure that's such a good thing,” she said. But she didn't deny it. That, Malek thought, was interesting. More than interesting.

“What was it like?” Anso asked. Malek couldn't put his finger
on it, but there was something wrong with that jinni, with her sallow skin and eyes too big for her face.

A small smiled played on Nalia's lips. “It tasted like spicy peppers.”

Raif laughed.

Malek's eyes traveled to the shape on the sand. “I'll be damned.” He knelt down and ran his hand along the nearest point of the star. “The
khatem l-hekma
,” he said, shaking his head. It was suddenly real, this ring he had dreamed of for so long. This ring he needed on his finger.

A
fawzel
cried out in the sky and as it dove toward the dune, its body beginning to swirl in a flutter of ebony feathers and green evanescence. Moments later, Yezhud stepped onto the sand. Malek stared. It was the first time he'd seen the shape shifters change form.

“Of course,” he whispered, suddenly understanding one of the
Arabian Nights'
mysteries. “Solomon spoke the language of the birds.” Shape shifters. Solomon didn't speak a magical bird language—he simply spoke to the birds as he would any of his jinn.

The
fawzel
hurried across the sand and stopped before Samar. “The Ifrit are headed this way. One of their scouts must have seen the
Sun Chaser.
”

“How are our people?” asked Samar.

Yezhud shook her head. “They fight.
Inshallah
the Ifrit will leave once they see that the Aisouri and her companions are not in the camp.”

The Dhoma around the circle were silent. Samar clapped his hands once. “Those coming with me, stay here. The rest of you,
back to the camp.
Jahal'alund.
” He turned to his wife and spoke quietly to her.

“No!” she said, her eyes flashing.

“You must,” Samar said. “The
fawzel
need you.”

“
I
need you,” Yezhud whispered, her bottom lip trembling.

Samar drew his wife away and after a short, whispered conversation, he brushed the tears from her cheeks and kissed her forehead. Moments later, she was an ebony bird with a golden breast, rising into the sky.

Malek studied the remaining jinn. There were five Dhoma, Raif, Zanari, and Nalia. Including himself, that made nine.

“I'm sorry, brother,” Raif said as the
Sun Chaser
departed, its carved-ghoul masthead feasting on the sand.

“I must protect her. She'll be fighting, but at least outside the cave she can fly away. Escape.” Samar glanced at Nalia. “I'm sure you understand.”

Raif nodded. “I do.”

Malek turned away.
He
was the one who had saved Nalia's life in Marrakech and, later, in the desert. It had been
his
body that never gave in to Calar's torture,
his
arms that had protected Nalia from a sandstorm that would have buried her alive. But to all of them—the Dhoma, Raif, even Nalia—Malek was nothing but a slave owner. No one on Earth would ever believe that Malek Alzahabi understood what it meant to bleed for someone he loved. Or that he wanted to do it again. For her. Always for her. How else to atone for enslaving the person he cared most about in the world? How else to earn her forgiveness . . . her love?

He scanned the top of the dune. All he could see was a patch
of blackened sand that had been struck by lightning for thousands of years.

“Where's the entrance to the cave?” he asked.

Malek wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but certainly more than this. The stories spoke of twenty-five gates made of obsidian and brass pillars that, from a distance, looked like twin flames.

Nalia held up her left arm. It had the similar henna-like tattoos that were on her right arm and hands except for the eight-pointed star: the Seal of Solomon. It lit up, pulsing deep red, like an open vein. She looked at Raif and he held out his own arm, with its identical, glowing star.

“We're standing on the entrance,” Nalia said. “Everyone step away. I don't know how this is going to open or what's beneath the sand.”

The jinn moved back, leaving just Nalia and Raif in the center of the star. She looked at Raif, but he shook his head.

“I'm fine right here,” he said.

The moon was high above them and as Nalia slipped her jade dagger out of the leather holster at her waist, Malek couldn't help but think they were about to make a sacrifice to an ancient and terrible deity.

Nalia whispered over the dagger, then held her palm above the sand. She slid the blade over her skin, quick and deep, her face calm. As her blood hit the ground, the dune began to cave in on itself, the black circle becoming a gaping hole, a mouth starved. Nalia tried to roll away as the dune shifted, but there was no time. Raif grabbed hold of her as they toppled into the hole, swept up
in a whirlpool of sand. Malek's feet flew out from under him as the ground gave way and his shout was lost in the roar of the deluge as it pulled him down, faster and faster. He tried to grab hold of something to slow his fall, but there was only sand, bodies slamming into his, and terrorized screams.
Chiaan
of every color swirled above him as the jinn attempted to evanesce, but the sand whisked the magic away.

“Nalia!” he shouted, but his cries were lost in the Sahara's skin.

He hit the ground, hard, and a stream of Arabic curses flew from his mouth. It was pitch black, and the sliver of moon that had been in the sky disappeared as the dune rebuilt itself over the entrance.

“Fire and blood!” he heard nearby.

“Zanari?” he said.

“Oh great, the
pardjinn
survived,” the irritable jinni muttered.

“Immortal, remember?” Malek said.

“Raif?” Nalia. Of course he'd be the first one she'd want to find.

“I'm here.” Raif groaned. “Phara, I hope you're good at setting broken ribs,” he called into the darkness.

“It's my specialty,” said the healer's voice, a bit farther away. “And Nalia, let me take a look at your hand. It'll get infected if I don't heal it.”

“I don't suppose any of you thought to bring a flashlight,” Malek said.

An orb of glowing light appeared in the palm of each jinni's hand.

“Bright enough for you?” Raif asked with a smirk.
Little shit.

“Er, right,” Malek said. “Now what?”

Zanari pointed to a towering statue of a man seated atop a horse a few feet away. “Maybe he knows.”

Malek gaped at the statue, a legend come to life. “I wouldn't be surprised if we found Aladdin's lamp while we're down here,” he said.

The jinn glanced at him, confused.

“Magic carpets?” he tried.

“I think the
pardjinn
hit his head on the way down,” Zanari said.

Malek gave up. If this place was anything like it was in
The Arabian Nights
,
they'd find out soon enough what the cave had in store for them. He looked at their little group—it was unlikely all of them would see the light of day again.

He had no doubt Raif's fellow jinn would back up him and his sister when they got to the ring. The last thing the Dhoma wanted was another human Master King. He didn't mind getting his hands dirty, but Malek hoped the cave would kill them before he had to.

Nalia hugged the darkness, watching as the others began inspecting the brass horseman. She desperately needed to be alone, to take in all that had just happened. The sphere of
chiaan
in Nalia's hands cast violet shadows on the rocky walls beneath the dune and bathed her skin in its familiar, tingling sensation. It
pulsed
inside her, a river that raced through her veins, more power than she'd ever felt in her life. It seemed the gods had been listening to her prayers, after all.

She could still taste the lightning.

“Nalia. What do you think?” Malek was motioning her toward the statue.

She moved closer and read the inscription at its base.
For whosoever wishes to gaze upon the City of Brass, he need only offer me his hand and I will guide him thence.

“In
The Arabian Nights
,
the horseman leads the travelers into the City of Brass.” Malek shook his head. “I can't believe this is actually here.”

Nalia released the ball of light in her hand so that it lay suspended in the air above her as she walked slowly around the statue. On the tip of the horseman's middle right finger there was a tiny eight-pointed star.

“Here's what we're looking for,” she said, pointing to the star. The others drew closer. “This is the Seal of Solomon. Antharoe carved the seal throughout the cave beneath the City of Brass to guide us. Well, not
us.
Whatever Aisouri deemed it necessary to retrieve the ring.” Nalia narrowed her eyes at Malek. “Or whichever Aisouri was
forced
to retrieve the ring.”

Malek nodded to Raif. “Seems to me there's a lot of ways to
force
an Aisouri to do something you want.”

“Enough,” Zanari said. “Gods, this is going to be a long trip.”

“This is all we have?” said a low voice to Nalia's left. Anso. In the darkness of the cave, her face had an almost ghoulish aspect, her skin stretched taut over the bones. “A few stars carved by a
dead jinni? A map—now that's helpful. Stars? Ridiculous.”

“The stars
are
the map,” Nalia said. “There are eight of them—one for each of the points on Solomon's Sigil. When we find the eighth star, we find the sigil.”

“How are we going to get through a city covered in sand?” asked Phara.

“There are passages under the dune leading to it,” Nalia said. “We just have to find the right one. I'm guessing this guy will help us.” She pointed to the brass statue. “And then the cave is below that.
Vasalo celique
.”
Follow the stars.

The wound on her hand was still raw from opening the cave's entrance, so she passed her dagger to Raif and held out her other palm. “Please?” she asked.

As he took her hand, Nalia felt the rush of his
chiaan
and their eyes locked. For a moment they were the only two people in the cave. She looked away from him, afraid of the feeling creeping into her face. She focused on Zanari's words:
What the two of you have—it's reckless. How many people need to suffer before you see that?

He turned her hand over, and gently ran his fingers over her palm. The dagger's blade stung as it cut through her skin and when Raif let go, she pressed her bloodied palm against the horseman's cold bronze hand.
For whosoever wishes to gaze upon the City of Brass, he need only offer me his hand and I will guide him thence
. The statue's eyes snapped open, eyes of pure fire that stared at nothing, and the horse reared its legs. Nalia darted to the side, narrowly missing the horse's hooves.

The horseman's hand pointed to the right. Then, just as
suddenly as it had come to life, its eyes closed and the horseman was still once more.

“Well, I'd say that was pretty clear,” Malek said.

“Ready?” Raif asked Nalia, after she'd rubbed some of Phara's cream onto her palm. He put his hand on her arm and she tried to ignore the joy that simple touch gave her.

Nalia gently shrugged off his hand and nodded. “Yes. No time like the present.”

She looked away from the hurt and confusion that flashed in his eyes. It cut her more deeply than her jade dagger ever could.

Nalia led the way as the group headed in the direction the horseman had pointed, walking for what felt like hours on an ancient cobblestone road. A wall of sand stood to their right and an endless wall of black obsidian on their left, the top of which was covered by the underside of the dune. Every hour or so they would come upon an ornate gate carved into the wall, but no matter what magic Nalia tried, the gate wouldn't open.