Blood Passage (Dark Caravan Cycle #2) (35 page)

NALIA SAT ATOP ONE OF THE DUNES BORDERING THE camp. The Sahara lay before her, calm and silver in the light of the full moon. Its immensity was comforting. She liked being a tiny speck on the surface of its vast, ever-changing skin. The desert reminded her that the universe was bigger than she was, bigger than portals and Calar and dead masters and murdered brothers. She lay on her back and closed her eyes, her fingers automatically straying to Bashil's worry stone. It was cold out here, far away from the warmth of the Dhoma fire, but there was no wind and she'd manifested a thick shawl to cover her
sawala
. The tunic and leggings were comfortable, yet elegant. No more clothes from Earth for her; she wanted to feel like a jinni again, not a slave to human wishmakers.

The problem was, Nalia didn't know what that meant
anymore. Being suddenly free after years of exile and slavery was disorienting. She had become so used to being the Nalia Earth had forced her to be that she had no idea who she
really
was. The girl she'd been before the coup had died in that cellar with the other Ghan Aisouri. The slave who'd been desperate to free her brother had burned with his body. The stoic warrior who'd fought her way to Solomon's sigil was no longer under the compulsion of a wish or a promise. And now . . . .

Nalia kept hearing herself say those awful words to Yezhud:
I am your empress.

Where had that come from? It'd been as if someone had stolen Nalia's voice and spoken for
her. There'd been no thrill of power when the words left her mouth: just a calm certainty, a rightness. But how could asserting her claim to the throne feel right when Nalia had no desire to rule Arjinna? The Amethyst Crown held no allure for her. She agreed with Raif—Arjinna was better served being ruled by its jinn. To her, the palace was nothing more than a graveyard now.

She dreaded returning to the tent she shared with Raif. How could she explain what she'd said by the fire if she didn't even understand it herself? He hated the royal family. He believed the monarchy was evil and had spent his whole life fighting against such consolidated power. How could he trust that she wasn't a threat to his revolution after what she'd said? It didn't matter that the words
long live the empress
had slipped past his lips—neither of them would live very long if he said them when anyone else was around.

The
tavrai
would string me up if they heard me talking like this.

Nalia sat up, suddenly, desperately anxious. She had to talk to him. They'd been through so much—she couldn't bear him being upset with her. Or leaving her. He was all she had.

When Nalia reached the tent, a sigh of relief escaped her lips. A dim light streamed from underneath the flap: he'd decided to stay. She suddenly felt silly for doubting Raif. He'd been willing to die for her—he certainly wasn't going to leave her after one ill-advised comment. Nalia ducked inside, then pulled the flap shut behind her. They'd been in a hurry, and the tent was small, with nothing more than a few thick rugs strewn on the floor and a mattress in one corner, covered with heavy blankets. It was all newly manifested, but it felt like home. Maybe because it was theirs and blocked out the rest of the world.

Raif was sitting on a rug, shirtless, squinting at a small mirror. A single lamp hung from the center of the tent, casting a rose-tinted glow over their few possessions. His face was covered in shaving cream and he held a razor blade in his hand. He looked up when she came in.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was soft, guarded.

Nalia sat across from him, folding her legs underneath her so that she rested on her knees. “Hello.”

He gestured toward his face. “I tried doing it the old-fashioned way, but I can never manifest a perfect shave.”

“Do you want help?”

“Please.” He handed her the blade.

She rinsed it in the bowl of water beside his knee and leaned toward him. He smelled like summer and sandalwood. Nalia
ran the blade along his cheek, holding her breath as Raif's eyes watched her. His energy made her blood heat and she knew she should be thinking about what she'd said by the fire, but he was so close and they were alone, finally alone. She was too full of want and need and the feeling she always got in her stomach whenever he was around. The silence felt dangerous and she wasn't sure if it was in a good way.

“You look like your father with this beard,” she said.

“That's why I'm shaving it off.”

Nalia glanced at him, furrowing her brow.

“I'm not him,” Raif said. “And I don't want people at home to see me and think I'll be the leader he was. I would only disappoint. Especially now,” he added.

What did he mean by that? She was afraid to ask.

“You're very good at what you do, Raif.” Nalia smiled softly. “You certainly terrified Yezhud.”

He grunted and she continued her path across his face: shave, rinse, shave, rinse. Outside, a wind picked up and the grains of sand brushing the sides of the tent sounded like the soft patter of rain. She could hear the other jinn in the camp moving about—quiet conversation, the clatter of dishware. Inside the tent, there was only the scrape of the razor against Raif's skin, the sound of his breath.

“Nalia.” She looked up. “Tell me what happened out there.” His voice was gentle, concerned.

“I don't know,” she said. She dipped the blade in the water and set it over the bowl, then manifested a towel. “Something . . . came over me. I don't understand what happened or why it
happened. It wasn't me and yet for the first time in my life I felt like I was real. Does that make sense?”

He ran a callused finger across her jaw. “Yes and no. Mostly yes.”

She began wiping the shaving cream off his skin.

“I've been a fool, Nal.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he pressed a finger against her lips. “Just listen to me for a second. You are the most powerful jinni alive and as much as I hate it, according to our ancient laws you
are
the heir to the throne. It was stupid of me to think you could be one of the
tavrai
or that it would somehow be easy for you to reject the crown.”

“Raif, I don't want to be empress—”

“But you are,” he said. The sadness in his eyes was like a knife thrust between her ribs.

She rested her forehead against his chest and he smoothed the short locks of her hair as he continued.

“I didn't really understand before. All I knew of the Ghan Aisouri was their cruelty,” Raif said. “But I know
you.
” He lifted her chin with his finger. “I've seen how your power can be used for the highest good. I know your heart. And I can't deny that the gods have given you all this power for a reason. Maybe it's not to rule, but it's for something bigger than you and I, that much is obvious.”

“Right now, I only know two things for certain,” she said. “I love you. That's one. The other is that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure Calar is destroyed. Other than that . . .” She shrugged. “I just want that house near the Forest of Sighs you dreamed up for us. Not a palace or a throne.”

This was the truth of her, as she knew it now. Nalia reached up and let her fingers graze the smooth surface of his cheeks. He leaned into her touch.

“When we were stranded at Solomon's altar, I watched you all night,” he said. “Couldn't sleep.”

He reached out and brushed his finger across Solomon's sigil, where it lay against her skin.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he said. She tensed, the memory of that last night in Marrakech still painfully clear. He must have noticed the worry in her eyes because he shook his head. “Not about Kir. You were arguing with the dead empress of Arjinna.”

Once again, she saw the empress's eyes opening, felt the weight of the Amethyst Crown upon her head.

“It was just a dream,” Nalia said. “I have nightmares all the time. It was about the coup and . . . it was just a dream.” Her voice was laced with desperation.

“Nalia.” He grasped her hands, kissed them. “When my father died, nobody asked me if I wanted to take his place. Did I ever tell you that?”

She shook her head.

“I was fifteen. The
tavrai
voted that very night. My father had only been dead for a matter of hours and suddenly I was leading hundreds of jinn—most of them far older than me—in a war we were obviously losing.” He shook his head. “I cried myself to sleep that night. You're the only person who knows that.”

“Raif, we're fighting for the same thing. I promise. I don't want the throne. I
don't
.”

But something had made her say those words to Yezhud—a part of Nalia believed she was the empress already.
Wadj kef
,
the empress had said in her dream.
Obey the blood.

“I know.” Raif placed his palm against her heart, warm and protective. “But not everyone is going to see it that way. What you said tonight—”

“I didn't mean it!”

He sighed. “I don't know if you have a choice in the matter. The gods have a way of controlling things where you're concerned.”

“Maybe an empress doesn't have to sit on a throne or wear a crown,” she said. “Maybe she can just love her land and her people and fight like hell for them. Maybe that's enough.”

“Well, you certainly fought for them tonight. We're going, by the way. To the Eye.”

“The jinn inside the bottles, too?”

“Hopefully. We're freeing them tomorrow and then I'll make our request known. We'll see how willing they are to go to the Eye after being stuck inside an equally dark bottle.”

“What about the other jinn on Earth? The ones not on the dark caravan. They could fight, too.”

She thought of Malek's sister-in-law, Saranya, and the jinn she'd spent so many nights with at Habibi.
Saranya.
Would she want to know that Malek had finally done something good? Probably not. Nothing could erase murdering his own brother.

“I thought of that, but there's just no time,” Raif said. “Once we get the portal open again, I can come back and recruit.”

Nalia nodded. “That makes sense.” She suddenly smiled,
struck by a thought. “Your mother—”

He nodded. “Yeah. Zan said with the portal closed,
hahm'alah
is impossible. So . . . good news. Kind of.”

“Definitely good news.”

Outside, she could hear the faint sound of Noqril's
zhifir
. It reminded her of that night over a month ago when she and Raif had danced at Habibi and, later, when Raif had followed her to the glowworm cave. He caught her eye and she was almost certain he was remembering the same thing: the heat of the dance, discovering each other's
chiaan
for the first time. Becoming one under a glowing underground sky. Nalia crawled into Raif's lap and brought her lips to his neck.

“I want my last nights on Earth to be the only thing I remember about it.”

He sucked in his breath as her lips grazed his earlobe. “I think we can manage that.”

Raif wrapped his arms around her waist and stood, carrying Nalia over to the bed. They tumbled onto it and she pressed her mouth to his, hungry. The wind picked up outside and Nalia shivered as it found its way through the flap. Raif pulled back the covers and they slid underneath the blankets.

“Whoa,” he said, looking down at the sheets. “What's this?”

“Silk.” She blushed. “I wanted it to be nice.”

“Ah, so
this
is what it's like to spend a night with the empress,” he said with a wicked smile. “A lowly Djan like me . . .”

“Shut up,” she said, hitting him. He laughed and pulled her closer.

They peeled off the layers between them and in the warmth
and comfort of their little tent, Earth became a place of joy and discovery.

“Empress or no, I choose you,”
Raif whispered
.
“Every time, Nalia. I choose you.”

Nalia would never be able to forget being a slave. She'd never forget Malek's cruel affection or the loss of Leilan. And she'd never, ever get over Bashil.

But Raif's kisses and the feel of him against her was a world reborn and she wanted to live there forever.

EARLY-MORNING LIGHT FOUND ITS WAY INTO THE TENT, stealing the night.

Raif opened his eyes and in that first waking moment, life was perfect. Nalia was asleep in his arms, alive. The sigil hung from her neck, pressed between them. Malek was dead.

Then he remembered what the day would bring: convincing two thousand jinn to join the revolution and possibly die on the journey there.

Raif gently disentangled himself from Nalia and slipped out of bed. He pulled on his uniform: black tunic and drawstring pants, white armband. It was time to start looking like a soldier again. As he rolled up his sleeves, he glanced down at the scar shaped like an eight-pointed star, all that remained of the tattoo on his forearm. For him, it represented Nalia as much as the sigil.
He pressed his fingers against it. Raif didn't expect anything, but there was a wisp of magic still left inside his skin. Instead of the hologram image that had once appeared of
Erg Al-Barq
,
the lightning dune above the cave, all he could see was a swath of Sahara under a calm morning sky. It hovered in the half-light of the tent, a shimmering mirage. The City of Brass, the cave, Haraja—all of it—might as well have been wiped off the face of the earth. The image faded and when he tried to call it up again, nothing happened.

There was a rustle of sheets and a soft sigh. He turned around. Nalia was sitting up, watching him. One look at her and Raif dropped his head into his hands.

“Oh my gods, there is nothing sexier than you wearing only the most powerful magical object in the worlds,” he groaned, turning away from her. “Put some clothes on before I make us embarrassingly late for breakfast.”

Nalia stood and crossed the space between them. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her lips to the back of his neck. “Good morning to you, too,” she whispered.

“Now you've done it,” he growled.

They were embarrassingly late for breakfast.

When they arrived at the communal fire, Zanari took one look at him and shook her head. “Late night, little brother?”

“Don't start with me, Zan,” he said. He glanced at Phara. “Two can play that game.”

She reddened. “Right.”

Off to the side stood a long table laden with row upon row of brass bottles.
My soldiers, gods willing,
he thought. For a moment,
he let himself picture it: walking through the Gate of the Silent Seers, with thousands of jinn behind him and Nalia by his side, the sigil around her neck.

It'd be a miracle if they made it that far.

The
fawzel
circled overhead while the remaining Dhoma manifested yet another table to hold all the bottles.

Samar looked up as Raif approached.
“Jahal'alund,”
he said.

Raif returned the greeting as he looked over the bottles. Each one had a small eight-pointed star pressed into its lead stopper.

“The
fawzel
just returned from the portal's location,” Samar said. “It remains closed.”

Raif nodded. “I wasn't expecting anything different.” He looked up at the shape-shifting jinn
.
The morning sun shone on their ebony feathers and the colorful stripes on their breasts. Every now and then, they would call out to one another in their curious bird tongue.

“Do you and the other
fawzel
stay in your bird form often?” he asked.

“Usually, no. We only shift when we're patrolling or fighting,” Samar said. “I wanted to make sure we're uninterrupted this morning, so they're keeping watch for us.”

Nalia came up and handed Raif a mug of
maté
tea. He took a sip of the earthy brew. “Just think,” he said. “Soon, we might be drinking real Arjinnan tea.”

“It's hard to imagine,” Nalia said softly.

It was one of the worst things about Earth, that strange magic that prevented the jinn from manifesting anything from Arjinna. Items from the jinn realm had to be physically transported
through the portal, which meant the portal's closure had effectively halted all trade between the two worlds—good for ending the dark caravan, bad for any jinni who wanted a bottle of
savri
or a decent cup of tea.

Nalia gestured to the bottles. “Shall we begin?”

Samar bowed slightly. “Please.”

She manifested a small table with a flick of her wrist and set her mug of tea on top of it. Raif shook his head. To have so much power—it would have taken him at least a minute to draw on his
chiaan
and visualize the table before manifesting it. Nalia had done it in the span of a breath, her attention directed on the bottles rather than the table.

She took the leather chain off her neck and held Solomon's sigil out to him. “Wake your army,
tavrai.
”

He reached for the ring, his fingers buzzing with
chiaan
: his, Nalia's. Her violet eyes were bright, the thrill he felt reflected in them.

“
Our
army,” he said.

Raif picked up the first bottle and pressed the seal on the ring against the star set into the lead.

The bottle flew out of his hand and crimson smoke spilled from its top.

“Nalia,” Raif murmured. “Just in case . . .”

Violet
chiaan
sparked at her fingertips. “I'll be ready,” she said.

The evanescence cleared and an Ifrit jinni stood a few feet away. He was dressed in rags and his hair was long and unkempt. Huge scars circled his wrists where iron shackles had once braceleted them. His eyes landed on the ring in Raif's hand and he began to
shake uncontrollably. The jinni fell to the ground, prostrating.

“There is no god but the God of Solomon, his prophet. Prophet of God, do not kill me, for I shall never disobey you again in word or deed! I'll do anything, Master of all. Please, I beg of you—do not return me to my prison!”

Samar rushed forward. “Brother, rise. Solomon is long dead. You have nothing to fear. You're among friends.”

The jinni slowly raised his head. His eyes slid from right to left, then he jumped up with surprising speed.

“Then I will give you the courtesy of choosing your own death,” the Ifrit said.

“Why would you kill us?” Raif said, incredulous. “We
saved
you
.
”

The Ifrit moved forward, his red eyes gleaming. “For a hundred years, I waited in the bottle, praying for rescue. I told myself that whoever freed me, I would give him wealth enough for a lifetime. But no one came.” He took another step closer. “For the next hundred years, I vowed that I would find every treasure on Earth and give it to my rescuer. And yet no one came. I waited four hundred more years. Three wishes—that's what I would give whoever let me out of my prison. Finally, I promised myself that I would kill whoever opened the bottle, for I've had enough of masters.”

He raised his hands, but before he could make good on his threat, a rush of violet
chiaan
engulfed him.

“No!” Samar yelled, but whatever else he was going to say died on his lips as he saw the transformation that was taking place in the swirl of
chiaan
Nalia had raised around the jinni.

His hair gleamed and fashioned itself into one long braid. His rags disappeared and were replaced with the same black tunic and pants that Raif and his revolutionaries wore. His skin glowed, clean of three thousand years of imprisonment. As her
chiaan
fell away, the Ifrit stared at them, blinking. He looked down at his clothing, his skin. Then he met Nalia's eyes and his own filled with tears.

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Nalia said. She crossed to the Ifrit and held him up as he sobbed.

Raif remembered the words she'd said to him the night before:
Maybe an empress doesn't have to sit on a throne or wear a crown. Maybe she can just love her land and her people and fight like hell for them. Maybe that's enough.

The people will love her,
he thought. His first response to the Ifrit had been anger, yet Nalia had seen through the jinni's posturing and looked into his heart.

The jinni attempted a bow. “I am Touma.”

Nalia placed a hand over her heart in return. “Nalia.”

He looked into her eyes. “Ghan Aisouri,” he breathed.

She shook her head. “Just a jinni like you, Touma. We're all the same here.”

Phara gently took Touma's elbow. “Let's get that
chiaan
replenished, shall we?” She gestured toward the fire, and the jinni's eyes lit up. “Gods forgive me for my blasphemy,” he said. He appealed to the jinn around him. “I denounced them because my refusal to accept Solomon's God and to rebel against him is what sent me into the bottle in the first place.”

“Tell us your story, brother,” Samar said. He motioned toward
the fire. “Most of us here are Dhoma,
like you. We understand.”

The jinni's eyes widened. “Some of our people survived the Master King?”

Samar nodded. “Those who didn't rebel were freed after Solomon died. They settled near the place where you were imprisoned.”

“The City of Brass,” Touma said.

“More or less,” Raif agreed. “It's much changed. We have a lot to discuss.” He directed Touma's attention to the hundreds of bottles on the table. “But first, I'm sure you'd like to catch up with some old friends.”

The jinni burst into fresh tears.

It took the entire day to free the jinn. By sunset, the sand was littered with empty brass bottles. Touma's tumultuous re-entry into the world made it obvious they needed a more gentle transition for the imprisoned jinn. Touma refused to leave Nalia's side, so grateful was he for her kindness. She finally put him to work as the official emissary. A system quickly developed: Raif would open the bottle, Touma would greet his old comrade and ease his fears, and Nalia would hand the jinni off to Phara for healing treatments and immersion in their element in order to replenish their
chiaan.

It wasn't long before the camp became loud and boisterous. The Dhoma spent the better part of the day manifesting food, clothing, and shelter for their ancestors. Laughter and stories were traded over fires where succulent meats roasted. Some of the Dhoma who hadn't been captured by the Ifrit in the raid met their great-grandparents and other relatives for the first time. Raif had
never seen such joy. The jinn who played music manifested their instruments, and as night descended, the air filled with song. Jinn covered the desert for as far as Raif's eyes could see.

He sat on one of the low dunes surrounding the camp, watching. Raif longed for his own reunion with his mother and the
tavrai.
But first he had to find a way to convince these jinn to go into the darkness of the Eye with him and fight for Arjinna. Judging by the festive atmosphere of the camp, he expected a fair amount of resistance to the idea. A part of him felt guilty for asking them to give up the stars so soon—and possibly their lives. But the longer they waited, the more
tavrai
died at the hands of the Ifrit. He sighed and rubbed his temples, exhausted. He wasn't at all ready to take on Calar.

Raif felt Nalia before he saw her, an energy that called to his. She stood beside him and gazed at the jinn. “I guess the Eye will have to wait a few days,” she said.

He sighed. “It's starting to look like it. What's that?” he asked, gesturing to the small bag that dangled from her wrist.

A look of embarrassment crossed her face, something he hadn't seen on Nalia before.

“It's a tonic Phara made for me. You know, since last night . . . we, uh . . .”

“Ah. I suppose it would be difficult for you to fight Calar while pregnant.”

“Oh,
gods
,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder.

Raif wrapped an arm around her and laughed softly. They sat there for a while, content.

“Did you meet their leader?” he asked quietly. He nodded
toward a Shaitan who held court at a nearby fire.

“Not yet. Do you think you'll have trouble getting him on your side?”

Raif had only spoken to him briefly, a short conversation full of wary sizing up, each of them trying to determine the strength of the other's character. The jinni's name was Tazlim, but his jinn called him Taz. He was young, like Raif, but their ages on Earth meant little. The bottle may have arrested Taz's age, but his lengthy prison sentence made him Raif's senior by far.

Raif sighed. “I haven't had a real chance to talk with him. I'm not sure what he's about.”

“It's his first night free of his bottle in thousands of years,” Nalia said. “If I were him, the last thing I'd want to do is discuss several ways in which I could die. Give him some space. I'm sure he'll come around. Who can resist Raif Djan'Urbi?”

He rolled his eyes. “Plenty of people, I assure you.” He intertwined his fingers with hers. “Mind working on him for me?”

“What makes you think I'll have better luck with him?”

Touma had been singing her praises all day and the story of Nalia's survival of the coup and years of slavery had spread like wildfire through the camp.

“Just a hunch,” he said.

“I'll try.” She brushed her lips against his cheek and headed in Taz's direction.

Raif watched her for a moment, then trudged through the camp, waving at the newly freed jinn who called out to him. He located the tent Zanari shared with Phara. A light shone inside, but the flap was closed.

“Zan?” he called.

“Come in,” she said.

Zanari was seated on a thick cushion in the center of the room, surrounded by a circle of earth glowing with
chiaan.

“How's it going?” he asked.

Her eyes were heavy, lined with dark circles that hadn't been there in the morning.

“It's . . . going,” she said.

“That bad, huh?” Raif sat across from her. “Tell me how I can help.”