Exquisite Captive (7 page)

“All the same, I think I’ll keep pointing it at you,” she said. “Now answer my questions.”

The jinni stood, a scowl on his face. “I don’t take orders from Ghan Aisouri, let’s get that straight.”

She wished he were ugly—it’d be only too easy to come up with just the right insult. But Nalia couldn’t deny that he actually
was
handsome in a roguish kind of way. His shaggy brown hair kept falling into his eyes, which were a particular shade of green that she’d never seen on Earth. He’d slung the fancy suit coat he’d worn at the party over a rosebush, opting for rolled-up sleeves and an untucked shirt. His cheeks had the shadow of a beard—a week’s worth of stubble—and he carried himself with a certain thuggish wariness, as though he expected to find enemies around every corner. She felt that sense of recognition again, but it’d been so long since she’d been in Arjinna. Why was he so familiar? A memory tugged on the edge of her consciousness, but it was too fuzzy to make out. He clearly hadn’t been on Earth long—he seemed uncomfortable in its heavy air, startled by noises that had grown familiar to her. She looked down at his bare wrists—no shackles. Maybe he was telling the truth about not working for the Ifrit. If he did, he wouldn’t be a free jinni. Maybe he was a jinni in exile—a runaway slave whose shackles had disappeared as soon as he stepped on Earth through the portal. But what would a runaway slave want with her?

“Who sent you?” she asked.

A corner of his lips turned up. “I sent myself. I’m sure it’s hard for you to imagine a Djan with free will, but I assure you, it’s possible.”

“Who are you, serfling?” Nalia asked, her breath suddenly shallow.

Resistance,
she thought. He had to be with the rebels who had fought the Ghan Aisouri for centuries and now pitted themselves against the Ifrit. Ever since Nalia was a child, the mystery of the free serfs had fascinated her. How was it possible that jinn with no magical education had somehow discovered a magic that had eluded the most gifted mages in the land? For the past three years, Nalia had ached to contact them so that she, too, could be free of her shackles. But doing so would have amounted to suicide: other than the Ifrit, there would be no one happier to kill Nalia than the resistance.

The Djan’s eyes narrowed. “
Not
a serf,” he said, holding up his bare wrists. He paused and gave a pointed look at Nalia’s shackles, just long enough for her to blush. “I’m called Raif. Raif Djan’Urbi.”

Nalia’s eyes widened. The answering smirk on his face told her he’d noticed her reaction.
Of course.
Now she knew why he’d seemed so familiar.
What is the leader of the Arjinnan revolution doing in Malek’s rose garden?

She’d only seen Raif for a moment, years ago, but the image had seared itself into her memory. Though she’d thought of it often, he was now almost unrecognizable from the tiny youth she’d encountered standing on top of a pile of burning rubble, a defiant fist raised to the sky. Seconds before, she’d seen his father, the leader of the revolution, die in the mud at the hands of the senior Ghan Aisouri. Nalia had known what she was supposed to do—the empress had made it very clear that Dthar Djan’Urbi and his son needed to die. Nalia had raised her hands, preparing to rip the life force out of the young revolutionary. But the purity of his zeal, the passion blazing in his eyes—she couldn’t do it. Something like that didn’t belong in a cage or on a pyre.

And now here they were. Every time Nalia showed mercy, somewhere down the line, the jinni she spared tried to murder her.

“So you
are
here to kill me,” she said.

“Unfortunately, no.” Raif stood. “The Ifrit assassins who
do
plan to kill you could be here at any moment. Obviously, I don’t need to tell you that Calar and her Ifrit puppets aren’t happy about the idea of a legitimate heir to the Arjinnan throne.”

Calar: just the mention of her name made Nalia want to go on a rampage. She inched closer, her blade still pointed at Raif’s chest. Her survival depended on everyone believing she’d died in that room with the others. She was only safe if Calar thought the Ifrit soldiers had destroyed the whole royal line. But here was Raif, telling Nalia that Calar already had her vicious minions out looking for her. She’d known this day would come. She’d just been hoping a miracle would have seen her free of Malek by then.

“It seems to me that you’d be happy to have Calar do your dirty work for you. Isn’t that what you revolutionaries always wanted—royal blood spilling in the streets?”

Raif shrugged. “Right now we’re more worried about the Ifrit. Someone with your powers could help us. For once, a Ghan Aisouri is better alive than dead.”

Nalia gripped the handle of the dagger tighter. One cut and she could wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his face. “I’m having a hard time believing the leader of the revolution wants to help the heir to the throne. There must be a pretty good reason you’re warning me about the Ifrit.” Nalia leaned forward. “I was there that day on the moors. I saw you. I helped end the second uprising. You hate me. I hate you. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Oh, trust me, I won’t pretend. I’ll die before I see you wear the Amethyst Crown. But there’s something you
can
do for us, else I wouldn’t be here.”

“Big surprise,” she said. “With jinn, nothing’s free.”

Travel through the portal between Earth and Arjinna was dangerous, especially if you were at the top of Calar’s Most Wanted list. There was no way Raif Djan’Urbi would take the risk of being killed or captured unless there was something he urgently needed.

But she had nothing to give him.

“Everything has a price. But you know that already, don’t you?” A hard smile played on Raif’s lips. “I wonder what the going rate is for a Ghan Aisouri slave?”

Nalia’s
chiaan
spiked. “I might be a slave,” she hissed, “but at least my master paid for me. When you were born on your overlord’s estate, it cost him nothing to own you.
Nothing.
” Raif blanched and Nalia stepped closer to him. “And last I remembered,” she said, low and dangerous, “
you
came to
me
. You think because you call yourself a leader, you have power. But the blood in my veins is the same as the ancient queens of our land, where even the serfs you fight for believe I am a daughter of the gods. You’d do well to remember that, serfling.”

He looked at her for a long moment, his face a smooth stone.

“And yet I’m the one without a master,” Raif said quietly. “You see, I’ve learned something you never will—
freedom
is power. And that’s something you don’t have.”

The words were crushingly true and they sparked a hate that ran deep and wide—for Raif, for the Ifrit, for Malek.

“There’s a reason,” Raif continued, “why we ‘serflings’ are able to unbind ourselves from our masters. Must have drove you Ghan Aisouri crazy, watching us go free and not being able to do a thing about it.”

“It’s been you all along, hasn’t it?” she said. “
You’re
the one who’s freeing the serfs.”

“Well, first it was my father—but then you killed him.”

Nalia winced. “Not . . . me.” The mud on Dthar Djan’Urbi’s face. His agonized scream as they gutted him. His
chiaan
flowing like blood into the earth. “I mean, I wasn’t the one who—”

Raif’s eyes darkened. “Somehow that’s not terribly comforting.”

Nalia swallowed the retort that pushed against her lips. If he could help her—or help her brother—she had to stay on Raif’s good side. Or, at least, his freedom-for-a-price side. She had to keep her mouth in check, for once.

“Neither of us can change the past,” she said. Though, gods, if she could . . . “If there’s a way we can assist one another that is mutually beneficial, I’m interested. If not—then I’m sure you can find your way back to the portal.” Nalia thrust her dagger into her boot, then pointed to his wrists, free of the shackles that bit into her own. “I won’t do anything for you unless you free me from my master. That’s
my
price.”

She turned to go. Hope fluttered in her heart, a weak, winged thing. She prayed he wouldn’t make her beg.

“Wait.” Raif cursed under his breath. “We both know I didn’t come all this way to chat in your master’s garden.”

Nalia let out a silent breath of relief, then looked back at him, her eyes cool. “How
did
you know where to find me?” she asked. If the Ifrit were really after her, Nalia had some serious planning to do: for starters, create a better disguise and convince Malek to make that move to Dubai he’d been talking about.

“A few days ago, my contacts in the palace informed me that the Ifrit imprisoned a jinni for slave trading. Not that they think there’s anything wrong with the slave trade—he just wasn’t giving the crown its cut of the profits. After they tortured the trader, it didn’t take long for him to confess to selling you. I’m sure you can imagine the Ifrit’s surprise.”

How many nights had Nalia lain awake, fantasizing about all the ways she would torture her slave trader, if given the chance? So much of those last days in Arjinna was a drug-addled blur. But she’d never forget the sound of his voice.

Raif grinned. “Lucky for me, I have a sister who’s a bit of a seer. It took us a few tries, but she finally got a handle on where you were and what you looked like. Pretty easy after that.”

Nalia stared.
That’s impossible.

The Ghan Aisouri had been looking for a seer ever since Nalia could remember—psychic gifts were incredibly rare among jinn. There was only one jinni Nalia knew of who had psychic abilities; Nalia wished to the gods she’d never met her.

“Did the slave trader tell the Ifrit where I am?” Nalia asked.

“He claims he doesn’t know. They’re working him pretty hard—I’m sure he’s told them everything he can. Last I heard he’s still alive.”

Nalia shuddered. She wanted to be happy that the jinni who’d sold her to Malek was paying for it in the worst kind of way, but she’d never had the stomach for breaking things. Just hearing about it, a part of her felt sorry for the slave trader.

He deserves it.

But didn’t Nalia, too, in her own way?

“So there’s a chance he hasn’t told them everything. Maybe he’s protecting someone—a business partner?”

“Have you ever been tortured?” Raif asked quietly.

             
She is back in the palace dungeon.

             
Nalia watches, transfixed, as her mother washes her hands, and the clear liquid turns the bright red of poppies. Behind her, the Ifrit prisoner stares at them through puffy, bruised eyes, her body slumped on the hard-backed chair she is tied to.

             
“Your turn, Nalia,” her mother says. “It’s time you grew up.”

“No,” she whispered, in answer to Raif’s question. “I haven’t been tortured.”

But there was the bottle, with its poisonous iron walls and thin air. The pain of Malek’s summons. Maybe she’d been tortured, after all.

“But, surely, in all your experience as an oppressor, you would know that everyone—
everyone—
gives in eventually,” Raif said, his voice hard.

“Not everyone.”

Nalia closed her eyes.

             
Her mother leaves the cell and Nalia stands against the wall, staring at the prisoner. The Ifrit girl looks up from the chair. It has been days of cutting and hitting and suffocating, and she still hasn’t said a word. Nalia crosses to the girl and kneels in front of her.

             
“Do you want to go home?”

             
The girl nods.

How was Nalia to know that the prisoner had been a mind reader? Yes, the Ghan Aisouri had trained in shielding their minds, but Nalia had never bothered to do the arduous practice. At the time, she’d thought it was pointless. But it was only a few weeks later, when the Ifrit entered the palace through a secret entrance—the same one Nalia had led the girl through with a blindfold—that Nalia discovered what her mercy and lack of discipline had cost the realm.

A glass shattered somewhere in the house and Nalia jumped, the memory dissolving in the cool California night. Malek wouldn’t be up to her room yet—she could still hear the string quartet playing. A good sign: her master always made a point of seeing the last guest out of his home. Still, she had to hurry.

“I don’t have much time,” she said. “Can you really free me from my mas—from Malek?”

The evidence was right in front of her, but it still seemed impossible.

Raif’s eyes narrowed. “Is it so difficult for you to believe that a commoner could do something a royal can’t?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. Most of them couldn’t even
read
, let alone manifest at the level of the Ghan Aisouri and Shaitan. It didn’t matter that his sister was a seer—she wouldn’t be able to break Malek’s shackles with her mind.

Raif threw an evil glare in her direction.
Fire and blood,
she thought.
Now I’ve pissed him off and he won’t help me.

“Well,” he said evenly, “I’m here to prove you wrong. Despite my better judgment.”

“Is it against your better judgment to help me because of my race or because you’re afraid I’ll kill you once I’m free?” she asked.

Raif grinned. “Both, actually. But I’m not known for playing it safe.” That was true. She’d heard the stories—they were a favorite among expatriate jinn: how he led ambushes with nothing more than a dagger and a handful of
chiaan
or his refusal to leave his soldiers behind, even if it meant risking his life to bring a body home for the ritual burning.

“So you’ve freed jinn on the dark caravan before?”

He shrugged. “No, but slavery is slavery, whether it’s in Earth or Arjinna.”

Nalia shook her head. “The bind between Malek and me is different than the bind between a serf and an overlord.”

“Meaning?”

“Our masters get three wishes. As soon as they make them, we’re free,” she said. “The problem is, Malek won’t make his third wish. And I know you haven’t been on Earth very long, so I’ll spell it out for you: if he doesn’t make a third wish, I’m his slave until he does. That’s how it works. The only other way is if he dies and, trust me, that’s never going to happen.”