Blood Passage

by Heather Demetrios

  Malek walked away, hands shoved into his wet pockets.

  “Bastard,” Raif muttered.

  Raif had never been one for strategy. He led on guts, instinct. Until very recently Nalia had been a means to an end. Not anymore. Still, he couldn’t totally deny what Malek had said and it bothered him: Nalia was the best weapon in his arsenal. It suddenly occurred to Raif that he had no idea what Nalia planned to do, now that her brother was dead. How would he feel if she decided not to fight, as he’d assumed she would?

  Raif crossed the deck and stood beside her. Nalia’s hand gripped the railing, knuckles white. He hesitated, then put his hand over hers. It felt like a small victory when she didn’t pull away. And in that moment, it was all that mattered, his skin touching hers.

  “Noqril, it’s time,” Samar said from his perch on the quarterdeck.

  The Ifrit nodded as he set his palm against the ship’s thick mast. In seconds, he was invisible.

  Nalia stared. “Raif . . .”

  “Yeah, he does that.”

  As the ship began moving across the dunes, it shimmered and then disappeared entirely. Nalia gripped Raif’s arm and his eyes slid to hers. It made him unaccountably happy, that extra bit of contact, even if the familiar sensation of her chiaan was missing.

  “Everyone, make sure you’re touching the ship!” Noqril’s disembodied voice commanded. “As long as you maintain contact, the Ifrit won’t see you.”

  The dunes were black in the storm and it was slow going, the Sun Chaser no longer skimming easily over the earth. The wet sand dragged at the ship’s hull, and the rain made it difficult for the sailors to navigate the Sahara’s rolling surface.

  The ship slid down a dune and Zanari clamped a hand over her mouth. “Gods, I have to get off this thing.”

  Phara leaned close to her. “May I?”

  Zanari nodded and Phara pressed her palm to his sister’s forehead. Her golden chiaan shimmered over Zanari’s skin, returning the color to her cheeks.

  “Better?” the healer asked, her voice soft.

  Zanari stared into the other jinni’s eyes. “Yeah. Um. Much.”

  Behind them, there was a burst of light, then a billow of smoke and flame. The Dhoma crew stared at their camp, stricken.

  Yezhud came to stand beside Nalia. “Having you on this ship is an act of war,” she said. “If you can’t get my husband in that cave, all those Dhoma suffering right now—it’s for nothing. Samar seems to think you are worth this sacrifice. I hope he’s right.”

  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.”

  25

  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 sta
yed 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.

  26

  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.

  PART TWO

  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

  27

  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.