Blood Passage

by Heather Demetrios

  “That’s not at all what I’m saying and you know it.”

  The cave’s glow licked his skin and she wanted to taste him, to feel the salty sizzle of Raif’s chiaan against her tongue.

  Nalia closed her eyes. Took a breath. “But what about Kir? How can you still want me after what I did? To him—to everyone.”

  “Because you’re a part of me.” He ran a hand through her short hair. “Because you were a child, forced to do a terrible thing.” His fingers trailed across her jaw. “Because I love you.”

  “Raif . . .” Her voice, a weak protest. The only thing that made sense was the feel of his chiaan slipping into her, twisting with her own until there was no Nalia, no Raif. Only Us. We. Our.

  “I want us to belong to each other,” he said softly. “Not like you belonged to Malek—it doesn’t have to be like that. You can belong to a person without them owning you. Does that make sense, rohifsa?”

  The words were a final piece to a puzzle she’d been trying to put together all her life. Belong. Yes. She wanted to belong to him. And he to her.

  Nalia fell into him, a wave crashing upon a shore. Raif pulled her down onto the thick carpet of moss, cradling her in his arms.

  “Do you remember what I told you, in the glass house in Los Angeles?” he asked.

  Malek’s conservatory, the night she killed Haran. The night Raif had told Nalia he had to be with her. She blushed.

  “Yes.”

  I intend on kissing every inch of you the first chance I get.

  His hand reached for the zipper on her sweater. As he pulled it down, Raif gave a soft laugh. “This is a funny little human invention, isn’t it?”

  That was all it took to banish any lingering uncertainty inside her: Raif’s laughter, the moment somehow more intimate than everything that had gone before it. Nalia reached for his shirt, her eyes on his.

  Love was Raif’s breath, hot against her skin. His fingers exploring, his lips burning, his tongue, tasting her, all of her.

  Love was an explosion, falling up in an exhilarating burst, emerald and violet chiaan swirling around naked skin, moss against a bare back, and sweet, slick sweat.

  Love was a gasp and a moan. It was an arched back and fingers gripping shoulders and a whispered more more more.

  Love was a waking dream and truth.

  It was freedom.

  Raif held Nalia’s hand as they floated in the pool beneath the glowworms. His body buzzed with the feel of her chiaan inside him. Every now and then she would look at him and smile and he wondered if it were possible to feel any happier without dying from it.

  “I’m never leaving this cavern,” he declared.

  She laughed. “You’d miss the sun. And fresh air. And widr trees.”

  “Not as much as I’d miss this.”

  He hated that they’d have to go back.

  “What about Zanari?” Nalia said.

  “She can visit us when she wants to.”

  “Well, she might be busy with Phara . . .”

  Raif smiled. “So you’ve noticed.”

  “Everybody has noticed. I think it’s wonderful. Zanari deserves to be happy.”

  He nodded. “I’ve never seen Zan so relaxed. Keeps her off my back, too, which is nice.”

  Nalia gripped his arm. “Raif.”

  “What, it’s true. She’s always nagging me about something—”

  “No. Look.”

  Her finger pointed above them, at the glowworms. The creatures were moving slowly and the light from their bodies swirled across the cavern’s roof. Then they stopped.

  They had assumed the shape of an eight-pointed star.

  “How did Antharoe manage that?” he said. The seventh star—only one more to go.

  “Beautiful magic.” Nalia said, clearly delighted. “She must have spelled the whole cavern somehow.”

  “Gods.”

  Nalia kissed his cheek and slipped out of the pool, her limbs graceful as ever. Even with the scar that began at her hip and ended at her belly button, a result of her brush with death while fighting Haran, she was perfect. Nalia caught him looking and blushed, but she didn’t try to cover herself.

  “We should tell the others about the star,” she said.

  “Mmmm,” was all he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You might want to get dressed before they come looking for us.”

  “Everyone’s asleep by now. They won’t be up for hours.”

  “Two of us disappear and no one’s going to be worried?” she asked.

  Raif sighed and swam a few lazy strokes toward the ledge, then pulled himself up onto the moss. He leaned forward and kissed her collarbone. She caught his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his.

  “I love you,” she said. “No matter what happens.”

  The side of his mouth turned up. “That’s foreboding.”

  “You know what I mean.” Nalia craned her neck to look at the star above them. “I wonder how long they stay in their star form?”

  She went quiet and he took her hand and squeezed it. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s stupid, really. It’s just . . . my whole life I’ve looked up to Antharoe. The stories of her adventures, her strength in fighting, her magical abilities.” She pointed to the ceiling. “I mean, how could she do this and kill all those people in the City of Brass?”

  “I told you before, you’re nothing like her, rohifsa, I promise.” He kissed her forehead and drew her to his side. “Now, let’s go tell everyone they don’t need to look in any more of those godsdamned caverns.”

  They heard the screaming long before they reached the others. When they burst out of the tunnel, the first thing Raif saw was Malek. The pardjinn was clutching at his head and his cries were an anguished stream of Arabic.

  “Haraja,” Zanari said, when they ran up to her.

  Nalia stared at her former master, a strangled gasp escaping her lips.

  Raif felt no such horror. He fell to his knees and kissed the earth as he whispered a prayer of thanks to Tirgan, his patron god.

  “Little brother,” Zanari said, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Raif nodded. “I could kiss Haraja right now.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said.

  Malek Alzahabi had been doomed to a lifetime of incurable madness. One that, because of his own greed, he would have to endure until the day he chose to take his own life. If the only cure for Haraja’s madness was hypersuasion, then the pardjinn was screwed. He couldn’t very well hypersuade himself.

  Nalia gripped Phara’s arm. “Do you have any idea what he thinks is happening?”

  “He keeps screaming your name,” she said. Nalia blanched.

  Tears had begun streaming down Malek’s face and Raif watched, disgusted. Furious. His own greatest fear was harm coming to Nalia and it seemed so wrong that he should share that with Malek.

  Nalia moved toward Malek, but Raif grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Don’t. He deserves this. Whatever Haraja has slipped into his mind . . . it doesn’t begin to punish him for what he did to you.”

  “But he’s so . . . so . . .” Nalia trembled.

  “He put you in a bottle for months, Nal,” Raif said. “He refused to free you, even when you told him about . . .”

  But he wouldn’t say Bashil’s name. It would cut her open, hearing it said aloud.

  Malek fell to his knees and began laughing hysterically. Phara rushed to him, her medical bag at hand. He looked up, his eyes clearing momentarily as he looked beyond Phara to where Nalia stood.

  “Hayati?” he whispered, grabbing for her.

  “Get off her, skag,” Raif growled.

  Malek didn’t seem to hear him. He stared at Nalia and a look of pure horror spread across his face. He grabbed at the air with his hands, screaming Nalia’s name again and again. Phara pulled a powder out of her bag and poured some onto her palm, then blew it in Malek’s face. He swayed from left to right, then fell on
to his back in a dead sleep. The cavern was silent, but Raif could still feel the echo of Malek’s cries.

  “You’re too kind,” Raif said to Phara.

  She returned the powder to her bag. “I can’t watch someone suffer.”

  Raif glanced at the jinn gathered around them. “Nalia and I found the next star. I know none of us will sleep tonight, but a little rest won’t do us any harm. Should we stay here or press on?”

  Samar frowned, considering. “I think it would be wise to rest. Everyone is tired from searching the caverns. If we do encounter Haraja again, I want to make sure we’re strong enough to fight her. She’s never attacked twice in one night.”

  With Haraja on the loose and the only cure for her madness currently incapacitated, sleep seemed like a death wish, but Raif nodded. It’d been a long day.

  “All right,” Raif said. “Everyone who can manage to stay awake, keep your eyes open.”

  The Dhoma nodded their assent and, after a few last backward glances toward Malek, returned to their makeshift beds.

  Raif clapped Samar on the back. “You want first or second watch?” he asked.

  “First,” Samar said. “It’ll be a while before sleep comes to me this night.”

  Raif nodded. “Wake me when it’s my turn.”

  He left the Dhoma leader at his post and began setting up a pallet for him and Nalia near the fire, as far away as possible from Malek. Zanari gave him a curious look and when he smiled, his sister gave him a thumbs-up. Nalia was drinking a cup of wine, her hand shaking slightly. There was nothing he could say. Malek Alzahabi would never get his pity. And he certainly didn’t deserve Nalia’s.

  Raif stole behind her and pressed his lips against her shoulder. “C’mon. You need to rest.”

  He manifested several thick blankets and kicked off his shoes before crawling under them. Nalia set her jade dagger within reach before settling against him.

  He pulled her close and whispered, “Just so you know, you’re never sleeping alone again.”

  “What if I steal all the blankets?” she teased.

  “Then I’ll manifest more.”

  Across the cavern, Malek cried out. Nalia buried her head against Raif’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her.

  “Tell me our story again,” she whispered.

  “Our story?”

  “When I was asleep for so long, you told me about our future. Tell me again.”

  He looked down at her. “You heard me?”

  She nodded. “You brought me back again, I think.”

  “We’ll always bring each other back,” Raif said. He played with the short strands of her hair as he spoke. “After the war is over,” he began, “we’ll have a house and some land. We’ll make love in our field under the Three Widows, as much as we want, whenever we want. Our two children will look exactly like you . . .”

  Soon, Nalia’s breath became deep and even. He kept telling her their story. He would tell it to her until it was no longer a story. Raif could almost see the moonlight on her bare skin and smell the wildflowers that would grow around their home.

  37

  A SMALL PART OF MALEK WASN’T SURE IF WHAT WAS happening was really happening.

  Every now and then, the prison cell would shiver and he’d see another place: the cave where he thought he’d been, Nalia’s face, the Dhoma. But all of that would disappear in a second. A mirage. Maybe he’d dreamed it all—taking Nalia from this cell after Calar killed her brother, running with her through the streets of Marrakech, saving her life in the sandstorm.

  Maybe this, right now, this horror movie, was reality.

  “You thought you could get away from me so quickly?” Calar said.

  She was not talking to Malek.

  Nalia sat in an iron chair, her hands tied roughly to the chair’s back. He could smell her flesh, slowly burning as it made contact with the metal. Nalia mumbled something, but Malek couldn’t hear her.

  Calar produced a whip and lashed Nalia across the chest and she cried out, an agonized growl.

  “You’ll kill her!” he screamed. Malek reached for the whip, but he couldn’t move. It was as if he were encased in cement.

  Calar glanced at him and her bloodred lips turned up. “That’s the point.”

  She ran a finger along Nalia’s cheek in mock tenderness. Nalia’s hair was matted with blood and one side of her face was purple, nearly the same shade as her eyes. A red line had appeared over the chest of the thin chemise she was wearing.

  “Please,” Malek begged as blood began to drip from Nalia’s lips. “I’ll do anything. Anything, I swear, just let her go. Please.”

  “You have nothing to give me, pardjinn,” Calar said.

  “I do,” he whispered. Some part of him had known it would always come to this. “I can give you the sigil. Solomon’s sigil for Nalia’s life.”

  The room disappeared. Then: a pair of jade eyes. Rock everywhere. An endless dark he couldn’t see his way out of.

  Zanari leaned closer to Malek.

  “What’s he saying?” she said to Noqril.

  “Hell if I know.” The jinni roughly set Malek down on the floor and poured a canteen of water over his face, then held it out to Nalia.

  She touched her hand to a drop of water on the outer rim of the canteen, then held her finger over the opening. Her hand turned violet with chiaan and then a stream of water issued from her palm. As soon as the canteen bubbled over, she closed her fist. He began chugging the water.

  “Noqril, I believe the words you’re looking for are thank you,” Zanari said.

  Noqril grunted, then threw back his head and drank until the canteen was empty.

  “What can you do?” Zanari said. “A brute is a brute.”

  Nalia smiled and, once again, Zanari felt grateful to no longer be consumed by that anger that had driven a wedge between them. Raif was right: Nalia’s heart was good. How many people had Zanari been forced to kill? They were all victims of this endless war.

  Malek’s body suddenly became rigid and he jerked as though he were trying to free himself from imaginary bonds. His arms were flat at his sides, two wooden boards.

  “I can give you the sigil,” he gasped. “Solomon’s sigil for Nalia’s life.”

  Nalia stared at her former master, a hand over her lips.

  “Phara, he’s waking,” Zanari called. She reached out and clasped Nalia’s free hand. “Sister, it isn’t real. None of it is.”

  “I know,” Nalia said. “But whatever’s happening to Malek must be excruciating. He’d never give up the sigil.”

  “Whatever’s happening in his mind is happening to the you in his mind. He’s fine.” Zanari frowned. “As usual.”

  Malek’s eyelids fluttered and Zanari got a glimpse of his onyx eyes just before Phara blew her powder in his face again. Immediately, he slumped back into a fitful sleep.

  It had been a challenge getting Malek through the glowworm star in the roof of the cavern Nalia and Raif had discovered. They’d had to devise a pulley system to transport Malek’s body, and then there had been a long walk down a tunnel black as coal. All the while Malek had screamed and thrashed.

  “Gods, I hope we don’t have to deal with this for too much longer,” Zanari said.

  “One more star.” Nalia’s voice betrayed her exhaustion. She wiped a hand over her face. It glistened with sweat. In the past few hours the tunnels had become unbearably hot, and steam floated along the passage, stifling them.

  Phara hugged herself and worried lines cut into her face. Her eyes glazed over with a faraway look that Zanari had come to recognize. She knew Phara was thinking about her family and the other Dhoma outside the cave. It was so frustrating, not being able to use her voiqhif. If Antharoe hadn’t spelled the cave, Zanari could have told Phara what had happened to the Dhoma they’d left behind in seconds.

  Maybe it’s better this way.

  They’d entered the cave just as the Dhoma were being attacked by the Ifrit. Calar�
��s army wasn’t known for its mercy. Zanari had heard Phara and the other Dhoma listing all the possible outcomes of the attack, none of them very good. Zanari knew how distressed they were; it was what she and Raif had been living with since they’d abandoned the tavrai to come to Earth in search of the sigil.

  Raif jogged over to them from the front of the column. “The tunnel opens up into a large cavern. I’m hoping we can rest there for the night. I’ll take him if you want,” he said to Noqril, nodding his head toward Malek.

  “Fine by me.” Noqril walked away, whistling a human song Zanari had heard in Marrakech.

  Raif grunted as he picked up Malek and threw him unceremoniously over his shoulder.

  “Bet you didn’t know this was how you were going to fulfill Malek’s wish, did you, sister?” Zanari said to Nalia.

  Nalia shook her head. “Tell me about it.”

  They trudged through what remained of the dark tunnel, but the cavern proved to be even more miserable than the enclosed space they’d just come out of. It felt as if they’d hit a wall of solid heat.

  The landscape of this cavern was nothing like the one that had come before it. It was a huge landmass, with what looked like a mountain on her left followed by a forest of stalagmites. The ceiling was impossibly high. So high that the cavern had its own weather system. Thick clouds masked the roof of the cave, which was at least a thousand feet above them. Gusts of wind whipped the air and whistled against the rock like a crazed banshee.

  Raif was just leaning down to drop Malek on the ground when a low rumble began under their feet.

  Zanari swayed and grabbed onto Phara. “What was that?”

  “Fire and blood,” Anso cursed as she pointed to the mountain Zanari had noticed when they’d entered the cavern. Only it wasn’t a mountain.

  Nalia threw her hands against the base of the volcano as the rumbling intensified. She looked at the jinn, her eyes filled with panic.

  “Run!” she screamed.

  The top of the volcano exploded, sending a geyser of crimson lava into the sky. Zanari was desperate to evanesce, but the smoke spilling from the volcano’s top made it impossible to see even a few feet in front of her.

  Nalia raised her hands above her and violet chiaan shot up to meet the lava just as it began its downward journey to the cave’s floor.