Freedom's Slave

by Heather Demetrios

  What have I done? What have I done? It was as though a fog had finally lifted from Shirin’s head.

  Jaqar raised his gun and pointed it at Raif. Gods, gods. She could tell from the look on Jaqar’s face that he would shoot, he would. But that wasn’t . . . wasn’t what they’d discussed. She’d said— Oh, gods. How could she have been so stupid?

  She’ll call our bluff. Keep the ring, kick our asses, and save Raif. That’s what Shirin had said last night. But it wasn’t until right now that she understood what Jaqar had said:

  She doesn’t know you wouldn’t be willing to kill Raif—she doesn’t know the first thing about you.

  Jaqar had never once said he wouldn’t be willing to kill Raif.

  “I’ve got it, brother,” Shirin said, keeping her voice steady. If she shot Jaqar, the other jinn would immediately shoot Raif for him. That was a risk Shirin wasn’t willing to take. Maybe she could buy the Aisouri time. But how?

  “No, I don’t think you do, Shirin,” Jaqar said. “You’d never kill him. You told me that already. Drop the gun.”

  “This isn’t what we agreed to.” Panic drenched her, a wave, she was drowning in it. She turned to Nalia. “Give us the godsdamned ring, you stupid girl!”

  She felt Raif’s head move just slightly. He was shaking it, telling Nalia no.

  “Jaqar will kill you,” she growled to Raif. “Tell her to give him the ring.”

  “Drop the gun, Shirin,” Jaqar said.

  It fell from her fingers, thudding in the dirt below her. She bared her teeth at Jaqar, Raif’s raiga once more. If she lived through this, she’d kill him with her bare hands.

  “I told the gods that if I could just see you once more,” Raif said to Nalia, “that I could die happy. They upheld their end of the bargain. Do not give them that ring, Nal.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Shirin saw Taz shift into a more defensive position. Shots rang out, bright sparks of light bursting from a gun to Shirin’s right—one of Jaqar’s jinn. Taz fell to the ground with a cry—alive, but badly wounded. Nalia didn’t turn around, didn’t even flinch. Every bit of her was focused on Raif.

  “The ring, Aisouri,” Jaqar growled. He clicked the gun’s safety off.

  Nalia’s eyes bored into Raif’s, their gaze so intense that it was if they were alone.

  “I love you,” Shirin heard Raif whisper, his eyes on Nalia. Her own lips formed the words.

  Nalia reached her hands up to her neck, skimming the leather cord that the sigil dangled from.

  “Nalia.” Raif said her name as a command. She shook her head, defiant. “Nal.”

  “Raif,” Shirin begged. “Let her.” He ignored Shirin, his eyes on Nalia. He was saying good-bye.

  “Jaqar,” Shirin yelled, “stand down. Give them a godsdamned chance to think!”

  Without moving his head Jaqar spoke to his soldiers who surrounded them. “Watch Shirin. Kill her if she tries to save him. In fact, when you get a chance, kill her for wanting to save him.”

  Shirin began to shake then, her whole body trembling. It was like that night in her overlord’s room, when she’d tried so hard to cut off her hand, terrified he would come in and do all the horrible things he’d done to her mother. Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl.

  Jaqar had deceived her just as much as she’d deceived Raif. This wasn’t just about trying to protect the realm from Nalia. Jaqar wanted the ring. And he would kill anyone in his path to get it.

  “If you give it to him,” Raif said to Nalia, ignoring Jaqar, “he’ll put it on and kill both of us anyway.” His voice was soft, resolute. “He’ll be worse than Calar—look how much he enjoys power already. Don’t condemn the realm to more suffering.”

  No one said a word. Wind rustled through the trees, eerie and ominous, the sigh of a ghost. Silent tears poured down Nalia’s face, but her eyes glittered, bright and fearsome.

  “What’s your choice, salfit?” Jaqar asked.

  He fired his gun just a breath above Raif’s head. Shirin cried out, but Raif didn’t so much as flinch, didn’t look away. Neither did Nalia.

  He was ready to die. Shirin gripped his arm. “Raif, please,” she said.

  Nalia pulled the leather cord that held the ring off her necks and the sigil slipped onto her palm.

  “No,” Raif whispered, then louder. “Nalia, no.”

  “He’s left me no choice,” she said, her eyes begging him to understand.

  The Aisouri raised the ring—

  Took one step toward Jaqar—

  —then slipped it onto her finger.

  Everything happened at once.

  Shackles slid around Shirin’s wrists—every jinni’s wrists. Thatur reared up, slicing the jinn closest to him in two with his claws. Nalia threw herself at Jaqar, commanding him to stand down, but not before he let out a volley of shots at Raif. Shirin didn’t think—she threw her body in front of Raif’s, and as the bullets sliced into her, as metal bit flesh, the weight Shirin had carried with her all her life disappeared. The pain, the end—it was a gift. Why had she fought so long against it?

  Death was a mercy she hadn’t seen coming.

  All around her a battle raged, perhaps the most important one of the war: the rat-a-tat of the guns, the bitter scent of magic, the cries of rage and pain and triumph. And then it faded to a dull roar as two familiar green eyes stared down at her. She looked and looked, drank in the sight of them until she’d had her fill.

  Raif screamed her name and his arms went around her, holding her body against his.

  It was enough.

  Shirin was dying in his arms.

  Her eyes were open, dark as elder pines, the light inside them fading. Raif was covered in her blood.

  I can’t give you what you want.

  “Shir, I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

  “Sor . . . sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t think—”

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “Just stay with me.”

  How had everything gone so horribly wrong? The silence that had engulfed him the moment she went down fell away and he was surprised to hear only a bit of scuffling before the clearing itself went silent.

  Nalia.

  Raif’s head whipped up, his eyes searching for her. She’d taken the gun from Jaqar and was pointing it at his head. Nearly all of Jaqar’s accomplices lay dead on the temple floor, made short work of by Thatur and Touma. The gryphon’s beak was red with blood. The rest of Jaqar’s soldiers sat paralyzed, no doubt under Nalia’s command. They all were—he could feel the shackles around his wrists, two gold bands. The ring on Nalia’s finger caught the moonlight and glimmered.

  Raif held on to Shirin even though everything in him wanted to go to Nalia, to stop her from doing something she’d regret. She didn’t look at Raif once. Her entire being was focused on the jinni in front of her.

  “I can’t tell you how very tired I am of guns being pointed at me and the people I love,” Nalia said, her voice cold and calm.

  Raif’s wrists burned and his stomach tingled, the ring’s magic a tangible thing in his skin. He could feel her power, knew without a doubt that he would do whatever she asked of him, whether he wanted to or not.

  “Get on your knees,” Nalia said to Jaqar. There was no mercy in her tone, no indecision in her eyes.

  He obeyed. The fool had no choice, not with that ring on Nalia’s finger.

  Jaqar glared at her. “So you’re—”

  “Shut up,” Nalia said. His voice cracked and he opened and closed his mouth, shock registering on his face. “Last words are a kindness and I am not feeling kind.”

  Raif went very still—he didn’t even realize he was holding his breath. Jaqar closed his eyes, his lips moving in silent prayer.

  “Open your eyes,” Nalia said.

  He did. An empress stared at her subject.

  Nalia pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit Jaqar square in the forehead. He was dead before he fell to the ground. Raif stared
at her, shocked. It was what he would have done. But Nalia never did what he would have done.

  Nalia threw the gun down and turned to Raif, shaking. There she was—there was his rohifsa. Touma was beside him in a moment.

  “Go to her,” he said quietly, taking Shirin from his arms.

  Shirin nodded. “Go.”

  Raif stood and crossed to Nalia in three long strides, then gathered her in his arms. Nalia didn’t say a word, just held on to him. He could feel her fear for his life in the chiaan screaming through her, the horror over what she’d just done.

  “I thought you were going to die,” she whispered over and over. “I thought you were going to die.”

  “I’m okay,” he said. “We’re okay.”

  It had been a gamble, what she did. They might have waited too long, but she’d trusted her instincts, and his warrior empress was rarely wrong.

  Raif looked over her shoulder, toward Thatur. The gryphon’s claws were poised over the head of the traitor tavrai closest to him. Raif nodded at the unspoken question that glimmered in Thatur’s eyes. This was something Nalia wouldn’t do, but it was well within his moral code. They’d tried to kill her. They’d nearly killed Shirin and Taz, who was propped up against a tree, his face gray. They’d betrayed their blood oaths to their commander. There was no choice about what needed to happen.

  He held tighter to Nalia, made sure she wouldn’t be able to turn around. Thatur slit the throats of Jaqar’s three remaining soldiers with terrifying ease, each kill so quick that only an exhale escaped their throats before they fell down. Nalia tried to look, but he didn’t let go of her until it was over. Her body suddenly went slack against his: she knew. When Nalia finally did turn, her body shuddered as she took in the gore.

  “It had to be done,” he murmured in her ear. “I’m still the commander of the tavrai and it’s within my right to punish them as I see fit.”

  He wasn’t noble, or good. Noble and good would have gotten him killed long ago.

  Nalia turned to him, placing her hands on his chest. “We can’t be this, Raif. What I did, what you did—we can’t.”

  He ran the backs of his fingers across her cheeks. “Then let’s make a world where we don’t have to.”

  She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I was so scared,” she whispered. “When Jaqar fired that gun at you, I—I—”

  “I’m here,” he said, crushing her to him. “I’m here.”

  After a long moment, Nalia pulled away and held out her hand. Though Solomon’s sigil was far too big for her, it had somehow shrunk in size and now fit perfectly on her index finger. It glowed, shimmering in the darkness. He ran his fingers over the metal. It was warm to the touch, as though it were a living thing.

  “How does it feel?” he asked.

  “Good,” she admitted. “Too good.”

  Nalia reached down and pulled the ring.

  And pulled again.

  “Raif,” she said, panicked, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked up at him, sheer terror crossing her face. “It won’t come off.”

  PART THREE

  The revolution is inside all of us.

  — Nalia Aisouri’Taifyeh

  39

  THE CAMP WAS UTTERLY SILENT WHEN THE COUNCIL members walked out of the meeting house. The darkness that had settled over the land since the rise of the Godsnight moons added to the despair in Raif’s heart. There was no way to prepare for whatever horrors the gods would unleash upon them. Nalia had told him about the human stories of a god who sent locusts, killed the firstborn of every family—what would the jinn gods do? How much worse could it possibly get?

  Every jinni in the land now wore shackles, bound to Nalia and the ring. The council refused to believe that this hadn’t been the plan all along. Refused to believe she’d had no choice but to put it on. Everything his father had worked for was falling apart, and Raif couldn’t help but feel that it was his fault. Even if parting ways with the tavrai and bending the knee before Nalia had been the right thing to do.

  Just minutes before, the council had left the meeting house as one after Raif recounted what had happened in the clearing and told them of the plan to move to Ithkar.

  Traitor, more than one of them had said.

  Murderer.

  Liar.

  It was as he’d expected, but the cut was deep. Alone with Nalia in the place where he’d planned so many battles with his father—and then in his father’s place, with Shirin and Kir and Zanari at his side—was too much. Raif crossed his arms and rested his head on the table, devastated.

  Nalia ran her fingers through his hair, silent. Nothing could lessen his gratitude for her presence by his side, for the blood that pumped through her veins, for the air in her lungs. He wished they could see what he saw in Nalia. He wished they weren’t so quick to discard him.

  After a few minutes Nalia stood and grasped his hand. “Come,” she said. “This is a battle you’ve won, not lost. Let your soldiers see you. Let the tavrai know you can’t be broken.” She pressed her lips to his cheek. “You’ll be emperor soon. They need to see your strength.”

  Emperor. He’d never been more undeserving of a title.

  Raif was the first to walk out of the meeting house, Nalia waiting to join him until he’d had a moment to get his bearings. He knew she was afraid they would think this was all her influence—and she wouldn’t be wrong. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  Thatur padded along behind them as they crossed through the camp, his eyes scanning the premises. Touma flanked Nalia’s side, scimitar out. Before and behind was a squad of Brass Army soldiers, now promoted to Nalia’s personal guard, each one handpicked by Thatur. Touma was captain of that guard, a position he’d more than earned. It saddened Raif that all this protection was necessary, that he was trying to save his rohifsa not from Calar, but from the jinn he’d grown up with, his family.

  You’re my family now, he’d said to Nalia the night before, after she’d finally come out of the Eye—and he meant it. Wife. The word settled inside him, warm and right.

  This is what you were born for, Dthar Djan’Urbi had told his son, not long before he died. Born for what, exactly? To lead the tavrai? To marry the empress of Arjinna? To be emperor?

  As they neared the healer’s ludeen, where Taz and Shirin lay recovering from their wounds, Raif stopped, cursing under his breath. The council members were standing in a line, with the rest of the tavrai assembled behind them, in defensive positions, his mother front and center. He could see the regret in her eyes, the disappointment that her son was on the other side of the fight. Where just a few hours ago the clearing behind the healers’ ludeen at the far end of the camp had been filled with the Brass Army’s tents, now Raif could see only the soldiers themselves, dutifully lined up. Waiting.

  If there were bloodshed here today it would be a victory for Calar, no one else.

  “Morning exercises?” Raif asked, his tense voice betraying his concern.

  Raif had tried to explain to the council why it had been just to execute Jaqar and the others, but they’d been unwilling to hear his side of things. He’d killed tavrai—that was all they needed to know. Raif flexed his fingers in anticipation of the fight to come. He could feel his chiaan inside him, a coiled rope waiting to snap free. Beside him, Nalia tensed.

  “Leave,” his mother said, her gaze unflinching as she stared down her son.

  Just one word, but it tore his heart in two.

  “Please,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “No,” a voice behind him said, “it doesn’t.”

  Raif turned and a bad day suddenly got much, much better: Zanari.

  The first thing she did was throw her arms around Nalia. “Gods, sister, don’t ever do that to us again,” Zanari said, crying in that messy way of hers.

  Nalia clutched Zanari, kissing her cheek again and again, heedless of the tavrai. “You did it,” Nalia said. “You got them through. Y
ou kept him alive.”

  Zanari grinned. “Nalia and Her Blind Seer?” she said.

  Nalia wiped her eyes. “No. Zanari and Her Blind Aisouri.”

  Zanari turned to Raif and hugged her brother fiercely. “Yurik told me Nalia was back. I came as soon as I could.”

  “I don’t know if this is terrible or perfect timing,” he murmured. “Did you hear about Jaqar?”

  She nodded. “I ran into Aisha. She told me everything.” Zanari glanced from him to Nalia. “Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”

  Their mother stepped forward, hand against her heart. “Zanari-jai, you have no idea what’s been happening—”

  “Mama, I love you,” Zanari said. “I respect and admire you. But Nalia is your daughter now, too, whether you like it or not. And she’s my sister.” She wrapped one arm around Nalia’s waist, the other around Raif’s. “I’m standing with my family. We’re strongest when we’re together—isn’t that what Papa always said?”

  “I can’t dishonor him this way,” his mother said. “I can’t. Ma’aj yaqif-la.” I wash my hands of it.

  The light went out of his mother’s eyes and she turned, walking into the darkness.

  Zanari glanced at Raif. “She’ll come around.”

  “I don’t know, Zan,” he said softly. It was one of the saddest things he’d ever seen: the silhouette of his widowed mother as she turned her back on the only family she had left.

  Raif raised his hands in surrender and faced the tavrai council. “We’ll be gone within the hour. Kajastriya vidim.”

  The council, then the tavrai, left without a word. They knew the Brass Army outnumbered them. They’d seen Nalia call forth lightning from the sky, seen the ring on her finger, felt the shackles around their wrists. If there was one thing he’d taught the tavrai, it was to know which battles to fight.

  “Well, that’s a bummer,” Zanari said as they watched them go. “I don’t know about you two, but I could use a glass of savri.”

  Zanari manifested a bottle of the spiced wine so loved by the jinn and they passed it around. Nalia moaned as the wine touched her tongue, her first taste of it since Morocco. Raif laughed softly, twining his fingers through hers.