As soon as Raif passed under the temple’s amethyst arch that led to the courtyard reserved for prayer, he stopped, blinking as he took in the scene before him. Instead of the soldiers he’d been expecting to pray with, it was empty. Hundreds of candles glimmered around him, nestled in the temple’s nooks and arches, wedged between cracks in the walls. Snowflakes drifted from the sky and fell gently to the temple floor or settled on the ancient widr tree that took up most of the courtyard. The tiny lights strung across its branches reminded him of a cavern in another land, where he and Nalia had claimed each other for good.
There was a slight scuffling sound and he turned just as Yasri looked up at him and giggled. She began skipping toward the widr, vixen rose petals falling from her hands. His eyes followed the path of petals that began at his feet and stopped at the tree. Nalia stood beneath the widr’s swaying boughs, adorned in a pale lavender kaftan made of sea silk that caught the candlelight in its gossamer folds. She looked so much like she had that first night he’d seen her at the top of Malek’s stairs. Her hair lay against her shoulders and a Djan bride’s crown of wildflowers encircled her head.
All the air left Raif’s chest in one long sigh. Nalia met his eyes, hope and love and joy written all over her face. She wasn’t a Ghan Aisouri or an empress. She was just his Nalia. It only took Raif a few seconds to reach her, and he didn’t stop until she was in his arms.
It was almost too good to believe that after Malek, Haran, the bottle, Bashil, Calar, the Eye—after everything they’d been through—they could have this. His eyes traveled the lines of her face, adoring, his chest full of this love that was so great it seemed a power all its own, like they could paint the sky with it, if they wanted to.
A slight cough sounded behind him and Raif turned, still holding Nalia in his arms.
“Don’t you dare kiss her until you say your vows,” said Taz. He wore the ceremonial robes of the Shaitan pajai. Because of his studies both inside and outside the bottle, he’d been inducted into the priesthood after he officially became the spiritual adviser of the court.
Are you sure? Raif had asked him. Priests couldn’t marry, couldn’t have lovers. Raif, the gods gave me two rohifsas—I doubt there’s a third out there, Taz had said. And, frankly, I couldn’t bear loving someone again. This is where I belong.
And yet despite his horrific loss mere days ago, Taz was truly happy for Raif and Nalia. He looked at peace, standing before them, prepared to lead them through their vows to each other and to the gods.
“I’ve got my eye on them, Taz,” Zanari said, coming up behind Raif with a smirk. “Don’t you worry.”
“A blessing for the troops?” Raif said, laughing.
“It was the best I could do!”
“She really is a terrible liar,” Phara said, joining Zanari. “I can’t believe you fell for it.”
“Phara! You’re—but you—” Raif grinned and walked over to the healer, hugging her. “How long have you been here?”
“Since this morning,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss this for the worlds.”
This would mark Phara’s first visit to Arjinna—during the Godsnight, of all times.
Raif turned back to Nalia, reaching for her again. “How long have you been planning this?”
“Officially? Since this morning,” she said. “But I talked to Zan about if before she left for Earth last week.”
He shook his head. “What other secrets do you have up your sleeve?”
Nalia gave him a wicked grin and he blushed as Zanari burst out laughing. “Welcome to the family, sister.”
Nalia leaned into Raif, smiling, while Yasri giggled, hiding behind Taz, then peeking out at Nalia every few moments, her eyes full of wonder.
“Let’s get married,” Raif murmured to Nalia.
She kissed his nose. “What an excellent idea.”
Zanari and Phara took up their places behind them along with Nalia’s father and Thatur, who had quietly joined them under the tree, witnesses to the first wedding of a Ghan Aisouri.
Nalia’s father stepped forward, gently kissing his daughter on the cheek. “Many blessings, Daughter,” he said quietly. Raif knew it was the most affectionate he’d been in her life.
Raif noticed Touma standing guard at the temple entrance, openly weeping.
Zanari rolled her eyes. “Just wait until you start your vows—then he’ll really be bawling.”
A soft plume of green evanescence filtered through the archway and, a moment later, Fjirla Djan’Urbi appeared. No one made a sound as she crossed to Raif, ducking under the delicate silver widr branches that draped over the couple. She stopped, just a few feet from him. Her chin trembled and he went to her, wrapping his arms around her tiny frame. He caught Zanari’s eye and nodded to her in thanks. Told you she’d come around, her answering smile seemed to say. His mother held tightly to him for a long moment; then she stepped away and crossed to Nalia. Raif watched them, tense.
“Nalia-jai,” his mother said, using the suffix reserved for immediate family members. “Thank you for loving my son so well. I hope you’ll forgive me for my . . . difficulty with this.”
She reached for Nalia’s hand and Nalia took it, resting her forehead on the back of Fjirla’s hand in a sign of respect.
Raif’s eyes filled. He hadn’t realized until this moment how desperately sad his mother’s rejection of Nalia had made him.
“Batai ghez sonouq,” his mother whispered against her hair. My family is yours.
The rest of the ceremony was a blur: the wedding chalice, the binding tattoos that appeared on their ring fingers, glowing as they said their vows, then settling into their skin, a shimmering dust of gold that would mark Nalia forever as his beloved, and she his. And, finally, the kiss.
As their lips touched, the others cheered, sending ribbons of chiaan around them that burst into stardust. Nalia laughed against his lips, her eyes shining.
“My wife,” he whispered against her cheek.
“My husband,” she whispered back.
Just days ago she’d been in the Eye, lost to him—it seemed—forever. Now she was here, his wife, his wife.
Nalia leaned close and whispered her true name in his ear: Ashanai—Grace. It was the perfect name for her.
His lips traveled across her cheek. “Qalif,” he murmured. Hope.
Grace and Hope—yes, they could use that in each other’s lives.
Raif turned to Taz and nodded, letting him know that the final act of the ceremony—the exchange of true names—had been completed.
“Mahan laudik,” Taz said. Many favors.
Their little party of guests erupted into tearful cheers once again and Raif pulled Nalia to him, giving her a far less chaste kiss than the one during the ceremony.
As he pulled away the sky went dark, as though the moons were candles that had been blown out. Raif instinctively stepped in front of Nalia, shielding her body with his.
“Touma,” he called, “what is it?”
As the jinni closest to the temple’s entrance, he’d be able to tell them what was happening.
“Oh, sir, this is not good,” he called back through the darkness, “not good at all.”
“That’s a little cryptic, Touma,” Raif snapped.
Nalia pulled him toward the entryway and he followed. Despite the candles scattered around the temple, he could hardly see through the inky darkness.
When Raif looked out of the archway, he saw that his army’s fires continued to blaze on the northern side of the Qaf range, but the light of the moons had disappeared. Then he saw why. They hadn’t disappeared: something was blocking them.
“Fire and blood,” Taz breathed.
The Arjinnan Sea had turned into one big wave, so high that even from their vantage point at the top of the Qaf Mountains it seemed as though the moons had drowned. As it began to crest, the Widows winked back into view, their light bleeding onto the land, three waterfalls of lunar lava.
The first plagu
e of the Godsnight had begun.
43
IT DIDN’T MATTER THAT NALIA HAD THE POWER OF ALL four elements. The wave would kill her before she had a chance to absorb herself into it. The water reached its peak, taller than the tallest building she’d seen on Earth. It seemed to hover there, suspended. She stood atop Mount Zhiqui with the Brass Army spread along the Qaf’s ridge, staring down in horror as the tsunami crashed onto the shore. It hit the earth with the sound of a whip cracking, wiping out the fishing villages with one punch of its watery fist. In seconds the Marid territory was covered in water.
All along the ridge the jinn who’d traveled to Ithkar with Nalia cried out in helpless terror. Nalia stood, rooted to the ground, too overwhelmed to picture a location to evanesce to that the water wouldn’t be covering in a matter of seconds. But she couldn’t just stand there—she had to get on the ground, save as many lives as she could.
She looked around for Thatur and spotted him among a group of horrified Brass soldiers.
Thatur, she thought to him. Come. There’s work to do.
In seconds he was by her side.
“I’m going to warn the jinn farther inland,” she said to Raif. “Thatur and I can see what’s going on from the sky—we’re their best hope.”
Raif nodded, wordlessly pulling her to him and kissing her temple.
“Aisha!” Nalia yelled to the healer farther down the ridge.
She held up her bag of medicines. “I’ll be ready, My Empress.”
“Nalia—the tavrai,” Fjirla said, placing a hand on her daughter-in-law’s arm.
“I’ll warn them,” Nalia said. “I promise.” It didn’t matter that they hated her—they were her people, too, and she wasn’t going to let them die.
“They’ll try to hurt her—” Raif began, but Nalia was already shaking her head.
“We don’t abandon people because they don’t like a Ghan Aisouri,” she said.
“The ring,” Raif said. “What if you used the ring?”
This was how it started, wasn’t it? Justify use of the ring for good purposes, until you couldn’t tell the good from the bad. Nalia couldn’t bear to force anyone’s will, and yet, if it would save lives . . .
“Nal, you have to use it,” Raif said. “Command everyone to evanesce here. You could—”
“That won’t work,” said a quiet voice behind them. Ajwar stepped closer. “In order to evanesce, a jinni needs to envision the place they are going, yes?”
Raif nodded. “So can’t Nalia just—”
“No,” Ajwar said. “She can’t get into their minds like Calar can. Commands work differently. The only way she could help these jinn is to use hahm’alah—which means she’d have to know the true name of every jinni in the realm in order to show them where to evanesce.”
“And even if she could summon them,” Taz added, “the danger is too great. The wave could pull them apart midflight.”
“Even if we were to risk it, the energy it would take to summon thousands of jinn at once—it could kill her,” Ajwar said.
Raif looked like he wanted to argue, but then he nodded, tense. “I’ll have the army start manifesting boats,” he said. “We’ll round up the survivors.” He gripped Nalia’s hand. “Be careful. No heroics. I don’t want to be a widower, do you understand?”
She nodded—he knew her so well. “I love you,” she whispered, just before Thatur shot into the sky.
“The Marid,” she yelled to Thatur over the howling wind and the deafening sound of the wave destroying everything in its path. Though the villages were gone, jinn had to be down there fighting for their lives.
“Too late!” he said, and though she knew he was right, Nalia stared at the devastation below her, desperate to find drowning jinn to save. The Marid had taken the brunt of the wave. Why would Lathor do this to her own people?
The sea covered the Temple of Lathor entirely, the ancient house of worship annihilated by the wave’s force. The moons continued to bleed, shimmering waterfalls of light that spread over the ocean.
Thatur pushed on, toward Djan territory. The water was moving fast, but it seemed as if the jinn who weren’t on the coast hadn’t seen the wave. The sky should have been full of evanescence as jinn ran for the mountains, and yet . . . nothing.
“Thatur, the tavrai—we have to help them.”
He ignored her.
Thatur!
She felt him sigh, a rumble that reverberated through her bones.
Nalia-jai, it’s not safe. She slanted her body, forcing him to turn toward the forest, and he growled. They don’t deserve it.
They don’t deserve to die. They hated her, but that didn’t matter, not now. The enemy was the wave, not each other.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, Thatur grumbled as he dove down, speeding toward the trees below them. As soon as he passed through the bisahm and into the center of camp, Nalia jumped off his back. The tavrai were in the middle of their evening meal, and they stared at her from where they sat at their bonfires, open-mouthed.
The tavrai on guard duty ran toward her, scimitars out, but she ignored them, Thatur guarding her as she moved toward the nearest bonfire.
“A wave,” she panted, pointing toward the sea. “It just covered Marid territory—everyone’s probably dead—”
One of the guards moved closer to her, eyes full of hatred. “This is just some Aisouri scheme—”
“Listen to me!” Nalia shouted. “You have to evanesce now—before the water comes. Get to the mountains.”
A roar sounded on the edges of the forest, as though a giant were walking across it, stomping on every tree he came across. “Please,” she begged.
“Nalia—we’re leaving. Now,” Thatur shouted. He hadn’t yelled at her like that since she was a child.
“Please,” Nalia screamed to the tavrai as Thatur pulled her toward him with one of his powerful wings.
Nalia looked around, frantic, as the roar of the wave drew closer.
“Evanesce, now. That’s an order,” said a voice behind Nalia.
Nalia turned and caught Shirin’s eyes. The jinni was a few feet from her and Nalia lunged, grabbing Shirin by the arm and pulling her toward Thatur.
“Get behind me,” she yelled.
Shirin hesitated. “But—”
“None of it matters, sister,” Nalia said, the heaviness of their short history together playing out across Shirin’s eyes. “Do you want to live?”
Shirin jumped on, sliding her arms around Nalia’s waist.
The sea surged toward them, a filthy brown wave that broke the trees in its path like twigs, flooding the outer perimeter of the camp. All around them the tavrai began to evanesce, their ludeens above the water line buying them extra seconds, but only until the wave could barrel through the forest.
Thatur took off, speeding toward the Qaf range. He landed and Raif sprinted to them and wrapped his arms around Nalia as soon as she dismounted.
Shirin slid off Thatur’s back and Raif finally caught sight of her.
“Shirin,” he breathed.
She bit her lip, eyes filling, and he pulled her to him in a wordless hug.
Nalia walked to the edge of the cliff, giving them space, and joined Phara and Zanari.
“Oh, gods,” Zanari whispered. The entire forest was covered in water. She turned away, sobbing quietly into Phara’s neck.
All around them jinn were evanescing onto the mountain, but there weren’t enough—hundreds more tavrai were down there.
Nalia glanced at Shirin and Raif, who were watching the people they’d spent their whole life with die right in front of them—and there was nothing they could do about it until the water was calm enough for them to start sending boats down. From what Nalia could see, all that remained of the tavrai headquarters directly beneath them was a dirty lake studded with uprooted widr and elder pines.
Raif crossed to his sister and put a hand on her arm. “You both need to go back to the Dhoma.”
&
nbsp; “But we can help. I’m a healer, I can—” Phara began, but Fjirla stepped in.
“This isn’t your fight—either of you. Zanari left for a reason. If you stay, you may never leave,” Fjirla said.
“They’re right, Zan,” Nalia said. “And someone needs to tell the Dhoma there might be a lot of jinn coming through the portal tonight.”
Raif gave his sister a hug, holding her tightly “Be well,” he whispered.
Taz ran up to Zanari, Yasri crying in his arms, Quan at his side. “Will you—”
Zanari reached for her and Phara took the boy’s hand. “Of course.”
Taz ruffled Quan’s hair, then kissed Yasri on the head. “I’ll see you soon, sweet one.”
“Tazeem!” she cried, reaching for him as Zanari’s jade evanescence surrounded her. Seconds later, they were gone.
Nalia jumped back on Thatur. “What’s the plan?” she asked Raif.
“Taz and I will cover the Djan plantations. Nal and Thatur, you get the Ifrit villages.”
“I’ll go to Yurik,” Shirin said, coming up behind him.
Raif nodded. “All right.”
Shirin turned to Nalia.
They couldn’t have looked more different: Nalia in her shimmering kaftan and bridal crown, Shirin in her worn battle leather, her hair in a tight braid. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Nalia nodded. She didn’t like Shirin Djan’Khar, but she was glad to have saved her life. “Jahal’alund,” Nalia said.
Freedom's Slave Page 38
