Lowering her voice, she glanced toward the windows for fear of seeing some spy from the palace. She didn’t trust Bijam, the man known for his trickery. “He came to me, Kazim. The man I’ve been seeing isn’t only a sorcerer, he’s the son of a grand ifrit. But he’s under a curse and needs our help.”
“Can you ask him to save you and father?”
“I can, but first we must lift his curse to release the full extent of his power.”
“What can I do to help? I don’t know a damned thing about magic.”
“But you know stories. You frequently read when you’re not tending the shop, Kazim. He says his story is one of legends, a cautionary tale passed down from generation to generation.” She relayed the rest of the conversation to her brother, leaving out nothing but the existence of the niece or nephew growing in her womb.
Her brother leaned back with a hand on his brow and sighed. “So, he claims he’s told you everything you need to identify him? There are many tales regarding the ifrit people, but none I can think of regarding a half-breed. If you want stories, the only place I can recommend is Amira’s shop. There isn’t a book in all the sands that hasn’t passed through her doorway. That’s where you’ll find the answer to this riddle.”
“Will you help me?”
Kazim’s gaze moved to the bedroom door. “I want to help, but someone needs to be here for him. He doesn’t have much longer.”
“Of course. You’re right. I’ll stay with you.”
“No. You go to Amira and try to find your ifrit’s name. I’ll send for you if anything changes.”
* * *
Amira must have seen her approach through the window because the woman sprang from the bookstore and rushed to Zarina before she even reached the door.
“I thought I would never see you again, child! Did the vizier release you?” Soft arms enveloped Zarina in a strong, enthusiastic embrace. It was like being hugged by her mother again, the older woman’s skin scented with jasmine. She burrowed into the warmth and let her tears fall unrestrained.
“Only for three days, Amira.”
In the private rear room of the bookstore, she told Amira everything that happened between her and Joaidane, their deal, his curse, and the high-stakes bargain between her and the sultan’s nephew.
By the end, Amira stared at her in amazement. “Then, we haven’t a moment to waste. Since we can’t have you go back empty-handed, I’ll ask Sonja to make you a dress.”
“I couldn’t—”
“You aren’t. I am. My daughter will whip you up an appropriate dress in no time.”
Zarina blinked back tears. “Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. Now, there are dozens upon dozens, even hundreds of stories related to the ifrit.”
With over a hundred tomes of varying thickness to read, they scoured stories about the fire elementals, sorcerers, and even tales of the vengeful gods.
But with too much to absorb in one day, they met only defeat.
When she returned home with a stack of books in her arms, she arrived to find the mourning ritual underway. As neighbors took notice of what was happening, green banners unfurled from windows in the neighboring homes, each one trimmed in silver with depictions of the Samaharan goddess of death. Her father must have passed mere minutes ago, and as word spread throughout the residential district, people she’d known since childhood bowed their heads to her in respect.
Zarina and Kazim buried him at dawn in the plot beside their mother. Kazim stood beside her while the priestesses chanted the final rites. Afterward, they received hugs from all in attendance and the crowd thinned, leaving only two siblings at the edge of a dirt mound holding their father’s remains.
“Vizier Bijam did this,” Kazim said in a low voice, “with his gambling houses and his debts. Every time Father took a loan from him, Vizier Bijam had the power to end it all. But he didn’t. He preyed on our father’s illness. Father insisted to the end the man used his magic to cheat, and I believe him. I have never heard a fair or kind word spoken in honesty about the sultan’s nephew.”
“There aren’t any words to describe his cruelty to the harem girls. If not for Joaidane’s trick with the golden thread, I could be one of them. Or even dead.”
“If we find this ifrit’s name and free him, will he avenge your honor and our father?”
Zarina nibbled her bottom lip and gazed into the distance. “I don’t know.”
“How do you know it isn’t a trick? What if you free him and he flees as his kind are known for doing?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because…” She sighed and dipped her chin, pressing a hand against her belly. She hadn’t felt anything, not a stir, kick, or even a tickle, making it difficult to believe there was life growing in her womb.
“Zarina? What’s wrong?”
I wish Mother were here to tell me what to expect.
“I’m with child. It’s his. And he’s done everything he can within the letter of the curse to help us, Kazim. But first, we have to help him.”
Kazim’s dark eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and he stared at the hand on her belly. “What have you done, Zarina?” The words escaped him in a hoarse whisper.
“I followed my heart and gave myself to a man I love.” She set her hand on his arm. “If it makes you feel any better, it was me who seduced him. You don’t have to avenge my honor because I gave it freely.”
He snorted. “I couldn’t avenge you against Bijam, let alone a supernatural entity. What kind of brother am I? I did nothing to defend you.”
“You saved your life. If you had tried to fight them, you’d be dead, Kazim. You wouldn’t be here now to talk to me, Father would have died without loving hands tending to him in his final moments, and I wouldn’t have your help now when I need you. Help me find the name of Joaidane’s curse.”
Her crestfallen brother let his shoulders drop. He shook his head and mopped his brow with a cloth. The sun had emerged from behind the clouds, a cruel and scorching beginning to what would soon become an unbearable autumn day. Winter couldn’t come soon enough. “It could be in any one of these books, a single tale on a page we’ve skimmed in haste,” Kazim muttered.
“We have to try.”
They walked to Amira’s bookstore and discovered mourning banners hanging in the windows. Zarina read the notice on the door. Closed for the day during the time of mourning. Before she could panic, it opened to reveal Amira’s sympathetic face.
“I knew to expect you to return, so I’ve closed the shop for you. Come. Come in. There’s much work to do.” After ushering them inside, Amira turned the lock and drew the curtains.
“Now the vizier’s spies will have nothing to report to him,” the older woman said. “I’ve started a few piles already, so take your pick.”
“Thank you,” Zarina said.
Her brother drifted toward a stack of historical tomes on a table. “We appreciate this, Amira. I’ll begin with these since I have the most familiarity with them from my days in school.”
Amira placed a heavy book bound in scarlet leather into Zarina’s arms. “This is the legend of Queen Yasmina. Everything I’ve ever heard about her claims she’s fierce and beautiful, but that her anger is like a raging inferno. She punishes the wicked among her own kind for crimes against one another and humans.”
Her brother grunted. “Maybe we should bring the old beggar here and have him help. He could at least flip through a book or two and point out the damned page, couldn’t he?”
“No. His curse won’t allow it.” Zarina gazed out the window. Despite her hopes to cross paths with Joaidane, he’d avoided her. “All this time he lived out there, belittled and scorned.”
Zarina read fables devoted to Queen Yasmina until her vision blurred and her eyes hurt. She flexed her fingers and stretched her stiffened back, spine aching from hunching over collections of fairy tales. Occasionally, Amira served them hot
cups of sweet chai and almond cookies.
“I’m not hungry, Amira, but thank you.”
“But you must have something. How long has it been since you’ve had a complete meal?”
Apparently protesting Zarina’s unintentional hunger strike, her belly rumbled. “Bijam tried to bribe me yesterday with a full meal while informing me of our marriage plans. I’m ashamed to confess it worked. A little. I was so hungry I couldn’t resist and turn it down. Now I’m too petrified to have a bite.”
“Then eat now without strings attached. I am going to step into the market to fetch dinner for all of us. Dragan is away to the north visiting Ankirith, and I lack the inclination to cook for myself when he’s gone.”
Zarina glanced up from her book. “Ankirith… That sounds familiar.”
“It’s a port city near the borders of Liang and Samahara,” Amira explained. “A beautiful place. I only saw it once with my own eyes when I closed the shop two years ago, and we traveled north to visit my son and his wife after the birth of their daughter. There’s grass there, and it makes the entire area resemble an oasis that stretches for miles.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
“It is. The days are cool, and in the evenings, a refreshing mist blows over the city from the sea. But enough of that. I’ll return shortly.”
Amira closed and locked the door behind her.
As the piles of discarded books grew taller, the hours dwindled, and the skies above Naruk darkened. No matter how many stories Zarina read, nothing remotely resembled Joaidane’s situation. Even so, she added every jinni name she could find to the parchment beside her.
When the final market hours came to a close, Amira sent them home with a wagon of tomes covering the folklore of various regions across Samahara. Zarina searched for Joaidane’s haggard face among the peasants and shoppers they encountered along the way, but if he had remained in Naruk, he’d hidden from even her.
“Do you see him?” Kazim asked in a whisper.
“No.”
“Neither do I. Why does he hide now? Why bother when you’ve already seen his face and identified him?”
“I don’t think he hides away out of shame. Bijam knows I have a jinni of some sort, but he doesn’t know the identity. Maybe he’s afraid of drawing attention to himself and endangering our plans?”
“I suppose so.” Her brother didn’t look convinced.
Dusk fell during their stroll home and blanketed the streets in darkness broken by the occasional lamp. Despite his many faults, Zarina recognized the keen loss of their father without his wine jugs to litter the floor. Without his incoherent grumbles and swears when they arrived late. Or the candles he always lit. Or the meals he’d occasionally put together on a dry and sober day with the money he’d restrained himself from spending on drink and gaming.
Because those days, as few and rare as they had been, had been there.
“I’ll brew coffee,” Kazim offered.
“I’ll get back to reading.”
Zarina pulled the cart to the couch and picked up where she had left off. Her current book was filled with daring tales of thieves, princesses, and sorcerers—but no ifrit. Each one she set aside as useless worsened her despair, the sense of failure intensifying until tears beaded upon her lashes.
“I don’t know how to find what we need,” she told her brother.
“Then perhaps you should skip coffee and get some rest. You won’t find anything if your eyes are too tired to comprehend whatever you’re reading.”
“But tomorrow is the last day.”
“I know, and I won’t be able to help you.”
“Why not?”
“A caravan from the north arrives, and it’s my only chance to deal for certain spices. I suspect Bijam must have disapproved of our recent fortune, because taxes have increased threefold since they took you. I spent too many days at home with Father, and if I can’t keep the shop running, we’ll lose it.”
“And if I’m stuck in the palace, you’ll be left here on your own,” she murmured. “In the streets.”
“Yes.” His small, sad smile brought another wave of guilt crashing over her. While she ate fancy, extravagant cuisine at the palace, her brother would be scraping to survive.
It’s not my fault, she reminded herself. I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t want it.
Because if there was any future Zarina desired, it would have been a peaceful life with Joaidane in her childhood home, running the shop alongside her brother.
She kissed Kazim’s cheek and hugged him. “I love you. No matter what happens after tomorrow.”
* * *
A stack of storybooks occupied Zarina’s morning while her brother traveled miles beyond the city outskirts to the dusty hills where sparse grass littered the sandy ground. Away from Naruk, farmers raised goats, grew desert succulents, and cultivated drought-tolerant herbs.
She hoped he acquired the contract he needed to keep the business afloat, but most of all, she hoped he overcame his shyness and asked one of the ladies he favored to wed him.
He’d need someone to help him once she was gone, a woman willing to stand alongside her kind-hearted brother through any difficulty
Unable to keep her shop closed indefinitely until they uncovered Joaidane’s story, Amira promised to continue reading between customers and to deliver any news when she discovered it. A little after lunch, a package arrived by courier from Amira’s shop.
Your dress. I pray you’ll get to wear it for someone worthy.
She didn’t dare to open it and look inside, afraid looking upon it would be the jinx that condemned her future. One day. She had only a single day until the sultan’s nephew took her as his bride. A single day until she was bound in a marriage contract into the royal family. She shuddered. The sultan’s six wives appeared to be as unhappy as the many women in the harem.
“Zarina! Zarina!” Kazim’s shouts reached her through the door. She scrambled back and nearly toppled off the chaise when he burst inside. The door banged against the wall and bounced into him. “I found it!”
“Found what?” Her heart would never be the same again. For a terrifying moment, she thought the palace guard had been after him, or worse, Bijam had come to collect her in person. Holding one hand against her chest, Zarina willed her pulse to slow.
Kazim shut the door behind him. “Your elemental’s name.”
“Wait, what? How?”
“I was finishing up the deal with the traders—”
“So you won the contract?”
Kazim waved her off. “Yes. That’s not important. As I was saying, we were finishing up when the man’s son was running about. When the boy nearly spilled a pail of goat’s milk, his wife scolded him and said he needed to behave or Queen Yasmina would make him ugly like Rumpelstiltskin.” Excited by his discovery, her brother spoke in an animated rush, words spilling from him faster than she could comprehend them.
“What?” Zarina blinked.
“That’s what I said. Xavos laughed and told me it was a local tale from their home. Centuries ago, he said, the queen cursed the son of Enchantress Safiyya. The adults tell the stories to their little ones.”
“To frighten them into behaving.”
Her brother nodded. “Yes, much like our tale of the weeping woman in the dunes. Remember when Mother used to say if we cried too much while doing our chores, Yoyavera would pull us into the sand? Xavos is from Ankirith, and Rumpelstiltskin is a popular tale there. As popular as any other story about Enchantress Safiyya. I remember learning about her in school myself, the short time I was able to attend.”
Hope hammered behind her ribs, sending her pulse into a racing rhythm. “I have a book about the enchantress. It’s in my room.”
“Then we must read it and confirm this theory. If your ifrit is her son, this could be the name of the curse. The way to free him.”
After hurrying through the house, she fetched the book and crawled onto the bed to open it acro
ss her lap. Kazim dropped down to her right and read over her shoulder.
Zarina flipped through the thick book, tracing her finger line by line down each page as she skimmed. “I don’t see anything about ifrit,” she muttered, frustrated.
Kazim grabbed her wrist. “Wait, go back a page.”
She turned back to an illustration depicting a grand spire overlooking the desert. Two small figures stood in the tallest window.
“The Enchantress Safiyya and her son, Joaidane, overlooking their domain,” Kazim read the note beneath the image.
“This is it. It’s him.” Zarina folded her legs beneath her and bent her head, scouring the pages closely.
Joaidane hadn’t lied after all about his past—the book reaffirmed a spoiled lifetime of trickery and misdeeds against the villagers. Time after time, his mother turned a blind eye and allowed him to go unpunished.
“He was a shithead,” Kazim muttered. “Are you sure this is who you want?”
Zarina let her shoulders drop. “He’s changed. Whoever he was then… this—this—is not him.”
“I hope so. You deserve better than petty tricks and childishness.”
An illustration of Queen Yasmina glowed in gold ink on the next page, the grand ifrit depicted as a woman of impossible, flawless beauty. Her hair flowed like flames, and in the image, she towered above a kneeling Joaidane.
“It says, ‘Powerless for the first time in her life, Safiyya had no choice but to accept Yasmina’s decree. She sent her son away to learn a lesson from his mistakes.’” Zarina frowned. “She doomed him to walk the dunes as a disfigured traveler until someone took pity and released him from his curse. How awful that must have been.”
“But does it say how to break the curse?” Kazim asked.
“No, but this must be it. His name. Rumpelstiltskin. Joaidane only told me I need to discover the name.”
“Such a strange one at that.”
“It is,” she agreed in a quiet murmur. “But I suppose Queen Yasmina couldn’t make it easy.”
“Then we need to find the old beggar. Once you free him from the spell, he’ll be a powerful sorcerer again, and you’ll never have to go—”
Zarina and the Djinn Page 17
