This—this whole goddess damned journey—was not going as I’d planned. In a matter of an hour, I’d been handcuffed to one man who’d as soon kill me as fuck me, and sent away another who would lay his life down for mine and never ask anything of me but to love him. The worst part? I wasn’t sure that it was the right choice either, despite what my heart wanted to say.
My head was much more reasonable about the situation. I rubbed a hand over my face as the horses trotted along. They, at least, were happy enough to be moving despite the late hour. My stomach grumbled loudly, and I pulled out some jerky, chewing on it, handing some to Lila as she swept by, and basically just doing what I had to do to keep moving.
“Do you even know where you are going?” Marsum asked over the steady cadence of the horses’ hooves on the ground. We were able to skirt some of the worst of the dunes which meant we were on hard-packed dirt instead of sliding through the loose sand.
“South, toward the crossroads,” I said. “It’ll take us just under two weeks to get there, so get ready for some serious saddle sores on your ass.”
Maggi caught Batman up to me and Balder so we were side by side.
“I am going to suggest a third horse,” she said. “I do believe that would be prudent.”
“Great, but the two of us are still stuck together.” I held up my hand that was still very much attached to Marsum.
“Just like old times,” Lila whispered, burrowing deeper into the folds of my cloak on my lap between me and Marsum until just her violet eyes peered out, tiny jewels that caught the light of the stars.
I tapped Marsum on the shoulder. “So, tell me then, Jinn master, where do you think we are going?”
His answer was without hesitation. “The Blackened Market. It’s the only place we’ll have a chance to get a stone that can contain the power you sucked down like the foolish git that you are. And I suspect that’s what this one,” he motioned a thumb at Maggi, “wanted all along. One more stone she can steal.” His words were sharp and sounded less and less like Marsum’s voice even.
I shrugged. “Nope, we can’t. There is only two weeks minus two days until the third golden moon, and we are going to be at those crossroads in time for it.” That was what the Oracle had said, and that was what we were doing.
“You’ll be dead before then,” Maggi said. “He is right. The Blackened Market is our best chance.”
“Her being dead is fine by me at this point,” Marsum said, his voice dipping low. Damn him and his moody moods. First, he wanted to bed me, then kill me, then laugh at me.
I slowed Balder just by shifting my seat, and Batman followed suit. Good boy that he was. Batman, that is, not Marsum.
“Right, because you’ll just let me die?” I asked, and he nodded. I smiled and lifted my wrist, which lifted his wrist. “You sure about that?”
He looked down at the cuffs and muttered a string of profanities that made me grin. Maggi was a freaking brilliant genius. If I ignored the point he made about her wanting a stone. For now, I was ignoring that. Marsum had no choice but to keep me alive. I lived, he lived. I died, he died.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
8
The four of us rode south for another couple hours, moving slowly seeing as I made Marsum dismount and walk beside Balder. My horse didn’t need to be packing us both all the time.
“Enough of this shit,” Marsum growled as the sun began its slow rise on the eastern horizon. “Maggi, you can make this bond ethereal, can you not?”
Maggi sighed. “Wait for the sun to hit the chains.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
“I like my quirks when it comes to spells,” she said with a shrug. “Did you not see that with my pets? Under the light of the first day wearing them, your chains will fade.”
The sun rolled over the horizon and as the light hit us, the handcuffs just flat out dissolved. Marsum stumbled away and rubbed his wrist. I touched my own wrist, but it felt as though the band was still there. Just softer somehow. I squinted and could still see the faint outline of the metal on my wrist. Apparently Marsum did not see that same mark.
He grabbed Maggi, yanked her from the saddle, and leapt onto Batman.
“Hey!” I yelled and Lila zipped toward him.
He was barely in the saddle when he booted Batman and they leapt forward, running hard though Batman tried to turn around and come back to us.
I moved to follow but Maggi stopped me with a wave of her hand and a short, sharp laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
“He’s about to get a shock.” She laughed again. “I have not had this much fun in years. Just you wait and see.”
“Shouldn’t we go after him?” I asked even though part of me didn’t want to. Riding behind him, feeling the heat off his body and everything about him was still Maks, right down to the smell rolling off him. We’d lost Ford, Marsum was gone, and we still had enormous tasks ahead of us. I could have used some Jinn magic on hand for the tight spots I knew were coming.
Because let’s be honest, me and my black cat luck were not exactly known for being stellar at the best of times.
“No, he’ll be back. You’ll see,” Maggi said, her eyes staring after Marsum and Batman.
I cleared my throat, trying to put what we faced into perspective. “Look, the Blackened Market is practically on the way to the crossroads. We’ll go hard and see if we can’t get there and get the stone and deal with this.” I motioned to my body with a wave of my hand up and down. “But the farther south we go, the worse the heat is going to be, so we’re better off to travel at night if we can, and sleep during the day. Which means we need somewhere to hunker down for the day. As in right now.” I looked around, hoping for a cluster of trees, or a bunch of rocks, or something that would act as a shelter.
And then I looked at Maggi. “Can you help us out here with a little magic shelter maybe?”
“No, I have literally no power left to me. Knowledge is all I can offer now.”
Great. I was packing a two-legged library with me. One full of riddles.
A yell cut through the air and Batman and Marsum blasted by us at full speed as he cursed rapidly in several languages by the sounds of it.
I cringed to the side. “What is he doing?”
Lila shot into the air. “What’s happening?”
“He’s on a tether.” Maggi giggled. She damn well giggled. “He can only get so far from you before the tether begins to tighten on him, drawing him back to your side. Did you not notice him riding in a circle around us?”
I hadn’t. I’d been too busy looking for somewhere to rest for the day.
Another loop around us and Marsum pulled Batman to a halt next to us. “Stupid horse won’t leave you.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Oh, please. He’s better trained than you are. We need a shelter, and there’s nothing on hand. As you can see.”
He glared down at me. “I am not a slave to do your bidding.”
I grinned up at him. “I beg to differ. Pet.”
Lila snickered and covered her mouth with her tiny claws. “Being her slave what should you do but tend, upon the hours, and times of her desire? You have no precious time at all to spend; nor services to do till she require.”
“Boom, that’s a good one,” I said, racking my brain. Not an insult, so I wasn’t quite as familiar. “Sonnet 57?”
“Damn, I can’t stump you,” Lila said. “I’m going to find one, just you wait!”
I pointed at a smooth, flat area. “Make us a tent big enough for the horses to stand in too.”
Rage flickered like a storm across his face, his eyes darkening to a jet black before they faded once more to the blue I knew so well. “Heaven would that she these gifts should have, and I to live and die her slave.” He bowed from the waist, slowly straightening, his eyes never leaving mine, raking me from toe to crown.
I swallowed hard, unable to tell him which play it was. Because thi
s was a game Lila and I had played with Maks. Not Marsum, and my voice was lost to me.
He curled his hands out in front of him, snapped his fingers on his left hand . . . and nothing happened. He frowned, made a flicking motion with one wrist as if he were trying to light a fire, but again there was no response.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“This makes no sense,” he growled, staring at his hands as if they’d offended him greatly.
Maggi lifted a finger, her mouth pursing slightly, like a grimace she didn’t want to show. “I believe this might be a quirk I didn’t perceive for the cuffs. You, Zam, are not in immediate danger. You aren’t even afraid. So he can’t use his magic. At least that is what I put into it. As a precaution. I thought I would lock him to me, but it was far more interesting to put one cuff on each of you.”
My mouth dropped open and Marsum spoke for both of us as the truth was laid out.
“Fuck off!” He roared the words, dismounted and tried again with his wrist flicking for the magic. If it weren’t for the fact that we were going to get fried by the heat of the sun, it would have been funny to watch him wave his hands around and produce nothing.
Who was I kidding? Shit, it was funny. I grinned. I was going to die one day, laughing my ass off. “Keep trying. You look constipated.”
He stopped moving and stared at me, then to Maggi, his voice deepening. “You two, you both did this to me.”
I nodded and winked. “You know what? Even being tied to you like this, seeing you all ragey and mad, I’d do it again. Hell, I’d put the cuffs on us myself. You bet your ass I would. Mount up, we have to keep moving until we find shade, seeing as you can’t erect a single thing.”
Lila belly laughed, grabbing at her sides. “Oh, snap, you didn’t!”
He threw a fit, kicking the sand and yelling at the sky. And while amusing, it was wasting time. “I said, mount up!” I yelled at him, and he moved as if I’d lashed him.
He mounted Batman and I motioned for Maggi to ride with me on Balder. Things were better that way in my mind. Better because of . . . reasons. Like a hard chest, and a body I wanted to touch a little too much, a little too close.
Reasons like wanting to bury my nose against his neck and bite down on the muscles along his shoulder while he did the same to me. Yeah. Reasons.
Maggi rode behind me, and I was sure I saw her smirk when I glanced back at her.
That smirk wouldn’t last, not with the way the sun heated the world exponentially with each passing minute.
We rode in silence all day, finally finding a small stand of shrubby trees that gave meager shade.
Four days we rode in almost silence, or at least silence from Maggi and Marsum. Lila and I spoke as we always did. We managed to ride at night for the most part and find shelter for the worst of the day’s heat. Not ideal, but it was what we had.
Maggi’s dress stayed impossibly clean and lovely.
I was sweat and dirt-covered as was Marsum. I tried not to look at him, tried not to feel him there, just a few feet away from me and think about all the things I wanted to do with Maks. Damn my libido, maybe I was coming into a fertile stretch or something because the images of rolling across the sand with him played over and over in my head.
Or maybe they were his thoughts? I couldn’t tell. Maybe I didn’t want to know if it was him or me.
On the fifth day out, Lila stretched out across Balder’s rump, soaking in the heat. “I don’t know what the dragons were thinking making their home in the cold north. This is glorious.”
“The Jinn held this land first, and they don’t share any better than the dragons,” Marsum said. He rode a few strides behind us, but as I turned to look at him, it was obvious that he was still trying to make his magic work—as he had for the last few days—with no success. I had him here, literally at my mercy, and I needed to make the best of the time. No more silence, it was time to talk.
I twisted in the saddle, using my hood to shade my eyes from the sun. “I want you to tell me about the Jinn. What are their weaknesses?”
He froze in the saddle, his eyes widening. “I . . .”
“Oh yeah, get him, Zam!” Lila giggled. “Maybe he’ll give you Maks back if you pester him with enough questions.” She lowered her voice to a wicked whisper. “All the secrets, Jinn.”
Marsum’s jaw flexed over and over as he worked to get the answer out. “The surest way to kill a Jinn is to take their head.”
“Not what I asked,” I said. “I asked what are their weaknesses. I’m aware of the decapitation rule when it comes to killing them.”
I thought he was going to throw up all over poor Batman.
“Different for every Jinn.” His mouth turned down into a hard frown.
That actually made sense. “Is that because the bloodline is becoming diluted?”
He made a strangled sound that turned into a laugh. “The Jinn blood doesn’t dilute, Zamira. The Jinn blood always comes through strong in the males. Females born of the Jinn—which despite what you have seen in yourself and a few others—are rather rare. And most can’t carry a child, their bodies are at war with producing another Jinn with the history we have.”
“Then why bother with me if you think I might not be able to produce?” I threw at him, even though it was stupid. I needed him to need or want me, whichever way I looked at it; the more he needed me, the safer I was. Kind of. Maggi tapped me on the thigh, the side that he couldn’t see, as if warning me off this line of questioning.
“You are different.” He swiped his hands across his face, wiping sweat away. He wore a white swath of cloth that I’d given him on the first day. I’d dug it out of my saddlebags and tossed it to him without a word. He’d wound it around his head and created a sun-blocking hood. I’d have done it for Maks, which meant I had to do it for Marsum as long as he held Maks’s body.
“How is it that you are even speaking to me civilly when you know that I killed your father, that I put the spear through your brother’s back?” He asked as nicely as if we were on a first date.
“Because I can use you,” I said.
“Blunt,” he threw back.
“Truth,” Lila tossed in.
Death.
The word hissed through the air around us and I hauled Balder to a stop. “You three hear that?”
“Yes.” Lila shivered. “What is it?”
I looked to Marsum. “That what I think it is?”
His jaw flexed. “Yes. We need to move. Even if I had full control of my abilities, I could not stand on my own against them. They are somewhat immune to Jinn magic and there is no creature I know that can control them.”
“What?” Maggi asked. “I do not know the desert like I knew the north.”
“I’m with her. What is it exactly that I’m hearing?” Lila repeated, agitation making her wings shiver.
I wasn’t sure that Marsum was telling the truth about his magic, but I knew I could not fight what was coming. And the horses would be the first to be taken down, and I was not going to let that happen if I had anything to say about it. I dug around into the saddlebag and pulled out the sapphire, slipping the leather thong that held it over Lila’s body like a harness. Maggi reached for it and I threw it into the air for Lila to snag.
“I need your eyes in the air. The creatures coming for us travel under the sand, and they move like snakes. Look for the ground to slide side to side, just like a serpent.” A really, really big serpent. Sand snakes were thirty feet long at adulthood, their bodies made with an armor-like scale not dissimilar to a dragon’s, and they were venomous. They had a knack for sucking down entire caravans, leaving nothing behind but the wagons.
She gasped as she grasped the stone and her eyes immediately glittered with what I could only say was malice. “I can freeze them.”
“I don’t know if you can, Lila. They are desert creatures and heavily armored. Don’t even try unless they are fully above the sand. Th
ey’re too fast otherwise.” I watched her as she flew up and then I leaned into Balder, urging him into a gallop. Batman kept pace easily, but the horses were tired, they’d been going hard for the last few days as we tried to make good time. I shifted to four legs without hesitation, lessening the weight on my horse. I clung to the front of the saddle and Maggi took my place in the seat.
“How far back?” I yelled up at Lila.
She swept back to us. “Hundred feet and coming fast. What do we do?”
“Hard ground.” Marsum leaned forward over Batman’s neck, urging him faster. “We need to get to rock. That will force them above ground; they’re slower on rock should they try to traverse it.”
“That’s not a hell of a lot better!” I said.
“No, but it will give us a chance. You have the flail, that will kill them. If you don’t get bitten first.”
Maybe it would, but I’d have to get close to them and I was not going to put my horses or us in harm’s way.
The soft sand beneath the horses’ hooves sucked them down, slowing their strides and making them work twice as hard than if they were on hard-packed earth.
“Hurry!” Lila yelled, panic in her voice, and then she shot down and behind us.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the sand shifting, whipping side to side, and counted four ophidians.
Four.
“You listen to me, Marsum, when I say go left, you go left!” I said. “I know these horses and how they can move! Maggi, don’t do anything, I’ll direct Balder.”
Marsum looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but he nodded. I waited, urging Balder, whispering to him that I would let him rest for a year if we could just get this current shit storm handled. I kept where I was, watching the ground right behind the horses’ back feet. “Come on, you little fuckers. Come on.” The ground at Batman’s back foot shifted and I yelled, “LEFT!”
Marsum drove Batman to the side as the ground sunk where he’d been standing. I drove Balder to the right with a touch of my claws on his neck with the same effect—they missed us on the first two strikes. The snakes were quick, but not good at sideways moves. We’d slowed them down, but it wouldn’t last.
Wyvern's Lair (Desert Cursed Series Book 5) Page 8
