“The roofline will work in my favor with the buildings so close together. I can be to the merchant’s stall in no time.” I kept looking, not because there was anything else to see but because I didn’t want to look at Marsum. At Maks.
He walked over and stood next to me. “You’re nervous about getting the stone?” His voice was so close, right against my ear. There were a lot of things I could have said. There were a lot of things I shouldn’t have said, and some things that terrified me to say. His hand slid around my waist, flat on my belly, and he slowly pulled me back against him. Solid, strong, warm, he was the one who matched me in every way, and I couldn’t have him. With no way I could see to save him.
“Talk to me, Zam.”
Maks.
I closed my eyes. “I should go.”
I pushed his hands away and moved to shift. But he caught me and pulled me back to him, eyes full of a fire I knew too well as it burned me every time he touched me.
“Not without a kiss.”
22
The kiss of your soul mate is no small thing, especially when they are trying to impress something upon you. Maks’s lips covered mine and his arms pinned me to him, one hand behind my head and the other in the small of my back. Gentle and demanding at the same time. I knew I should be pushing him away, telling him to fuck off or at least protesting.
Not me.
Nope, I all but wrapped my legs around his waist and arms around his neck while Lila snored on the table, full of food and totally oblivious to the makeout fest happening. Frantic movements, there was no real thought involved like hey, we’re in the Blackened Market. Maybe we should have our game faces on. Or maybe, if we don’t get that stone, we’ll both die. Or even better, if you get that stone and free Marsum from the bonds tying him to you, he may still try to kill you, because all of those things were valid, strong, important points.
None of them even touched on the need raging through me.
“Zam, I don’t have long,” Maks whispered in between kissing my face, lips, neck, any part of my skin he could reach.
“Maks, you have to keep fighting, I’m trying—”
“Listen to me.” He stopped kissing me long enough to hold my face in his hands. “I don’t know if Marsum is the danger to you.”
I blinked a few times. “What?”
“Davin has been helpful, I know. He’s been coming through, and I think . . . I think he wants to kill you, Zam. He was the one who poisoned all the females, not some other Jinn.” His jaw flicked and those blue eyes darkened. For a moment I was sure I was looking at Marsum, and then he receded.
“Was that him?” I asked.
Maks blew out a sharp breath. “Marsum knows you’ll listen to me. He’s . . . working with me. We are working together to keep Davin in place, but he’s stronger than either of us knew and he’s taking more and more of us.” He kissed me again, pulled back and swallowed hard. “Zam, trust Marsum. I know that’s a horrible thing to ask, believe me I know it. But I can’t make him give up first position, and I am holding Davin back. He can’t. So trust him. Please.”
My turn to swallow hard. “I have to get the stone.”
“I know.” He pulled me into a hard hug and kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Zam. I should never have tried to run away from you, to try to protect you. I should have believed we could find a way through this.”
Hope flared inside of me. “You think there’s a way?”
I felt him nod. “Marsum thinks there’s a way, but he won’t tell me. I’ll try to get it out of him.”
I squeezed him tightly and lifted my face for one last kiss. Only it wasn’t Maks there any longer.
And it wasn’t Marsum either.
“So, the two boys have decided to work together, have they? I wondered at how they were keeping me in the dark so much.”
His lips quirked into a cruel sneer and he took my offering, his mouth cutting across mine, hard as iron as one hand lifted, black mist curling around it.
A death spell, one that would steal my power. It shaped itself like the glyphs from my mother’s papers, the ones that had burned up. The snake with the spear through it, the one that meant death.
And I could see it within the mist.
I drove my fist into his chest, knocking him back more than a few steps, and followed up with a kick to his left knee. He went down with a bellow as the kneecap popped out. Mortal, Jinn, two-legged or four, a kneecap still fucking hurt when you blew it out.
“I’m sorry.” I took a stumbling step back, feeling the moment stretch as the pain hit me too. His hand went to where I landed the blow. “Run,” he whispered. “He knows we’re onto him. Run!”
Sweet baby goddess. I was going to lose him after all this.
With a cry, I scooped up Lila in one arm, turned and leapt for the window. Through the curtains we went, and I landed in a crouch on the slope of the roof. The metal and tiles with the dust of the desert coating them made the metal slick, and we slid more than a few feet before I caught us with one hand.
I didn’t dare look back to the window. The blow to the knee would give us a head start. There was only one chance I had now and that was to get the stone and get to the crossroads. Without him. We were close enough, we had to be.
Maybe Ollianna could help us undo this spell, or combined with Maggi’s knowledge and the power of the golden moons. Yes, I had to believe she could, or what was the point in even trying? I scooted across a couple rooftops before finding an alcove away from prying eyes. Night had fallen, but only just, and I was not all that inconspicuous in my long cloak and on two legs.
For once, I was wishing to be small, but I couldn’t do that until Lila woke. I lifted her up to my face and gave her a light shake. “Lila, wake up!”
“Sleeping, you leave me—”
“He just tried to kill me.” The words broke me, and I couldn’t stop the tears. Stupid, but it hurt me more now than it had before. Because I knew what it meant. I knew I was going to lose him fully.
“What, what?” She pulled herself out of her stupor. I filled her in between hiccups, about how Maks asked me to trust Marsum and how Davin had taken over Maks’s body at the end. About the glyph inside the mist, and what it had meant. “Davin was the one to kill all the female Jinn. And now he wants to kill me.”
Suddenly it made sense as to why the Jinn masters were such miserable bastards. “What if that’s why . . .” No, I didn’t want to think about the possibility of Marsum not being a right bastard, a piece of shit, or of him setting Maks and me up. What if it had been Davin all along?
“What?” Lila tugged at me. “What are you thinking?”
I shook my head. “Not now. We have to get the stone, then we have to get the hell out of here.”
That made me pause. The horses were in the stable behind us, fully untacked and locked in stalls.
“Lila, can you get into the stable? Get Balder and Batman out while I get the stone? If Marsum is there . . . leave them.” Oh, gods that hurt. But we couldn’t get them back if we were caught, or worse, dead.
“I can unlatch things, but I can’t get their gear on,” Lila said. I nodded—riding bareback was fine by me—and she flew off, back the way we came, using the buildings for cover. And now it was my turn to do the same. I shifted, walking through the doorway in my mind between two legs and four, ignoring the doorway coated in magic and beckoning me to use it.
“Not tonight,” I muttered as I scooted across the rooftops, leaping between them, landing lightly on the pads of my paws as I raced toward the merchant stalls. Only a few minutes and I was there, looking down on the roof of the stone merchant. Or an animated crony, however you wanted to look at him. I leaned over the edge. There was an open window on the top of the roof to allow for ventilation. A perfect entry for a thief.
I leapt across and crouched down at the entrance to the window. The merchant Jiango sat on a stool, unmoving. “Yes, master, I sent him away. Yes, master, I will do as you s
ay. Kill the Jinn. Bring the flail to you.”
I shook my head. Indiana Jones surely never had this many issues on one of his adventures. The merchant was being used by the Emperor? Of course he was, because my life was a game of just how bad could things get. The answer?
Worse, they could always get worse.
The sound of horse hooves on the cobblestone turned my head ever so slightly.
“No, no, no.” I mouthed the words as he came into view, riding Batman, leading Balder behind. Not Maks, not Marsum, but the other one.
“One way or another, I will have that stone and the magic out of you, Zamira,” Davin’s voice cut through the night. He reached behind him and pulled Lila out, her wings and mouth strapped by magic. “You women are not meant to wield the power of the Jinn. It makes you crazy. It makes you stupid. Almost as stupid as so-called love makes you.” He smiled and his eyes searched the roofline shadows. I slid back farther.
A plan began to form, quickly, with the reckless abandon I could be known for—I just had to make it happen. For Lila, for me, for Maks, I had to do this even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.
I slid through the window and dropped to the ground at the animated man’s feet. He startled and then fell backward as I shifted to two feet. I grabbed him by the shoulders and drew him close enough to smell the garlic on his breath. Time to lay all the cards on the table.
“Grandfather, I’ll bring you the flail, but I need two things from you.”
Goddess, was I really going to do this?
I was. I was going to make a deal with the devil to make things right, to give us all a chance at life.
Jiango stood a little straighter and his voice changed. “What is it that you want?”
“The black lightning-kissed stone, and you will release my brother. Give me those two things and I’ll deliver the flail to you in person.” Two lives, for one deal. That had to be enough. Three lives if I counted Maks not going down with me and the power of the stone.
Jiango tipped his head to one side, dropped to his knees and pulled a knife from his belt. “What are you doing?” I moved to grab the knife but missed it, cutting my fingers on the edge just before he plunged it into his own belly. I hissed and clutched my fingers; he groaned as he dug the knife around, slicing through layers of fat, muscle and viscera before he finally stopped.
“Like a kid playing in the sand, digging for treasure,” I whispered.
Well, stopped isn’t quite the right word. He dropped the knife and drove his hand into his belly next, scrounging around before he came out clutching something that looked terrifyingly familiar.
The stone in his hand was the exact replica of the one that had shattered and released all that magic into me.
“Wait!” I grabbed at Jiango as he slumped in front of me, bleeding out. “How do I put the magic into the stone from the one that shattered against me?”
Jiango blinked and then laughed, burbling. “You can’t. Only I can do that. What will you give me to save you now?”
He’d known that I would die without his help, and he made the deal anyway—to take my moment of hope from me.
He fell to the side, laughing as he died, laughing as my death sentence was sealed.
23
Jiango, minion of the Emperor, and purveyor of stones, lay dead at my feet. The stone I needed was in my hands, and Davin the Jinn, slayer of female Jinn, waited to introduce me to the same fate—and he held Lila as a prisoner to make sure I did as he wanted. Which at the moment was die.
Only if I died, he died. Or did he? The cuffs had tied my life to his, but did the bond he’d placed on me work the same? I had a feeling it would. That would explain why Davin had fought Marsum on connecting to me.
I’d just agreed to give the flail to the Emperor for this stone, so I better damn well make the bargain worth the cost.
I rubbed my thumb over the stone and it lit up inside as though I’d turned something on. “I don’t want this power,” I whispered and closed my eyes. The only thing I could do was try to push the power in me out, using my own magic.
What had Davin said? That Jinn women were too adaptable, too good at using too many kinds of magic. I was a Jinn woman, apparently adaptable in ways other magic users weren’t, so maybe I could do this.
I went to my knees, lifted my shirt, and pressed the point of the crystal against the spot where the other one had exploded, following my instincts once more. The glyphs that had been written in my mother’s journal swelled in my head, images with meanings that pulsed with knowledge.
Droplets of blood.
The stone.
Jinn.
Marsum.
Lila.
Pushing hard enough to feel blood well up under the tip of the stone, I opened the doorway in my mind between me and the magic that was my own and hoped that the other pieces would fall into place.
The door broke open and Davin stood over me, glaring. “What are you doing?”
“Getting the magic out of me. And if you want it so badly, you can fucking help!” I snapped. My anger was fueled by fear and desperation, and the power in me swirled up and around, drawn into the stone as if it were a magnet.
He dropped to his knees beside me and the black mist rose up around us as he raised his power. “You are a granddaughter of the Emperor. You have it in you to make this happen. I will guide you.”
“Bullshit.” I snarled the word. “You can’t guide me, and I don’t trust you.” A thought hit me, and I embraced it. “Let Marsum guide me.”
“You’d trust him? How would you even know the difference?” He frowned and I glared at him as sweat rolled down my body.
“Just like I knew when it was Maks and not Marsum.”
He blinked and there was a moment that I thought he would just kill me outright. But that wouldn’t trap the power for him, and that was what he wanted more than anything, I could see it now. The stones. He wanted to take the stones from me.
“You want to be the next Emperor, don’t you?” I whispered the question as Marsum put his hands over mine.
“Not me, but Davin, yes.” His jaw flicked as the magic swelled around us. He stood and went outside, then came back with Lila. She was spitting mad and he shushed her. “We need to help Zam. It will take all three of us, a true triad of power to push Ishtar’s magic into the stone and save Zam.”
Three. Three. Three.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” she growled, and then turned to me. “He caught me.”
“I saw that. Too much food?” The smile hurt but I did it anyway. I turned to Marsum. “Marsum, Maks said there is a way to stop all this, a way to free him.” I clutched at his fingers and then grimaced as the air in my lungs began to burn. Lila grabbed hold of my face and Marsum spread one hand on my neck, holding me upright, the other wrapped around my fingers and helped hang onto the lightning-kissed crystal.
“There is,” he said as he held me tightly. “But you have to survive this first.” The black mist of the Jinn swirled around us and two of the stones we had in our possession lit up. Blue and amber. Ice Witch and Jinn. I didn’t have any time to wonder why the emerald stone, the dragon’s stone, lay dormant.
His magic drove into the stone and my own magic rose once more to meet it.
A soundless scream ripped out of me as the air in my lungs went from burning to turning into a ball of fire so hot, it could have fallen from the sun.
“Stop! She’s going to die!” Lila shrieked as the magic ran hotter and hotter, more than any desert sun, more than any heat I’d ever known.
“She’ll die if we stop!” he roared back at her, and I knew he was right. Of course he was right.
But I had to slow this heat down.
My free hand brushed against the sapphire stone and I picked it out of the bag. A sudden cold washed through me, dousing the flames and allowing me to breathe again.
The colors spun like a storm around us and seemed to go through me. Damn well straight t
hrough me.
I couldn’t breathe again, but this time, I didn’t mind. There was no pain with the lack of breath, just a concern that at some point, this would be bad and there would be no intake of breath for me again.
You can leave me, I thought, seeing the magic that was Ishtar’s in the storm of color. Go into the stone.
It writhed around inside of me and I shook my head. I would die and the magic would die with me if it didn’t go.
That thought was all I could see as the world began to fade, and I clung to it. At least the magic would not be used for evil again, for hurting anyone, because it would be dead too. I would take it with me. There would be no more of this part of Ishtar’s power. I held my breath and wrapped my own magic around Ishtar’s, holding it to me. If it wouldn’t go into the stone, I’d kill it.
Dead magic. Was that even a possibility? Maybe, because I carried the blood of the Jinn. I could kill it when others couldn’t.
A growl slid through me, one that was not my own.
There was a pulse of power around my middle, and then a sudden snap of my ribs breaking. My breath came out in a whoosh, skin tingling and eyes watering, Ishtar’s power fleeing me, streaking into the stone still pressed into my chest. The piercing point of the stone tingled against my skin and I could see the magic inside of it now, writhing and angry. But alive.
There was a set of arms around me and I blinked up into Marsum’s face. “What happened?”
He stared down at me, brows furrowed with confusion. “Ishtar’s power . . . it just left. The magic was fighting us, all three of us, draining us down. I couldn’t stop it—”
“Like it did when you used the stone before.” Lila butted her head against my face. “Just like that and like he said, we couldn’t stop it, we were all going to die. I was yelling for you, but you didn’t hear me.”
Marsum held me on his lap. “What did you do?”
I blinked a few times, knowing that there were only a few moments left to this, only a few moments before Davin came back and tried to take the stones from me. “Who killed my father, Marsum? Who attacked the lions of the desert?”
Wyvern's Lair (Desert Cursed Series Book 5) Page 20
