But I was going to rescue Noorandkeep the power we’d taken.
With new purpose, I packed up the weapons I needed and prepared to leave. But as I walked past the large mirror in my room I paused.
Something stopped me, something not quite right with my reflection. I reached my hands up to my face, my cheeks, my nose.
I looked likeme.
I realized with a jolt that tonight was when I had needed to take an additional dose of the zoraat, and that the power must have been already wearing off, at a more rapid rate than before.
I scrambled for the bag containing the djinn seeds, hidden under two stones in the floor. I hauled it out and opened it.
The multicolored seeds glittered back at me in the moonlight, different amounts, different textures, and wholly unknown to me.
Noor hadn’t taught me how to blend the mixture, and I didn’t trust my own knowledge. It could either work just fine or burn me from the inside out.
I sat back on my heels and curled my fists into the ground.
Then I screamed my voice hoarse into the night.
This couldn’t be how it ended. I would have to face Thohfsa and her guards with my sword alone.
My sword, and my true face.
But what if I failed?
Finally, I lifted one vial up, a single dose of the right amount and color of what I’d seen Noor use most often. It was dark red, the powder fine, like sand. If I swallowed all of it, surely that would give me enough power to transform my appearance and free Noor.
Or it would kill me.
My hands shook, the glass vial poised on the edge of my lips. Did I need this power?
But before I could swallow the rest of the zoraat, a heavy thud sounded from the courtyard, the noise like a body falling, followed by shattering glass.
I shot to my feet. Noor had tripled the number of guards since Darbaran’s attack, it should have been impossible to break through our security.
Was it Thohfsa, reneging on her deal and coming to take me by surprise at home?
Maybe she had told the emperor who I truly was, and Vahid had surrounded the house with his soldiers.
I picked up my talwar from the bed and walked down the hall, heading to the garden. The house was eerily quiet. I paused at the edge of the hallway, spying a maidservant standing by the divan, staring outside, a broken glass at her feet.
“Vira?”
She didn’t move. Thoughts whirred inside my brain, screaming at me, trying to make sense of what I was staring at. I moved closer to her, my sword held high, and looked at her face.
It was frozen.
Her face was a mask of shock, eyes wide, fixated on the garden outside, the effect an unsettling macabre statue standing in the main room.
I waved my hand in front of her, but she didn’t even blink.
My fingers tightened around the hilt of my blade. My breathing was hoarse and loud in the silence of the house. The air was cool as I walked outside. A guard stood in the corner of the garden, also unmoving, his eyes on me, as if he couldn’t look away.
Dread crawled up my spine, and I felt the heavy sensation of the presence of someone else before I saw them.
Soft breath landed on my neck.
I whirled, my sword raised. But it froze in my hands. I tried to swing the blade, but my arms were fixed in midair.
