“I almost did.” I exhaled.
I didn’t know if I forgave Maz, but I no longer wanted to murder him, and that was something.
“Vahid expects me to come for him,” I said slowly, testing the words on my tongue. “And I…” I choked on my next words and met Mazin’s eyes. I must have betrayed a sense of my panic, because his own widened.
“I made a bargain with a djinn,” I finally bit off.
I felt Maz’s deep intake of breath, the shock reverberating off his skin. I couldn’t stop myself now, or I would never get the words out.
“I bargained with him to use his power to destroy you and Vahid. And he expects me to fulfill that bargain.” I couldn’t bring myself to say what would become of me once I did. I exhaled slowly. Then I picked up my talwar from the ground and stood, offering my other hand to Maz. His eyebrows rose to his hairline. I tucked my chin to hide my smile, but nearly lost my footing when he took my hand with his own callused one. I helped him to his feet, and for a moment we just stared at each other.
“So what will you do?” he asked softly, his eyes dipping to my lips.
I swallowed, then gave him a rueful smile, settling into this familiar and yet new feeling between us.
“Well, I’ve never been one to do what men expect.”
Forty-eight
We left the palace behind, the city disappearing in a cloud of dust. Every djinn-soaked drop of blood in my body rebelled against it—I was leaving the emperor and my revenge behind.
Despite that, my heart felt free.
We rode through the valley and to my village on Mazin’s stallion, and I tried not to think about how good it felt to have his arms around me again.
I hadn’t quite shaken the need for revenge, the guilt that my father died and I wouldn’t be avenging that death. But Noor was right. Baba wouldn’t want me to destroy myself for it.
Even though I might have destroyed myself already.
The insides of my hands were filled with black curling vines that ran up my forearms. The djinn had marked me, and I couldn’t outrun my own skin.
I had made a bargain, but I wouldn’t be fulfilling my end of it.
And when the djinn came for me, I would need to be ready.
The sky swirled with a dark storm that seemed anything but natural. Lightning cracked overhead, and the darkness opened up to pour down its wrath.
“I don’t think we can go very much further!” Maz shouted in myear over the pounding hooves and screaming rain. “Rakhna can’t take much more of this, not with the lightning!”
He turned off the well-worn dirt road and raced toward a large apricot orchard surrounded by an outcropping of houses and a white-walled caravanserai.
We arrived at the caravanserai soaked to the bone.
Sheets of rain pounded the little village, despite its sheltered position in the valley. The apricot trees swayed under the power of the wind, unripened fruit flying from their branches. A herd of goats was being corralled into a nearby shelter, and villagers were running for cover all around us. No one was traveling in this storm, not even the emperor.
An old woman met us at the door of the caravanserai holding two cups of hot chai. I downed the liquid immediately, relishing the scalding tea pouring down my throat.
Maz had left to put Rakhna in the stable, and I waited for him in the entranceway.
“The djinn are angry.”
I whirled around. “What?”
The woman gestured to the blackened sky overhead. “The djinn. Only they could produce a storm like this. But I wonder why they are so furious.”
Thunder crackled above us, as if proving her point. The woman was wrapped in a red dupatta with frayed edges and curling jasmine flower embroidery, and her eyes were a warm, rich brown in her weathered face. I had stopped at this village a few times with my father on our way to Basral, but we’d never come to this caravanserai before.
“Maybe someone has offended them,” I said, hiding my stained hands in the folds of my wet kurta.
