Emperor Vahid staggered and dropped his arms. He turned from Noor and gaped at me.
“What are you…?”
“I was given a gift too, by someone you might find horribly familiar.”
Vahid’s face blanched white against the black sky.
“No,” he whispered, his voice so faint I thought the sound might have been the wind. “What did you promise him in return?”
I tilted my head, wondering whatVahidhad promised him to have such a look of fear cross his face. “Something I am prepared to give, if it comes to it.”
If.
Was there anifin this bargain that I made? Perhaps not. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. I closed my fists again. There was only one thing I could think to do.
Feeling the edge of the emperor’s power again, I webbed my own magic to his. This time, instead of a gentle prod, I felt for the sum of it all.
And then I tore it from his body.
Vahid screamed and collapsed into the field on his hands and knees.
Maz pressed his hand to my arm. “Dani, what are you—”
“I know what I’m doing,” I said quietly. “Trust me.”
Maz breathed, then stepped closer, his presence centering me. “Always.”
I then extended my power to Vahid’s armies along the edge of the field, ripping the zoraat from their bodies too, pulling it from their blood. It was what I had tried to do with my grandmother, but she had consumed too much, and it was already too late.
But now, I knew the feel of the black tendrils coiled inside the veins of another person. I knew what I needed to do to eliminatethem. I unraveled the djinn magic, like pulling apart an intricate stitch threaded through their veins, until his armies had nothing left.
Until he had nothing left.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Noor light the last field ablaze and run to us. Mazin unsheathed his sword as Vahid staggered to his feet and lurched toward me.
But as he did, the air grew thick and slow.
Maz’s sword paused in midair.
Noor froze in the middle of the field.
Vahid stopped and rose to his full height, looking beyond me, his face flooded with fear.
I turned, knowing without looking who was behind me. The waxy skin, the row of small, shining teeth. Eyes filled with a smokeless fire.
The djinn had come to claim his price.
Fifty-two
He was so close, I could see every fine line on his skin, as if he were wearing a mask of a person over his face. His eyes glowed with a violent rage, and it took everything in me not to take a step back.
But this creature would not see me afraid, even if I desperately was.
“The time has come to pay the cost.”
The djinn curled his fingers, and the dark fabric of his robes rippled at his movement. He licked his lips, and I could sense that he was waiting for something he had wanted for a long time.
“My revenge is not complete.” I gestured to Vahid, who wasn’t moving despite not being frozen by the djinn.
