“Kill him, then.” The djinn’s lip curled. “He’s outlived his use anyway.”
“We had a bargain, djinn,” cried Vahid in desperation.
The djinn’s eyes glowed brighter. “And I have fulfilled my part. You have given me what I need, but this girl offers me something more.”
“I’ll give what she has, then.” Vahid gestured to me. “Give me the power you gave her. It isn’t fair.” His voice was the needy whine of a small boy.
“You think I want your body now? You are old and ill. You haveexceeded your use.” The djinn turned his eyes to me. “Finish your vengeance, I have come to claim what’s mine.”
But underneath the djinn’s anticipation, I felt an urgency that seemed at odds with what I knew of him. I got the sense that he wanted me to kill Vahidnowfor a reason. He wanted me to fulfill my bargain because there was a chance I wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
“Why did you come now?” I watched him, saw the way his eyes flicked back to the emperor. Something had happened that had made him appear, that had alerted him somehow.
“Because I want what is mine,” he growled, moving closer to me.
“What did you say about your power earlier? Tricks?” I waved at Maz and Noor, still unmoving. “Stop trying to intimidate me. I know you can’t do anything.”
“No?” The djinn’s voice became dangerously soft. “It’s my power that runs through your veins, girl.”
“And I am the only person who can give you what you want. You want possession of my body so you can have your full powers in our world? You must wait for our bargain to be complete.”
“It’s my power that runs through your veins.”
He was right.
But what if there wasn’t any power?
“You preyed on my vengeance. On his.” I gestured to Vahid. “But you don’t receive anything if my bargain remains unfulfilled. If I don’t achieve my revenge.”
“Kill him!” shouted the djinn, pointing at Vahid. “He is the reason your father is dead! The reason you were tortured and rotting in a prison. If you take his life now, you get everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“No,” I uttered. “If I take his life,youget everything you’ve wanted. But I still have your power, which I’m guessing can only be used through me.”
The djinn pursed his dark lips, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head. And then I guessed what had brought him here so quickly, and why he had seemed so enraged.
If Vahid and I had no power, then the djinn didn’t. And I had been in the process of removing Vahid’s power and burning all his zoraat to the ground.
I turned back to Vahid and raised my hands. I snatched the remaining thread of power in him, that last bit of fire that warmed his blood. Vahid screamed and crumpled to the ground at the same time the djinn lunged for me.
I moved backward, scrambling away from him.
I gave up what I had most wanted for the past year, the reckoning I had finally sought to claim. The power that ran through my blood would have helped me get there.
But I still had plenty of my own power left.
This time, when I felt for the djinn magic in my system, I pulled it inward, condensing it into a bright, concentrated piece of flame.
Then I expelled it.
I purged the djinn flame from my body, and it had nowhere to go but in the burning field of djinn crops themselves, lighting up the dark sky like a bonfire.
The horizon exploded in a white-hot fire, the heat cascading over us.
The djinn behind me screamed and wrapped his hands around my throat. We toppled to the ground as the fields burned around us, the flames growing higher, Noor and Maz trapped within them, unable to move.
His grip held me like an iron vise as I tried to push him off. He was choking me, his long fingers wrapped around my neck, his teeth so close I thought he was going to rip my throat out.
