I looked desperately at Mazin and Noor, still frozen from the djinn’s power, in the path of the flames eating away at the fields surrounding them.
I had done this.
My need for revenge had meant the two people who had come to mean the most to me would die.
I had made this bargain with the djinn, and I had decided these consequences.
This was cause and effect. Just like my grandmother. Just like the plans I had set in motion to put us all here.
And I couldn’t just lie down and allow that to happen.
My hands searched for anything, running along the ground for any rock or weapon. Blindly I gripped the only thing I could: Mazin’s dagger pendant around my neck.
I ripped it from my neck and stabbed the djinn in the eye.
He reared back with a scream, black ichor streaming from his wound. It only gave me a brief reprieve, but it was enough for me to take in air, to ward off the darkness creeping over the edge of my vision, threatening to pull me under.
“You are mine,” the djinn howled.
I had nothing left. No djinn power, no sword, no hope.
“Winning the battle isn’t about skill, Dania. It’s about heart.”
Baba’s words pierced the fog and focused my thoughts. This wasn’t about fighting, not anymore. This was about my friends, about love, about forgiveness.
I pushed the djinn off me and scrambled away, looking at Maz and Noor who were about to be consumed.
“Release them!” I screamed at the djinn. “They’ll die!”
He laughed at me in response, my dagger pendant still sticking out of one of his eyes.
“You think I care about that? Give me what I want, and I will release them. Give me your body so I can reign over this realm and flood this world with fire.”
“Well, as wonderful asthatsounds, I’m not going to give you anything.”
A movement flickered from the periphery of my vision, but I trained my gaze on the djinn. He advanced on me again.
I made no effort to move. I could sprint to Maz, but Noor would still be lost. The only hope of saving them both was to stop the djinn’s hold on them.
But before the djinn could reach me, he stopped. A twisted look of shock passed over his features and then his gaze dipped down to his chest.
We both looked down to see the tip of my talwar piercing his chest, black blood slowly pooling from the wound and beginning to drip down his body.
At once the grip the djinn had on the world seemed to lift, the air clearing.
Noor’s scream sounded across the field as I watched Emperor Vahid dig my sword out of the djinn’s back.
Fifty-three
“Dani.” Maz’s voice pierced through the haze, and he gripped my shoulders, shaking me hard. “Dani, we need to get out of here.”
Vahid pushed the djinn’s body off my sword, and black blood spilled across the dirt. The djinn was lifeless, and whatever form he had taken in this realm was gone.
My necklace fell to the ground, the small blade covered in dark djinn blood. I scooped it up, clutching the pendant tight in my hand.
Vahid’s eyes were black and deep, and gone was that spark of fire in them from earlier. Instead, he seemed hollow, empty.
Maz looked up at him and inhaled a sharp breath.
