The crowd grew more irate, hefting stones and refuse at the soldiers.
“What is it?” whispered Noor.
“Protestors,” I called back to her. “Against the emperor.”
She snorted. “It seems he’s already hated by the people of this city.”
“That’s perfect for us, then.”
A rock flew in our direction, and the crowd spied our carriage. I could see the moment their bloodlust found a target. We were wealthy—with our gilt carriage and black stallions—and we had been heading toward the palace. If they couldn’t have Vahid, they would have us.
“Maybe not so perfect after all.”
Noor watched with wide eyes as the crowd approach us. The shouting grew louder and they pelted the carriage with stones.
Our driver shouted obscenities at them, and I gripped the hilt of my sword.
“Noor, can I do anything to stop them? With the zoraat, I mean.”
She shook her head. “No, you are using it to transfigure yourself, each dose has a specific purpose.” She clutched the small purse at her side helplessly. “I didn’t bring any zoraat with me. I didn’t want to chance it in case the emperor searched us.”
The driver shouted to the horses and the tanga moved faster, away from the crowd. But it wasn’t fast enough. They pressed in on us, intent on blood from somewhere, if not from Vahid.
They were so close I could see the grime and desperation on their faces. I could taste their fear, their anger.
It tasted a lot like mine.
They shook the tanga, and the driver raised his saber to slash at them.
“No!” I shouted to him. I wasn’t about to cut down innocentcivilians for the crime of being angry at Vahid. Especially not when I felt the same. “Don’t hurt them.”
But no sooner had my words come out than bright flames enveloped the carriage, surrounding the crowds, sending them running and screaming.
The horses took off, the tanga lurching down the street so fast I flew backward and landed with a hard smack in my seat. Vahid’s soldiers circled the protestors, djinn fire shooting from their hands as they burned Basral citizens alive.
The stench of burned flesh and charred cloth filled the air, and I unconsciously pressed the small dagger pendant at my chest. My own screams were trapped in my throat, held hostage by the shrieks of the dying protestors.
“Stop,” I whispered, but no one heard anything.
Our carriage sped away, the bonfire of bodies aglow behind us as we made our way to the emperor’s ivory palace.
We arrived to a legion of palace guards lined up outside the entrance steps. Noor and I sat silently in the carriage, still in shock over what happened. When I closed my eyes, I still saw the people burning. Murdered, all because they protested a ruler leeching their city with his djinn bargain.
But as we pulled up to the palace, a strange pressure filled my chest seeing the line of guards clad in Mazin’s familiar black-and-gold sherwani, with gilded scimitars strapped to their waists, etched with an intricate design carved across the leather sheath I knew very well. A zoraat flower, similar to the lotus but with more rounded petals, and a sword crossing the center of it. The mark of the emperor’s high guard, and Mazin the head of them.
When my gaze swept the guards along the marble staircase, I realized Mazin wasn’t there greeting us.
We were led into the palace, the floor like a still lake reflecting the clicking of our fine heels as we walked through the cavernous halls.
Not much had changed. And yet everything had.
The last time I was here, I had just been arrested. The last time I was here, my entire world fell apart.
And when I looked up from examining the broken pieces of my life, I had found only Mazin’s cold dark gaze staring back.
I bit the inside of my lip so hard a metallic taste hit my tongue.
Good. At least the physical pain would be a distraction from the emotions coursing through me as I walked these halls again.
