Yashem opened his mouth to speak, and then clamped it shut, his eyes narrowing. “What is this about?”
I swallowed, the lump in my throat becoming impossible to ignore. “Does it matter? I just need to know if you can do it. If you can control the city.”
“You want to know ifyoucan control the city, isn’t that it? Ifyoucan command the people, manipulate them with a whisper in their ear and a coin in their pocket instead of those who possess the might of the djinn.”
“Yes.” I gritted my teeth.
He toyed with the cuff of his kurta. I waited, watching him.
“It’s gonna cost.”
“I can pay it,” I said immediately, then chastised myself for responding too quickly.
His eyebrows rose. “You can pay enough for the whole city?” he scoffed. “Enough to pay off every pickpocket from here to the palace? Enough to incite a riot?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, unbothered by the fact that Souma’s gold might be gone at the end of this, but what use did I have with money except to avenge my father?
“That’s exactly what I can do.”
He chewed on his lip for a moment, then shook his head. “It will take more than just suggestion. You’ll need a reason to drive the mob. Something to incense them in the first place.”
“We’ll have that. I just need you to help spread the unease, to talk to the gossiping aunties in Basral about the cursed rule of Vahid and infiltrate the minds of the common people.”
“We can do anything, sahiba, if the money is right.”
I nodded, a sense of calm washing over me. “Then wait for my signal.”
Noor stood at the edge of a lush field in the dawn light, her cropped curly hair in stark contrast to the fields of yellow behind her. “How long do we have?”
“There aren’t many guards around the city crops, they mainly guard the cultivation of zoraat. Here, they just watch to make sure no one is stealing from the emperor’s farmers. We have a little time before the next rotation comes through.”
“Then we’d best get to work.”
Noor pulled out a vial from her pocket, this time the blend a deep green instead of the mixture of the burnished red I’d been consuming to change my body. My stomach flipped with the anticipation of another dose, the insane urge to snatch it out of her hands nearly overcoming me. Instead, I tried to breathe through my nose to control myself.
“If you are worried about the pain, this won’t be as potent as the one you’ve been taking,” Noor said, misinterpreting my expression. It wasn’t pain I was worried about, but the inability to not be a slave to the zoraat filling my body.
“It doesn’t matter, it must be done.” I bit my bottom lip so hard I tasted blood. “There isn’t as much of it this time.”
“It’s a more basic mixture than what you’ve been taking. We only need it for one job after all, and not to transfigure a human body, so the magic is less complex. You shouldn’t feel a thing.”
I opened the vial and downed the blend in one, that familiar burn pricking my throat. But Noor was right, it didn’t have the same piercing pain accompanying it. This time, it was just a frisson of energy to signify the djinn power had taken hold. There was a burst of power in my blood and I stared at the field before me.
Noor began explaining, gesturing to the fields in the distance. “Usually when we dealt with crop magic, we had the wielder—”
“I know what I need to do.” The answer was thrumming through me, whispering in my ear, telling me what the next steps were without any prior knowledge.
The dawn rays glowed brighter as the sun rose, and Noor fell silent, waiting.
When I had transfigured my face, I concentrated on pushing thedjinn power there, reforming my bones and skin and cartilage like clay under my fingers. That’s what Noor taught me, that’s what it took to transform a body into someone else.
But with the earth it was different. The soft dirt beneath my hands was like a deeper, pulsing life force. Something older and stronger than myself.
I extended the djinn’s power into the dirt, like I was lighting a fire from below, and unleashing its molten core to the surface. My hands were hot, and there was a tugging sensation from under my skin as I poured the djinn magic into the ground. There was a rumbling sound, as if the earth had quaked. I felt the vibrant root system of the plants, healthy and pliant under the nurturing of djinn magic. They spoke to me as if they recognized me, my power descending past the surface and taking hold of them.
Too late they realized that I wasn’t there to provide nourishment.
The roots screamed against the energy I was pumping into the soil and I felt the tips of them begin to shrivel and burn against my onslaught.
