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Suddenly, a sickening nausea gripped me, and I didn’t feel so confident in our odds. “The darkflame.”
The quaking and groaning ended at the mention of thosewords.
Like we needed any more magic to contend with. Wasn’t the vizier, the dark flame, and a severely pissed-off djinn enough to dealwith?
“Watch your step,” said Zand, taking careful steps, as if avoiding boobytraps.
Nerves tense, gut clenched, I followed close behind him in case I needed a magical get-away from my buried prison beneath the streets ofUtaara.
Gods knew how much time passed before we reached a sealed door with strange markings carved into it. I sure hoped Zand could do his magical shifting trick; otherwise, we might have to return the way we’d come and sneak in the old-fashioned way. Myway.
Pushing past Zand, I let my fingers trace the foreign symbols. The marks scorched with magical fire and spatembers.
Zand ran his finger along a circle carved in the stone, exposing more writing, which he read out loud. “Here rests the mighty djinn Wanessa. Punished for refusing to do the vizier’s bidding. Only when she performs the spell she was summoned for, or the vizier leaves this Earthly plane, will she bereleased.”
Well. That was easily solved, then, wasn’t it? We were going to slay the vizier and free thisdjinn.
“Our poorsister.”
The forlorn tone in Dahvi’s voice made my heartache.
Both genies pressed their foreheads to the door as if it were some sort of djinnritual.
When Zand straightened, he placed a hand in the circle at the center of the door. Fiery shapes shifted across its surface. Fireworks flashed outward like party sparklers. Rock cracked and groaned as it inched open. Sand poured off the top of the door. The noise slammed down thecorridor.
Uneasiness tumbled inside me. I half expected to encounter something nasty on the door’s other side. Guards with swords raised, ready to slice me to bits. A three-headed dragon or something, waiting to roast us to a crisp. The vizier with a ball of dark flame to turn us to ash. But none of that presented itself. Only a dusty stairwell, lit by blazing torches. Something about the glowing stairway didn’t feel right. As if someone had expected our arrival via this route. I mean, who would light torches in a stairway leading to tunnels sealed by magic doors? It almost felt as if the vizier had anticipated thismove.
