But his eyes—there was something strange about them. They were eerily bright and… flickering?
Mazen gaped. No, they were sparking like fire.
Qadir’s gaze cut sharply to him. The bodyguard blinked, and just as abruptly as the strange fire had appeared, it disappeared. He turned away without comment.
Mazen stared at his back, troubled. He wondered if he was losing his mind.
But he did not linger on the strangeness of the sight for long. He couldn’t, not with the hordes of black-clad undead closing in on them. The pack had grown denser, the creatures’ bodies packed so tightly together they looked like a moving storm cloud. Mazen’s heart sank into his stomach when he realized they were surrounded.
“Ambush!” Aisha yelled at the same time Mazen thought, How will we survive this?
The thief clenched her hands into fists over her reins. “They’re too well organized for a normal horde.” She spoke loudly over the chaos. “Someone has to be controlling them.”
“Where?” The merchant’s voice cracked as she dodged an arrow. “Where is this mastermind you speak of? Because if we can’t find them, we’re good as dead. We’re—”
“Loulie.” Qadir’s voice was barely audible, but the resignation in it made Mazen wince. He watched as Qadir raised an arm. The bodyguard tapped his wrist, a slight motion that made his skin shimmer oddly beneath the sun.
The merchant stiffened in her saddle. “No.” Her response was so immediate, the terror on her face so palpable, that it made the last of Mazen’s nerves fray.
“What?” He glanced between them frantically. “What’s happening?”
But the bodyguard just looked past him to Loulie. “Trust me,” he said softly. Some silent message seemed to pass between them. Eventually, reluctantly, Loulie nodded.
“We keep riding to the center of the mob, then,” Qadir said.
Aisha stared at him. “Do you want to die?”
When neither Loulie nor Qadir responded, Aisha turned to Mazen. There was a desperation in her eyes he had never seen before. He knew she was waiting for him to object. But…
He had no power here. He never had.
“We’re out of ideas.” His throat was tight, and he could barely manage his next words. “Whatever this plan is, it’s better than nothing.”
“It’s not a plan,” Aisha snapped, but her voice lacked its usual heat. There was despair in every taut line of her body. “It’s suicide.”
Mazen opened his mouth. Then closed it. He didn’t have the heart to offer reassurances, not when he didn’t believe in them himself.
Aisha snapped her reins, pushing her horse harder, faster. “Stay behind me,” she called back. “If your gods are kind, maybe they’ll spare us.”
She turned away and shot after Loulie and Qadir, toward the center of the turmoil.
Mazen muttered a prayer beneath his breath and chased after her.
38
LOULIE
I trust you, Qadir.
The moment Qadir had touched the tattoos on his wrist, Loulie had known what he meant to do. There were far too many ghouls for them to defeat with blades and knives. So Qadir had suggested a different kind of weapon: magic. His magic. Fire that would save them, but one that would also condemn him.
He had begged her to trust him. And she would. She had entrusted her life to him many times; the least she could do was trust that he could protect his own. And she—she would protect him too. She wasn’t so weak she couldn’t watch his back like he watched hers.
“I trust you, Qadir.”
Loulie muttered the words on numb lips as the ghouls rushed toward them. As they loosed arrows and her vision blurred with tears. As Qadir fixed his gaze ahead and the tattoos snaking up his arms began to glow.
I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. The words pounded through her mind.
Qadir raised a hand. His fingertips sparked. The markings on his skin burned brighter and brighter, until they were shining so vividly they seemed to set his body on fire, and he became a blinding streak of gold and red.
Loulie had to avert her eyes. She forced herself to breathe. In and out. In and—
She heard something snap beneath her horse’s hooves. The sound was followed by an odd but familiar sigh—the hiss of shifting, falling sand.
Loulie looked down just in time to see the landscape beneath her yawn open. Shock muddied her mind as the sand fell away, revealing a trap that had not been there moments ago.
She opened her mouth—to scream, to cry for help—when something shoved her horse away from the chasm. Loulie whirled in her saddle. She saw Qadir riding over the gaping hole, hand outstretched, the light fading from his skin.