There was a moment of stillness. Qadir looked at her urgently. His lips parted.
And then he and his horse plummeted into the abyss.
Loulie was distantly aware of Qadir’s name leaving her mouth as a scream. Of sand crunching beneath her feet as she leapt from her panicked horse and sprinted toward the hole.
She could hear the prince and the thief dogging her steps. Yelling her name.
No.
She rushed to the pit.
No.
The chasm was filled with iron. Blades crisscrossed the walls, jutting toward the center like crooked teeth. On the tips of those blades: silver and crimson blood. Qadir’s horse, torn and bleeding to death. And at the bottom of the pit, impaled on a graveyard of broken iron, silver blood on his skin—
Qadir.
Loulie began to scream.
39
LOULIE
Once, Loulie had lived a nightmare.
Like a dreamer, she had eventually woken and buried it in her mind. But though she had become very good at forgetting, the memories still haunted her in her sleep. She would see her parents’ broken bodies. Would see her campsite going up in flames. She would smell blood and death and forget how to breathe.
And then Qadir would shake her awake. “You were making a face in your sleep. I thought it rude to keep staring.”
And just like that, the nightmare would dissipate. Because so long as she avoided belonging anywhere—belonging with anyone—she would never have to relive that heartbreak.
But she had been wrong.
Because she was living a nightmare now, and Qadir wasn’t waking her up. Now she was yelling his name. But no matter how many times she called him, he did not respond.
“Fuck.” Loulie vaguely realized Aisha was standing beside her, staring into the pit, face ashen. “Your bodyguard was a jinn?”
I have to wake Qadir. The words were roots, drawing her into a safe place untouched by time. When Aisha put her hands on Loulie’s shoulders, Loulie pushed her away.
“They’re coming.” She could barely hear Omar’s voice over her pounding heart.
Distantly, she was aware of the smear of silver blood on the blades, of the careful way they had been constructed around the hole. But none of that mattered. She had eyes only for Qadir. She was still willing him to open his eyes and look at her, when she heard the sounds of a scuffle behind her.
Frenzied footsteps. The exhale of blades. A loud, inhuman hiss.
By the time she turned with her dagger in hand, it was too late. A group of ghouls grabbed her from behind, and no amount of struggling could break their grip. They clung to her like bloodsucking leeches.
She screamed.
“Shh, none of that.” A voice spoke into the chaos, and Loulie froze. It laughed, a soft wheezing sound that seemed to come from lungs filled with sand. “What an honor it is to run into not one, but two legends.”
She looked up. And stared.
The stranger was garbed entirely in black, more shadow than man. His features were hidden, everything except for his dark eyes, which were barely visible between his layered scarves.
The Hunter in Black. The nameless jinn killer.
She remembered a knife against her skin. Laughter. Blood running down her neck.
Do you desire death or slavery, girl?
A dark fog encapsulated her mind. She moved without thought, lunging forward with a feral cry. The man watched, expressionless, as the ghouls subdued her and made her kneel. His eyes twinkled, and in them Loulie saw her blood-soaked memories.
Ah, a little girl? What a grand prize you will make…
Memories blended with reality as Loulie sagged to the ground. Darkness coated her vision, and in it she saw the slew of nightmares she’d thought buried long ago. She saw her mother waving at a jar, urging her to hide, while killers stormed their camp. She saw the tents go up in flame. Saw her mother’s and father’s bodies, lying broken on the ground.
And now Qadir…
No. Grief splintered her thoughts. Don’t think about it.
“I did not think you had such sharp claws, Midnight Merchant.” The hunter turned away before she could formulate a response, his gaze settling on Omar, who’d been pushed to his knees by ghouls. “I am amused to see you reduced to a mere escort, Prince.”
Aisha, who was sitting close enough to the prince to brush his shoulder, hissed between her teeth. “How dare you speak to my king like—” The hunter slapped her so fast and hard her head lolled. Loulie was not sure who looked more shocked—Aisha or the prince.
The hunter clicked his tongue. “You never did know when to be quiet, bint Louas.” His eyes narrowed. “Hold your tongue, or I will cut it from your mouth.”