The ghoul shoved a key into the door and stepped into the prison with unbalanced, frantic footsteps. It snarled and reached out a bony hand. Mazen gathered his courage and kicked it as it kneeled before him. The creature stumbled back, but not before swiping the blade across his arm, drawing blood.
Mazen tried to steal the ghoul’s blade. He grabbed for the hilt. The ghoul drove an elbow into his chest and knocked the air from his lungs. Mazen retaliated by shoving his full weight into the ghoul’s side. Or at least, he tried to. But he lost his footing and fell on the creature instead. They collapsed to the ground in a heap.
There was a moment of panic as Mazen rushed to untangle his limbs from the ghoul’s. He choked back tears as the pungent smell of its rotting body invaded his senses, and just barely managed to gather himself before the ghoul struck at him again. The blade nicked his arm. But this time, he managed to grasp the hilt.
He and the ghoul wrestled the blade back and forth.
Finally, Mazen pried the weapon from its cold hands.
Panic gave him the courage to swing the blade and the strength to drive it into the creature’s chest over and over and over again until it was a sinewy mess of gore and muscle. Mazen nudged the remains with a foot. When the corpse didn’t move, he smiled, laughed, and then promptly vomited his guts out in a corner of the room.
He was trembling as he swiped a hand across his mouth. His every instinct screamed at him to escape, but he shoved the urge aside. Loulie and Aisha had saved his life—he refused to leave without them.
It didn’t matter that he was a coward. Cowards knew how to flee and hide, and that was good enough. Mazen threw his shadow over his head and snuck out of his prison.
41
LOULIE
Loulie balanced on the edge of a hell divided into two prisons: sorrow and hatred. But the moment she woke and beheld her captor, rage triumphed over both. Murderer. She recognized his robes. She would never forget the sight of them drenched in the blood of her tribespeople.
She forced herself to sit up and, in doing so, noticed her wrists and ankles were shackled to a stone floor splattered with silver. Jinn blood, she realized. When she looked closely, she could make out what appeared to be torn roots peeking through cracks in the stone. The rest of the cell was completely bare, a prison with four walls and a single iron door.
She focused on Imad, who sat in front of her on a stool, arms draped over his knees. She took in the sight of his abyss-like eyes and graying brows. The faded freckles that ran across his nose like blood. She thought about how she wanted to gouge out his eyes and feed them to a fire.
Fire. The word triggered a memory, a person. She shoved her grief away before it settled.
“I realized something while you were sleeping,” Imad said. “Your robes—you were from the Najima tribe, weren’t you?”
She managed a stilted breath. “You would know, wouldn’t you? Murderer.”
Imad’s only response was an exasperated sigh. He shifted on his stool. Loulie’s heart leapt and sank when she saw the bag of infinite space behind him. All her provisions and relics were in that bag. Everything except for the Queen of Dunes’ collar.
And Qadir’s shamshir.
Again, the sorrow speared through her chest. Again, she pushed it away and forced her attention back to Imad. “How did you find us?”
She’d spent all these years thinking her past was behind her—and then this man had appeared before her.
Imad regarded her thoughtfully. “No doubt you’ve faced ghouls before. So you must know of their ability to track magic.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if my ghouls sensed your jinn or your bag of relics, but it doesn’t matter. Neither can help you anymore.”
That wasn’t the whole story. It couldn’t be. She and Qadir had traveled the desert many times without being attacked by ghouls. However Imad controlled his ghouls, he’d been using them to find something. Her mind strayed to the memory of Prince Mazen kneeling in the sand. She was still too shocked to feel cheated.
“You were looking for Prince Omar,” she said.
“Yes, I was looking for the high prince.” He considered her with his unreadable expression. “Imagine my surprise when I found you and Prince Mazen instead.”
Loulie said nothing. Prince Mazen, Imad, Aisha—there were too many unknown variables for her to come up with a plan. And even if she could, she was trapped.
“Where are we?” She glanced around the empty cell.
“Someplace no one will ever find you.” Cryptic words. But it didn’t matter whether they were a lie or the truth. Somehow, she would escape. “How about a trade, Midnight Merchant?” He leaned forward. “You give me the information I seek, and I answer your questions. You have nothing to lose.”