But still, he had to try. He had to…
He blinked. Narrowed his eyes. “What…？”
“What?” the merchant snapped.
“Aisha,” he said softly.
It was a grief-induced mirage. A hallucination. Jinn magic. It had to be.
And yet he found himself stumbling out into the desert, rushing toward Aisha—Not a mirage, not a mirage—until he was close enough to see the blood on her. It was everywhere: caked onto her like a second skin. Only, the lacerations were gone. And where the gash at her throat had been, there was now a band of skulls that glimmered beneath the varnish of blood.
The Queen of Dunes’ relic.
He remembered the wali of Dhyme, speaking in that uncharacteristically soft voice, laughing as he stabbed his companions and painted the floor with their blood.
Before he could run, Aisha bint Louas stepped forward and gripped him by the shoulder. “Aren’t you going to welcome me back?” She grinned, and it made her eyes shine with a mischief he’d never seen before. Then, abruptly, the grin faded. “We need to talk,” she said, voice suddenly gruff, and then she unceremoniously dragged him behind her toward the cave.
As if nothing had happened.
As if she had not somehow, impossibly, been revived from the dead.
Aisha told them the story of her resurrection in front of the campfire. Mazen noticed the way her hands darted through the air and the way her lips sometimes slanted into a lopsided smirk. Subtle changes. But there were other, more obvious differences as well—her scars, for instance. They’d become an unnatural gray, one that reminded him of dead things. And her right eye—the one that had been sealed with blood—was now more black than brown. It shone like obsidian in the firelight.
It was an unsettling sight, one that evidently put Loulie on edge too. Mazen did not miss the way her grip tightened on her blade every time Aisha looked at her. Paranoia had dug roots into Mazen as well. More than once, he found himself reaching for knives he no longer had. It was impossible to look at Aisha without remembering the Queen of Dunes had tried to kill them—twice.
Wariness clung to him like a shroud when Aisha finished her tale. Before he could speak, the merchant leaned forward and said, “So who are you? Aisha bint Louas? Or the Queen of Dunes?”
Aisha opened her mouth, paused, then closed it. Mazen could tell by the tightness of her jaw that she was gritting her teeth. But then, slowly, the tension disappeared from her body. “Don’t waste your breath on stupid questions. I could never be anyone but myself.”
She and Loulie silently stared at each other. Mazen inched away. Sitting between them was like being battered on either side by a frigid wind.
The merchant shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
Aisha scowled. “I would never succumb to a jinn.”
“Then what do you call this?” The merchant gestured sharply. “Coexistence?”
“You think I wanted this? I already told you: we struck a deal because this is the only way she…” Aisha paused, breathed out slowly. “The only way we can exist in this world. If the jinn had wanted to kill you, she could have used my corpse to do it without striking a bargain.”
Mazen felt himself fidgeting. He stilled his hands. “So to be clear, she no longer wants to murder us?”
“I do not.” Aisha uttered the claim so quickly even she seemed surprised. She straightened. Again, there was that flicker of irritation across her features. “The jinn wrongly thought you were murderers because of the relics you carried. But I am the jinn hunter. If she wanted vengeance on anyone, it would be me.” A sardonic smile flitted across her face. “But instead, we made a deal. You can see her priorities have changed.”
There was a beat of silence as they stared at each other. Though Mazen felt slightly more at ease, Loulie regarded Aisha with stony skepticism. “Then tell us the rest of the story. What happened to the jinn that gave you the collar?” Qadir. Mazen heard his name, even unspoken.
Aisha raised her brows, inclined her head. “What is he to you, merchant?”
Loulie frowned. “I see no reason to answer your question if you will not answer mine.”
Aisha crossed her arms. “He left. Disappeared. But he would have come back for me.” She scowled. “For the collar. He and”—she clenched her hands—“the queen know each other. He used her power to control the ghouls in the treasure chamber.”
The memory unfurled in Mazen’s mind. He was back in Imad’s pitch-black treasure chamber as some invisible force brushed past him. Only, in this recollection, he saw the force was Qadir and that he was walking through the dark with the collar around his neck, humming a soundless song. The Queen of Dunes’ song. Mazen wondered how long it had taken for the cutthroats to realize the ghouls had turned on them.