“That’s not what the stories say. They say you tricked her and stole her body.”
And? Your human stories are born of fear. Easier to believe a jinn would possess a human rather than work with her. That a human would kill her, not fall in love with her.
Aisha said nothing. She glared into the dark, quiet night and thought about how full of shit the ifrit was. Jinn did not help humans, and humans did not help jinn. Her deal with the Resurrectionist had been made purely out of necessity.
But the memories—those were real. Aisha could feel it. Even the memories that sometimes surfaced of Qadir screamed of truth. They were rare, those memories, but they edged into her mind when she let her guard down. In them, Qadir wore brilliant robes and a less than brilliant frown. His eyes were clouded over with smoke, filled with a sadness so profound it shattered her heart.
“Enough.” She pressed a fist to her forehead and breathed slowly in and out until her mind was clear and she could focus on her problems. She grasped at the memory of her conversation with Tawil. The more she remembered, the more her skin prickled. She did not realize she was breathing so hard until the ifrit spoke gently in her mind: You are distressed.
“No shit.” Aisha resumed her pacing. It kept her centered.
But every time she remembered that conversation, she faltered. Tawil had told her that Omar’s plan would soon reach its conclusion. The suspicious wali was taken care of, and even the mistrustful qaid had not come close to uncovering his plot.
Aisha didn’t care. She had never truly cared about Omar’s plans when they were secondary to her own goals. But that was not the case with Mazen. I envy you, Aisha, Tawil had said. You have an easy job! All you have to do is lead a sheep to slaughter.
Aisha groaned into her hands. Gods, she was going to be sick.
Always, she had done what Omar commanded. She owed him that. He’d seen potential in her when no one else had. Back when she’d been an unmoored thief in Madinne—parentless, villageless—he had put himself in her path, and when she tried to steal a locket from his pocket, he’d grabbed her wrist and said, How would you like to be a king’s thief?
Omar had given her the power to enact revenge on the jinn who had stolen her life.
She had never questioned him. But now…
Prince Mazen saved your life, the Resurrectionist said softly.
Aisha’s legs were so weak she had to sit on a nearby boulder.
I would think deeply about—
“Leave me alone!” Her voice was so shrill it made her flinch. She cast a look over her shoulder, searching for movement at the campsite, but there was nothing. Qadir, probably, could hear her. She would have to warn Omar about him. They would need to alter their plan to account for his magic. Perhaps Tawil, cocky bastard, would have some ideas.
She paused, remembering the heat that had burned her fingers when he touched her. She shook the memory from her mind. It wasn’t important.
The ifrit scoffed. Willful ignorance will get you nowhere.
For the first time, Aisha wondered if maybe it would have been easier to die. But dying was akin to failure, and she had never failed, had refused to fail since losing her family.
She had not come this far just to break for some softhearted prince.
So Aisha took a deep breath, pieced together her faltering resolve, and returned to her and the prince’s shared tent. Prince Mazen lay in his bedroll, curled on his side with an arm draped across his forehead. In the beginning, she remembered he had tried to comb the dust out of his hair before he retired every night. Now he lay unperturbed in a very dusty bedroll, lightly snoring. Even though he still only knew how to make a fire and didn’t know a single thing about wielding a sword, he had become more competent, she thought. Braver.
Aisha turned away with a grimace. She wrung the dust from her cloak, wrapped it around herself like a second skin, then stretched out on her bedroll. She squeezed her eyes shut and attempted to stop thinking. But though the ifrit had mercifully gone quiet in her head, the desert still whispered. It took all she had to quiet its voice and keep her mind blank. The dead do not speak, she thought desperately.
The desert wind’s responding cackle sounded like laughter.
59
MAZEN
The future weighed on Mazen’s arms and legs like shackles. His body was heavy as they crested the dune overlooking the last outpost. Beyond the oasis, the Western Sandsea was a glittering ocean of sparkling, shifting sand. According to the map they had lost, there were pathways—both above-and underground—that would allow them to navigate it.