Run, said a voice in his head. But another voice, one that did not speak in words, urged him to stay. This voice was black and fuzzy, and so loud it blocked out reason.
“How was your adventure?” Omar said.
The static spilled into Mazen’s vision. He saw Hakim fleeing from rioting soldiers. His father lying on bloody bedsheets. Omar wearing his face, drenched in the sultan’s blood.
“How droll. You’re normally more talkative.” Omar paused feet away, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders lifted high like a general’s. Like a sultan’s.
“Let me tell you what happens next, Mazen. First, you will hand over the lamp. Second, we will return to Madinne, where you will be tried for your crimes. If you do not obey, I will kill the merchant.” He smiled after delivering the instructions—the same charismatic smile he wore in court. It made Mazen see red.
“How dare you.” The words came through the dark static buzzing in his mind.
Omar blinked at him, smiled. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
And it was that smile, that godsdamned grin, that broke Mazen. Reason fell away. There was only that black, humming voice and the urge to destroy. He moved without thinking, lunging toward Omar with a scream. The world collapsed into darkness. Rage. Desperation. And a sorrow so deep it painted everything a soulless gray.
And then: sharp pain in his gut. He registered Omar had punched him in the stomach. He staggered backward, wheezing.
“All this time, and you still don’t know how to fight, akhi?” Omar punched him again, this time in the face. Mazen tasted blood in his mouth as he fell.
When Omar reached for him again, Mazen grabbed his arm and dug his nails into his skin. “You lying snake.” He dug deep enough to draw blood.
He relented only when Omar twisted his arm, when something cracked. Pain shot through his shoulder, so terrible it made him scream. There were tears in Mazen’s eyes when Omar stepped away, holding the stolen lamp in one hand and concealing his injury with the other.
“You killed our father. And for what? You gained nothing!”
“Do you truly think that, Mazen?” Omar laughed. A soft, hollow sound. “Unlike you, I have never done anything without reason. I have simply taken what was rightfully mine.” He leveled his blank gaze on Mazen. “The old fool was going to name you sultan.”
Mazen’s heart plummeted to the soles of his feet. The static cleared, replaced with a memory of his father seated before him in the diwan. Who has ever heard of a prince who doesn’t know how to use a blade? You hold the weight of a kingdom on your shoulders, Mazen. You cannot protect it with just good intentions.
“No,” he said weakly.
“Yes.” Omar scoffed. “As always, you are too blind to see what is right in front of you. You do not deserve Madinne.”
“And you do? You’re a coward.” Something flashed in Omar’s eyes, but Mazen pressed on: “You killed our father and blamed it on me.”
Omar did not respond. He approached slowly, with all the foreboding of an encroaching storm. He pulled his hand away from his wound, revealing the smear of blood on his arm.
It was black.
Mazen’s breathing hitched. He’d forgotten about the black blood, the same blood that had run through his veins when he was in Omar’s body. That had run through Imad’s. Aisha had called it a side effect of the bangle. He’d believed her.
“You have it all wrong, Mazen. It is because you are a coward that I could pin this crime on you.” Mazen was barely listening. He was still staring at the blood.
Human blood was red. Jinn blood was silver. Black blood…
Omar’s arm shot out. Mazen felt cold fingers on his wrist, an icy heat in his veins. Something shimmered unnaturally on Omar’s ear. His… earring?
Mazen gasped as the world faded into a canvas of muted colors. Beneath it, Omar’s voice was a barely discernible whisper. “If only you knew, Mazen, how terrible our father was.” The colors reshaped themselves into a crystal clear image of the sultan, who loomed above him.
“Look at your hands,” he commanded, and he had no choice but to obey.
His hands were covered in black blood. His blood.
“You have the blood of a sinner in you,” the sultan said. “You are a blight on this world.” Each word was like the lash of a whip. “There is only one way to remedy this.” He crouched down and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look into his eyes. They had the same eyes—he’d always hated that they had the same eyes.