“Up!”
The vision shuddered.
“Get up, Prince.” Mazen felt a hand on his cheek. And then—a slap. The world slanted. One moment he was in his father’s chambers; the next, he was collapsed on his knees in the sand, breathing hard and clutching the lamp. Someone tilted his face up.
Even though the world was hazy, he could make out every scar on Aisha bint Louas’s arms. Her black eyes were opaque as coal, and the collar at her neck was so bright it was nearly blinding. Mazen squinted, blinked. There were tears in his eyes.
“My father—”
“Dead. But you are still alive. Unless you plan on succumbing to ifrit magic?”
Mazen could still feel that magic pressing on his mind, digging into his senses. Every time he blinked, the memories threatened to pull him under. Perhaps a nightmare was better than this. In a nightmare, he could lose himself in self-loathing. He could… run.
The word sharpened his mind. We all start as cowards, Aisha had once told him. The only difference between a hero and a coward is that one forgets their fear and fights, while the other succumbs to it and flees.
He slapped himself. The world came into horrifying clarity. He saw fire and smoke, swords and blood. The mysterious reinforcements were here in full force.
“The most powerful illusions are crafted from memories.” Aisha stood. Mazen saw that she had two swords now. No doubt she had pilfered the second from a corpse. There looked to be many now. While Mazen had been trapped in the past, the world had gone to hell.
“Is this whole place a mirage, then?” His throat was dry. “We were in a souk before, and then a palace, and now…？”
“Aliyah can paint the world in shades of memory, including her own. I assume she threaded these illusions together to confuse you.”
Mazen thought of Qadir’s forlorn smile in the souk. His sudden anger on the golden bridge. Perhaps Aliyah meant to ensnare as much as confuse them.
“And the lamp? Why was it in a room that looked like a treasury?”
Aisha sighed. “Perhaps it was coincidence it ended up in that particular illusion. Perhaps Aliyah’s magic reacted to Rijah’s. How would I know? Our magics are similar, but not the same.” She shook her head. “Aliyah is strong—some of her illusions are so real, one can touch and taste them. But they are just that: elaborate, mind-altering illusions.”
She began to walk away, back to the fighting, when Mazen called after her. “You betrayed my brother. Why?”
“Because I am not a tool,” Aisha snapped. She rushed off without another word. Mazen eyed the battle from a distance. He saw a creature of fire darting in and out of the battle—Rijah—and what might have been the merchant weaving through the smoke. It was pure chaos. Mazen knew he would be easily defeated. The moment they saw him…
He eyed his shadow on the ground, forgotten in all this chaos.
Then I just won’t let them see me.
He stuffed the lamp into his satchel, threw his shadow over his head, and went searching for his brother.
69
LOULIE
At first, she and Qadir fought back-to-back. But it soon became apparent that though Tawil had been easy to dispatch, the rest of the thieves were not so easily defeated. They had fire in their eyes and magic in their blood. Loulie was out of her element, and she was out of ideas.
And worse, Qadir was almost out of energy. Though his wounds had healed, there were bruises where the arrows had punctured his skin, and ash beaded his skin.
She had to find Omar. She had to kill him. She turned to tell Qadir her plan and faltered when she saw he wasn’t there. He was at the bottom of the dune, pushing two thieves back with torrents of wind—a magic affinity she had never seen before today. One of the jinn managed to plant his feet against the gust. The sand rippled oddly beneath his feet. Then, with a gesture, he caused the sand to rear up in a wave beneath Qadir’s feet.
Qadir fell back, the wind died, and the jinn sprinted forward with his blade. Qadir sidestepped, stumbled. And then he did a shocking thing. Perhaps it was because he had lost his concentration. Perhaps it was a desperate reflex. In one swift motion, he slid the shamshir out of its scabbard and stabbed it through his attacker’s chest. There was a moment of stillness. And then Qadir pulled the weapon from the jinn’s body. Shock briefly rippled across his features, then hardened into resolve.
The jinn growled—not in pain so much as annoyance—as he dissipated into smoke and re-formed feet away. Loulie was running toward the solidifying jinn with her knife when Qadir held out a hand. “Stop.” The authority in his voice made her freeze.