The wind gently pulled at his clothing as he wandered to the oasis at the campsite’s center. As he circled the water, he observed that the breeze did not permeate Omar’s skin the way it did his. In Omar’s body, he felt warmer, lighter. And though he was still learning the equilibrium of his brother’s body, he realized he nonetheless felt more confident in his skin. More capable. The best part of their switch, however, was that the injury from the shadow jinn had ceased to exist, which made it possible for him to forget he’d fallen prey to her.
Until the nightmares return. Dread coiled in his chest. When next he was able to coax Aisha into speaking with him, he would have to ask her how long it had taken for her nightmares to subside.
He sighed as he returned to the clearing where their tent was. A campfire he was sure had not been there before crackled at the center. He stared at it. Surely someone would have thought to put it out by now?
“Lost, Prince?”
Mazen jumped at the sound of the voice. By the fire, where he was sure there had been nothing before, he suddenly saw a shadow of a man. A dark-skinned phantom with burning embers for eyes. Mazen nearly fainted at the sight of him. Not a jinn. He took a deep breath to calm his heart. Not a jinn.
He stepped forward and the vision dissipated. Shadows gave way to light, and Mazen saw a familiar man sitting by the firelight. Qadir, the Midnight Merchant’s bodyguard.
Mazen swallowed his nerves and chuckled. “Me, lost? What an amusing thought.”
“Hmm.” The bodyguard looked away, turning his attention to something balanced on his knee. A compass. Even in the dark, Mazen could see the arrow swaying back and forth. He wondered if it was the compass the merchant had referred to during their ride. It certainly looked the same, though it didn’t look particularly dependable now.
Mazen raised a brow. “A broken compass?”
Qadir didn’t even spare him a glance. “Not broken, just precise.”
“Precise?”
The bodyguard offered no response. Mazen waited for a while, but he could not fashion the quiet into a weapon like his brother could. In the end, he walked away. He was curious, but he was also tired. He hoped that this time, he’d be able to sleep.
20
AISHA
After weeks in Madinne, Aisha was glad to be back in the desert.
She was not, however, glad to be here with the present company. She was accustomed to working alone or, on rare occasions, with Omar or another thief. Camping with near strangers was exasperating.
She grumbled to herself as she leaned over their campfire. Things could be worse, she supposed. At least the bodyguard and the merchant weren’t inept. On the contrary, Qadir was good with a bow, and Loulie knew how to skin and cook the game he brought back. For the last three days since they’d left Madinne, they had helped set up camp and chart the way to Dhyme. All in all, Aisha could admit that they had been decent traveling companions.
And then there was Prince Mazen. Though he was familiar enough with Omar’s mannerisms to be a decent actor, he was dead weight. All she had managed to teach him so far was how to make a fire. Every other task she handled by herself. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, if she hadn’t been pretending to serve a man who was not her king.
Aisha plucked a branch from the edges of the fire and absently began to draw shapes in the sand. It was not until Loulie al-Nazari joined her and glanced at the lines that Aisha realized she was scratching flowers into the dirt. She brushed them away with feigned nonchalance.
The merchant pulled her knees to her chest. “Hobby of yours?” she asked.
“None of your business,” Aisha said.
“Not one for talk, are you?”
“Speak for yourself. Do not pretend you have not been avoiding us.”
The merchant shrugged as she leaned closer to the fire. “And? You’ve been avoiding us.” No sooner had she begun to warm her hands than a gust of wind rushed through, unsettling the sand and making the flame flicker. The merchant flinched back. Aisha suppressed a shudder as she pulled up her hood. It always took her a few nights to acclimate to the harsher winds when she returned to the desert.
Footsteps sounded behind them, and moments later, Prince Mazen and Qadir appeared. The prince with the map she’d insisted he study, and Qadir with a bag of dates he’d apparently purchased at the oasis two days ago. Mazen seated himself a few feet away while Qadir settled himself beside the merchant. She shifted closer to him, close enough to steal the bag of dates off his lap. Qadir didn’t seem to mind when she started munching on them.