She was barely able to breathe as the hunter clasped the iron shackle around her throat. Pain, hot and sharp, lanced through her veins and punctured her bones.
The hunter stepped closer, dark eyes narrowed. “How old do you suppose this one is?”
“At least a hundred years,” said his companion. “Perhaps older.”
“An ancient monster,” the hunter mused. “I expected her to put up more of a fight.”
The hunter’s companion moved to stand beside him. The only feature she could make out on his veiled face was his eyes, which looked like shards of gold. “Can you speak, monster?”
She did not bother responding. She’d heard stories of jinn who had their tongues removed for speaking. She lowered her head and started praying. She tried not to think of the grass beneath her feet—of the blood the hunters had spilled from her veins to make it.
She forcefully altered the pathway of her thoughts until she was thinking about Him instead. If He woke and saw her with these humans, He would, He would… well, He would try to save her and die. And she had not resigned herself to this fate just for Him to perish. She had freed Him. She would not let Him be captured again.
When the hunters realized they would not be able to make her scream, they secured the chains holding her to the boulder and unceremoniously pushed her into the lake. Even then, as death drew nearer, she did not stop praying. Did not stop remembering.
She thought of the haunted look in His eyes, the blood on His hands. The way He had stood, back so straight, when they tortured and scarred Him.
And then she thought of His future, which unfurled in her mind like a map. She saw a desert camp. Robes glittering with stars. A band of killers. Him, shifting through the flames like smoke, approaching a crying girl with a compass in her hands. And she knew, suddenly, that the compass was hers—was her. She felt the weight of it in her pocket and thought, If I cannot guide Him through the desert hand in hand, then I will use this arrow to point him toward His fate. She held the shape of Him in her mind as the last of the air left her lungs. And then…
Loulie opened her eyes with a gasp. The world before her was tilted on an axis. She shifted her suddenly heavy head and realized she was lying on the ground, clutching the compass. Every time she breathed, she heard the echo of her heartbeat in the wooden instrument.
No, not her heartbeat. The relic—it was a living thing.
Not just a compass, but a soul. A life.
Her mind drifted, and for a few moments she was back beneath the water, unable to breathe, dying. She released the compass. The vision collapsed, plunging her back into a reality where Ahmed bin Walid loomed above her with a dagger, eyes shining with hatred. His scarf hung askew on his neck, revealing the gleam of a golden collar at his throat. “Now you know how it feels for my kind to die,” he said. “But it is not enough to redeem you.”
Loulie squinted against the blurriness of her surroundings. She saw the other hunters sprawled nearby, looking just as bleary-eyed.
“How many jinn have you killed? All so you could steal our magic and paint your world with our blood?”
None, she thought. I have killed no jinn. But her lips refused to form the words.
She felt Ahmed grip her arm. Felt him lift her up.
“No more.” His voice was heavy with grief. “Goodbye, jinn killer.”
He pressed the blade to her throat.
31
MAZEN
Mazen was still thinking about his shadow when he stepped through the gates to Ahmed bin Walid’s residence. The guards did not bother leading him to the diwan. Doubtless, they trusted the high prince to find his way there on his own.
Paranoia tightened his lungs as he walked through the empty courtyard. He could not stop his gaze from wandering to his shadow. It looked like a normal shadow, but every time he nudged it with his foot, it caught against his boot.
How is this possible? He considered the question as he wove through the evergreen garden. Even in the dark, the courtyard was beautiful. And… different?
The trees seemed closer, as if they had moved to block his path, and the howl of the wind was strangely mournful. The moonlight filtering through the canopies was an eerie silver, and he found himself ducking through the trees to avoid it. He felt like he was being watched.
He shook the thought away as he approached the diwan steps. As his legs slowed and his eyes drooped and the world blurred. He had only just become aware of his sluggishness when a song—a soft, terrible song he recognized—speared through his mind.
Mazen staggered. He did not realize he’d collapsed until he felt the softness of his shadow beneath his fingertips. He became aware of a second sound, a thrumming in his arm, his feet… all around him? He paled.