IN THE DISTANCE, ALIZEH SAW stars.
Tens of thousands—or perhaps hundreds of thousands—or thousands of thousands—
It was impossible to tell, and she seemed incapable of conjuring an estimate large enough to account for them all. She knew only what she saw, and what she saw was a seemingly infinite expanse of densely assembled celestial bodies, all of which appeared to tremble upon approach. They had been sitting in a bleak silence for hours now, and with each flap of the dragon’s enormous, leathery wings, their small party drew steadily closer to the spectral sight, the distant lights rearranging themselves repeatedly, shifting in erratic patterns.
Finally, Alizeh frowned.
It was very unlike a star to act in such a manner.
She turned to her companion for an explanation but was brought up short by the sight of him. Cyrus sat beside her with a palpable discomfort made apparent in the unnatural stiffness of his body: head up, shoulders back, spine straight. His eyes were fixed firmly ahead, his hair rippling in the wind, longer strands occasionally obscuring his vision—and still he did not move.
It was impossible to know what tormented him the most, and Alizeh could not bring herself to care. Her eyes still itched with the remnants of tears; she despised this blackguard, and yet, until she could figure out a plan of action, she would need a great deal from him: his answers about the devil’s plans for her, his guidance in navigating Tulan, the offer of a safe place to stay while she gathered her wits and decided her next move. It was a hateful situation, one she would have to manage with all possible caution, and Alizeh was still considering this, still examining his stoic features when his jaw suddenly tightened.
“Enough,” he said sharply. “I don’t welcome your analysis. Cease studying me.”
Something bitter prompted her to say, “You are not my master.”
Cyrus turned at once to look at her, staring into her eyes with an intensity that bordered on alarming. “Do you aspire to be mine?”
This question was so shocking, Alizeh drew back in response.
Cyrus leaned in. “Relinquish the dream,” he said softly. “You have no hope of mastering me.”
Alizeh tensed. “I could kill you right now.”
He only looked at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Go on, then,” he said. “Kill me. I will not intervene.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I do not dispose of that which is still useful to me.” “Useful? Is that what you’ve decided I am?” He almost laughed. “And
do you lie to yourself often?”
Alizeh felt a flash of heat at that; an anger that compelled her into silence as the two locked eyes then in a vicious contest. Alizeh did her utmost to remain still under Cyrus’s now ruthless inspection, but the full weight of his scrutiny—at such close proximity—was indeed too much to bear. He seemed to devour her with a single look, his blue gaze holding hers without mercy before cataloging every inch of her face, the angle of her jaw, the column of her neck. His eyes were charged with something both electric and devastating, the unbound energy of his entire body diverted to this single avenue of connection. Alizeh felt the heat of his slow appraisal in her bones, in the tips of her fingers; her heart sped up in response, understanding even as he frightened her—that he was trying to frighten her.
Too soon, Alizeh averted her gaze.
“As I thought,” he whispered. “You’re too soft even to bear the weight of my attentions.”
Alizeh laughed quietly as she pressed a finger to the wind, felt the current curl under her touch. “The sky, too, is soft,” she said. “Yet all who fall into its arms will perish.”
She felt him stiffen beside her.
“You,” he said finally, “are not who I expected.”
Alizeh did not reward this with a response, choosing instead to resume her study of the night. They were beginning to descend into Tulan—she could feel it—and as they drew closer to what seemed an endless celebration of jittery lights, her eyes grew wide with wonder.
“Tell me,” she said. “Why do these stars move? Is there magic in the heavens here?”
“Those are very different questions,” said Cyrus, whose eyes she felt fixed on her face. “As for the first: they move because they are not stars.”
She glanced at him, eyebrows high.
“You will soon learn that Tulan is crowned by a series of protective skies,” he explained. “The fireflies live in our third atmosphere, where they gather in such large numbers they present almost as small galaxies, or even
terrifying ghosts, from afar. It can be a little disconcerting to the unaccustomed eye.”
“Fireflies,” Alizeh said, turning fully to face him. “How—”
There was an unexpected swell of sound then, a mellifluous harmony that crescendoed as she went suddenly weightless, suspended in midair for the length of a single breath before they plummeted at breakneck velocity through a bloat of clouds. Alizeh grasped desperately at nothing, nearly losing her seat as strong gales pushed open the flaps of her borrowed coat and promptly tore the oversized garment from her body, tossing the article in the sky. Alizeh heard Cyrus’s cry of frustration even as she nearly screamed in pain; the cold bit into her uncovered flesh with an unexpected brutality, and in a moment propelled by nothing more than desperation did she finally find purchase at the nape of the dragon’s neck, holding fast as they bore down with increasing speed. Wind barreled relentlessly against her exposed body, battering her over and over as her hair spiraled in a storm of its own, loose tendrils occasionally snapping with static.
It was only after they were wrung from the clouds and released back into the open air that Alizeh felt the shimmer of dew on her skin, the damp press of her tattered dress against her body. The landscape below her came into a vague focus, the hush and roar of that distant resonance growing only more deafening. Howling squalls still thrashed her face, an unnamed crash and clamor rising to a decibel level nearly incalculable—until finally, Alizeh understood.
What she heard was water.
They had to be above the ocean—this much had to be true—but then the smell of wet soil filled her head, confusing her, and she was at once consumed by the bracing scent of rain and the heavy cloak of mist, the latter promptly obscuring her vision.
Alizeh struggled to stare through the fog at the scene below, condensation settling in her hair, vapor clinging to her eyelashes. She climbed closer to the head of the dragon—deaf to the sound of Cyrus calling her back—and locked her arms as best she could around the beast’s neck before pressing her face deeper into the fog. In the shattering moonlight she saw the faint outline of what appeared to be the end of the earth.
A colossal sequence of staircase waterfalls had been born at the top of towering cliffs, the cataracts emptying into the ocean from varying, and
terrifying, heights. The scene was in fact so sublime that Alizeh experienced an inexpressible, joyful fear in its presence; she’d never seen such steep bluffs nor such devastating cascades, and she was still trying to digest the magnificence of it all when she remembered, suddenly, to look up.
Her face was met with an exhalation of mist, ocean spray glazing her body as her lips parted in awe, then exhilaration. She distinguished the stark lines of turrets in the night sky, the formidable outline of what could only be a royal palace balanced upon the cliff’s edge, its foundations planted at the base of hundreds of falls so majestic her breath caught at the sight.
Water.
She could hardly believe it.
Jinn’s bodies were forged from fire, yes—but water was their true mainstay in life; unlike other living creatures, Jinn did not require food for survival. It was this precious elixir alone that had allowed Alizeh’s ancestors to survive eons of a frozen, sunless existence on earth, and it was no surprise, then, that Alizeh felt most alive only when she drew nearer to water—when she drank it, bathed in it.
When she lifted her face to the rain.
Alizeh closed her eyes, felt the spindrift wash over her. They were approaching the castle with great determination now; the closer they drew, the more intensely she experienced the unrelenting drizzle—and she made no effort to take cover. Instead, Alizeh leaned in only farther, licking the water from her lips, inhaling the scent of sodden earth, damp moss, wet pine. She was soon drenched and frozen half to death, shivering uncontrollably and still undeterred. Her long curls were heavy and dripping, rivulets snaking down her face, her neck, running along her collarbone.
Alizeh paid these discomforts no attention.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced such heady relief. Her daily baths at the local hamam were nothing compared to this— to the magnificence of an overwhelming ocean, to the fervor and mercy of the sea.
It was as if she’d been returned home.
This dream was crudely interrupted by an ungentlemanly word released by a familiar voice; Cyrus’s arms came suddenly around her waist, too easily plucking her off the dragon’s neck and planting her back onto their shared seat, the patterned rug beneath them now damp with ocean spray.
He drew away from her at once.
“Good Lord,” he said, shaking out his hands. “You’re soaking wet. Why are you acting as if you’ve never seen water before?”
Alizeh hardly heard him. She was too overcome with exhilaration and as a result did not think before she smiled at Cyrus, turning the full force of her joy in his direction, eyes squinting, cheeks dimpling, chest heaving with excitement.
Cyrus went inhumanly still, then turned sharply away.
“You act as if you’ve never met a Jinn before,” Alizeh said breathlessly. “I love the water. I live for it.”
“On the contrary,” he said flatly, still avoiding the sight of her. “I’ve met thousands of Jinn, and I’ve never seen a single one of them nearly fling themselves into the ocean.”
Alizeh was offered no opportunity to respond; the dragon made its final descent without warning and without grace, wings clipping the falls as they approached land, dousing them both with fresh water in the process. Alizeh heard Cyrus swear as the animal hit the ground hard, forelegs first, then back legs, stomping to a halt in a series of drunken thumps, the reverberations of which made Alizeh’s teeth chatter.
“She’s very tired,” Cyrus muttered by way of apology. Alizeh said nothing.
It was a moment before she was even able to shake herself free of whiplash, carefully collecting her mind in the midst of this current astonishment. They’d come to an abrupt stop on a stretch of flat, mossy land upon one of the higher cliffs, where the roar of the water grew so loud the two of them would have no choice but to cease speaking or else scream at each other, granting Alizeh the quiet she needed to survey her new surroundings. It was a shame, then, that they had arrived in the dark, for she could make out only faded impressions of the royal grounds.
Even so, she was thunderstruck.
The jagged, staggering castle appeared to be fashioned from glittering stone, for the smooth exterior glinted under the undiluted glow of starlight, casting constellations upon her skin, the scattered trees, even the leathery beast still kneeling beneath her. No doubt it was the late hour, her extreme fatigue, and the emotional obliteration of the evening that were to blame for her disorientation, but Alizeh was so affected by the surrealism of the moment that she felt a bit out of her mind. Her own bones seemed foreign
to her; even when she shivered she felt as if she were experiencing it from afar. Frost had begun to crystallize along her eyelashes, upon the stiffening tendrils of her hair. She was so numb with cold she could hardly feel her extremities anymore, but neither could she bring herself to hurry indoors into the arms of an unknown fate.
Cyrus, meanwhile, stared a beat too long at what was ostensibly his own home—and released a heavy sigh.
He disembarked in a brisk, fluid motion, landing firmly on his feet and not bothering to look back, leaving Alizeh to topple off the dragon in an inelegant heap. She drew herself up and looked around, trying and failing to take in the magnitude of this new setting. The air felt fresher here—crisp and delicious in a way that reminded her of childhood—and she couldn’t get enough of it. She inhaled over and over in quick succession, and soon grew light-headed.
Feeling delirious, she peered up—and gasped.
Where the royal palace in Ardunia was an arresting work of art sprawled leisurely upon hundreds of acres, this Tulanian stronghold was forced to fashion its palatial size upon a modest plane offered by a steep cliff. Alizeh supposed it was for this reason that the castle was so dizzyingly vertiginous.
Then again, it might’ve been done simply to intimidate.
Gilded spires pierced the heavens above her, impaling stars, grazing the moon—and disappeared fully into the clouds, a herd of which crowned the palace like a halo. Alizeh was unable even to see the top, so tall was the edifice, and she lifted a frozen hand to her mouth, astonishment forcing her eyes wide.
The sky, meanwhile, was beginning to show telltale signs of dawn.
The heaviness of night drew back in an unhurried reveal, inches of dark pleating away not unlike curtains on a stage. An audience of one stood impatient before the sight, waiting with bated breath for the set dressing of the next scene, the next act in her life.
Alizeh felt a terrible sense of foreboding.
Nevertheless, a golden radiance soon illuminated the world, fingers of light touching trees and birds as if counting its children.
Alizeh thought to search for Cyrus then, and found him tending to the dragon, first dropping a massive bucket of water at the creature’s feet, then procuring from nowhere a single apple, which he polished against his shirt
before holding under the animal’s nose. The beast opened its mouth with a pitiful whine, curls of smoke puffing from its nostrils before it snatched, in a terrifying bite, the offering from Cyrus’s open hand.
Alizeh thought she might’ve seen the demented king smile.
The king in question stroked the dragon’s head with the tenderness of a child before leaving the beast to its water. He walked briskly toward a steel chest—which appeared to have been delivered in anticipation of their arrival—and threw back the heavy lid, withdrawing from the trunk’s belly an enormous platter heaving with dead animals.
Alizeh turned away.
She need not watch the dragon eat a grisly meal; she felt she’d been served more than her fill of bloody images this night. In any case, Cyrus’s current preoccupation was a mercy she would not squander; Alizeh’s mind was spinning with a multitude of pressing complications, and she was grateful for the solitude—for the moment to think.
She still hadn’t decided what to do.
Outrunning the devil was hopeless, she knew that, but participating in this twisted game felt equally impossible.
She would not marry Cyrus, at least; this first step seemed clear enough. It was what came next that confounded her. Alizeh had been exposed, actively hunted by two empires—and while she’d managed to outrun one, she’d been easily caught in the maw of another, forced now to play a role in the devil’s schemes. This web was now too intricate; her existence too well- documented. She didn’t think she could return to a life of obscurity until she’d felled her enemies—and hers were formidable indeed.
Alizeh clenched her shaking hands.
Oh, she had never feared death. No, it was life that scared her, life that scarred her. It was the slow torture of consciousness that had done its utmost to crush her. Alizeh was meant to be the salvation of her people— destined to save the Jinn of this world from the horrors they’d endured for centuries. How could she not carry the weight of this failure with her always? The burden had been hers to bear and she’d borne it badly. Now she was trapped between a deranged king and the devil himself, and she feared, for a terrible moment, that she might fail to overcome this, too.
A wave of panic seized her body.
Alizeh’s legs shook, her knees suddenly giving out; she staggered back a step, the heels of her bare feet striking the trunk of the nearest tree. She
braced herself against its heft, her head filling with the scent of pine. She’d grown used to the sound of the rushing water now—experiencing it more as a comforting hum than a distracting noise—and as her heart steadied, she was better able to discern the sounds of leaves fluttering, a charm of birds chirping melodies into the sunrise.
Alizeh drew a deep, steadying breath.
She reminded herself to take comfort, as she always had, in the strength she carried in her body, in her mind, in the faith she’d always had in herself. She was not stupid enough to think she could find her way to safety in her current state—bedraggled, destitute, and ignorant of this foreign landscape
—nor was she delusional enough to trust anyone she might encounter in Tulan. Instead, she thought she might take a day or two to assess her new circumstances, bide her time until she could form a plan. Besting Cyrus, at least, would be the easier task—for she knew he was but a pawn in this scheme.
It was Iblees she’d need to outmaneuver.
Alizeh was still contemplating this when she heard the soft, unexpected voice of a stranger calling her name. She stiffened at once, fear bolting through her afresh.
Carefully, she turned to face the new arrival.
