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, whoseeyes 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 dressagainst 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 muchhadto 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 anoverwhelming 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.”
