“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 wasostensibly 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, butparticipating in this twisted game felt equally impossible.
She would not marry Cyrus, at least; this first step seemed clear enough. It was what camenextthat 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 leavesfluttering, a charm of birds chirping melodies into the sunrise.
Alizeh drew a deep, steadying breath.
