I took a deep breath, clutched the lamp and said in a rush, “I wish I was your only master and all other previous masters are released at no harm to them.”
At the same moment, Zafir finished his spell. Chains erupted from nothingness, glowing brighter and heavier than the one that had once bound me. They wrapped around Rahil’s and Zafir’s wrists, rattling and clinking as they slithered into place.
All around the room, the jewels and trinkets housing Rahil’s former wives began to shift, growing back into women.
Rahil let out a scream of rage as his form lost some of its human quality and he became a darker shade of blue. “You foolish girl! You’ll pay for this!”
He yanked against the chains, muscles bulging, magic flaring violently around him. “You think a few chains will stop me?”
Rahil raised the dagger and lunged for Zafir, who was too weak to defend himself. It would be a killing blow.
“No!” I screamed and threw myself between Rahil and Zafir. The knife intended for Zafir plunged into my own chest, embedding deep into my heart.
The chains flared brighter and Rahil screamed even louder than I did.
His body arched violently as the vow bond reacted,consuming his very essence. Light tore through him from the inside out, brilliant and merciless. He clawed at his chestas the beams of light fractured his body, bursting out of him as his dying shrieks reverberated around the room.
In a blinding flash, Rahil collapsed inward, his form disintegrating into blue vapor that emitted a piercing whistle as it was sucked violently back into the lamp.
The empty chains clattered to the floor and vanished, and the lamp cracked straight down the middle then crumbled to dust.
Rahil was gone.
I dropped to my knees, head spinning from the waves of pain that pulsed through my body, and collapsed to the side. Looking at the blade in my chest felt as if it were another person’s body instead of my own. I was going to die, just like Rahil.
“Alia!” Zafir dragged himself over to me, leaving a smear of blood across the stone. His hands trembled as he reached for me, his face ashen and stricken.
“I’m here,” I whispered, though my voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else. The pain was no longer sharp. It was everywhere and nowhere all at once, and a heavy numbness was spreading outward from the dagger lodged in my chest. Each breath felt thinner than the last, and darkness was clouding the edges of my vision, swelling toward the center until there was only a solitary ray of light.
“No,” Zafir said fiercely, pressing his hand over mine, close to where the blade had penetrated. “No, you aren’t allowed to leave me.”
The darkness was taking over and Zafir’s voice became muffled. The ceiling above me dimmed, colors bleeding together before vanishing completely. I could feel my heart stuttering, struggling against the cold creeping through my limbs.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I didn’t want you to die.”
“I won’t,” he said, his voice breaking. “And neither will you.”
“It’s too late,” I murmured. I could taste something metallic. So this was what it was like to die. “I really do love you.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, as if steadying himself, then placed his bloodied hand directly over my heart. I felt a warmth, faint at first then heating rapidly, like a live ember pressed beneath my ribs.
I let out a soft moan of pain.
“Stay with me,” he begged. “Stay with me.”
I couldn’t. It was too difficult. My eyelids were closing no matter how much I fought to keep them open. This had to be the end. A velvety blackness enveloped me.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
CHAPTER 32
Iwaited to see what the afterlife would be like. Would my relatives who passed on before me be waiting to greet me? Was I going to float as a spirit and watch as Zafir and Nadia lived out the rest of their lives?
Anxious voices talked around me, but everything was still black. I could hear Nadia foremost among them, asking question after question, and Zafir’s deep tone answering her.
Someone shook my shoulder. “Wake up, Alia.”
Blearily, I cracked my eyes open. Faces, many faces, peered at me. A woman bent to lift one of my eyelids while another patted my arm and a third, Nadia, dabbed a warm, wet cloth against the spot where the knife had plunged into my chest.
