CHAPTER 29
C HAPTER 29
“S ETH!” RAIDER SHOUTED as loud as he could from the middle of a bridge. Barefooted, having thrown on only his sarong, he raced across it and darted down one of Jannat’s stone paths, which lay pale in the predawn light.
He drew breath to shout again—and Seth came tearing around a corner. Raider’s shout turned into a garbled cry. Seth sprinted his way with a speed belying his heavy build. Expression intense, Seth practically barreled into him.
“What happened?” Seth demanded, grabbing Raider’s arms.
The relief was so intense that Raider sagged in Seth’s grip and struggled to respond.
Frantic eyes darting over Raider, Seth demanded, “Are you okay? Goddamn it, Raider, answer me!”
Anger swept in, drowning out his relief. He yanked free of Seth’s grip. “Where the hell have you been? I woke up and you were gone .”
“Goddamn it, Raider, you scared the shit out of me, shouting my name like that!” Seth snatched at Raider again and hauled him in, crushing him against his chest.
“Scared you ?” Raider retorted, pushing back against Seth. “I’m not the one who vanished! Where have you been? You must have left during the night. Seth, why the hell would you—”
“There was something I had to see. I’m sorry I scared you. I thought I’d be back before you woke up.”
Raider yanked free again. “What the hell do you have to sneak around for?”
“I wasn’t sneaking—”
“Yes, you fucking were!”
“Fine! Okay, yes, I guess I was sneaking—”
“You guess ,” Raider sneered.
“But I needed to look into something, and I didn’t want it to be a problem.”
“Well, it is a problem, Seth. You don’t sneak off in the night like that. Something could’ve happened to you!”
Seth pulled a face. “So much for you thinking this place is so damn safe.”
“Fuck you, Seth, that’s not fair. And besides, it’s more that I thought—ah, shit, never mind.” Chest tight, Raider turned away and crossed his arms, looking out over the green and blue of Jannat.
Seth was silent behind him. Completely still. Then he said quietly, “You thought I left you.”
The landscape blurred.
“Oh, baby.”
Tears spilled down Raider’s cheeks. Goddamn it. “Never mind, Seth. It was stupid. I just panicked, that’s all.”
Footsteps approached. Then Seth’s arms slid around Raider’s ribcage, under his crossed arms. Raider found himself tugged back against Seth.
“Baby, why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I guess … I know you’re angry with me and …” Raider shrugged. “I don’t know. I said it was stupid, okay?”
Seth’s cheek pressed against Raider’s temple, making fresh tears spill. Fuck.
It would have been easier if Seth had gotten angry. If he’d called Raider an idiot. But this …
“Baby, I’m not leaving you,” Seth said gently. “We can be in a hundred arguments. I’m not leaving you.”
Raider drew a shuddering breath.
“Ever,” Seth emphasized.
Raider tightened his crossed arms. “You still snuck out to hide something from me.”
Seth sighed. “Only the same thing I was doing yesterday. I just didn’t want to argue about it again.”
“Lying is better?”
“No, but …” Seth sighed again. “You won’t listen to me. You keep dismissing me. You won’t trust my instincts at all.”
“I have instincts too, Seth. They just don’t agree with yours.”
Seth groaned and dropped his chin over Raider’s shoulder. “Ugh.”
“So did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes and no. I still need answers. But I’m still sure I’m right.”
“And I’m still sure I’m right, but …”
“But what?”
“But maybe we should start working together,” Raider said. After all, what good had they done by arguing, resisting, refusing to listen to each other? “Maybe we should start asking questions together. Like …”
“Partners?” Seth supplied.
Raider shrugged against him. “Why not? You don’t like that?”
“It’s not that. It’s just … new. But you’re right. You are my partner, Raider. In every conceivable way. I guess I felt like I hit a wall with you and sort of, I don’t know, reverted to my solitary Curator ways.”
Raider reached up and curled his hand over the back of Seth’s head. Seth’s admission loosened the words inside him. “You’re right that I do put my head in the sand.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, Raider.”
Raider swallowed around a sudden constriction in his throat. Gods, it felt good to talk to Seth. To be together. Really together. Sex often helped them with that, but it was nice, for once, to learn how to reconnect without it.
This was real—fuck, it was really real. Everything he had with Seth.
Raider took a breath, letting himself soak that in for a moment before asking, “So what do we need to do?”
“I think we need to talk to the only djinn that’s been very open to us. To you, at least.”
“Do you understand that there’s nothing going on between me and him? I have certain questions that I don’t have anyone else to ask. It helps me, Seth.”
“Fuck, you’re right. Goddamn it. I’m sorry I’ve been shitty about it. Of course you have questions. I should be happy for you that someone can help you. I’ve just been so afraid that—” Seth broke off.
“That what?”
Seth pressed his face against Raider’s shoulder. “Don’t make me say it.”
“That he can give me something you can’t?”
“Yeah,” Seth mumbled against Raider’s shoulder. “Him. This place.”
“Seth, you are my place.”
Seth gasped in a breath. “Oh, fuck, Raider,” he choked out, “don’t make me cry.”
“Why not? You made me cry.”
Seth huffed. Straightening, he tugged Raider around to face him, pulling him in. Raider closed his arms around Seth and hugged him tight. Then he kissed him. Desire was always there when they kissed, but this was mostly affection. Warmth. Reassurance for them both.
“Come on, Curator,” Raider said, pulling back. “Talk to me. Tell me what you found. Let’s figure shit out.”
“Goddamn,” Seth breathed, shaking his head as though marveling at something.
“What?”
A smile tugged at Seth’s lips. “I just didn’t think I could love you any more than I already do. But you always surprise me.”
Raider took Seth’s hand and tugged him into motion. “How do you think I feel every day? It’s scary, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes. But it’s still fucking beautiful.”
***
Tarjan shimmered into sight as soon as Seth finished telling Raider about the gold statue atop the cliff and the strange djinn that had appeared to him there. Tarjan’s timing suggested he’d been listening. (Tarjan’s timing usually suggested that. But then, privacy was something of a joke when everyone around you could be invisible.)
They had just reached the steps into the waterfall tower. Former library, according to Seth. Tarjan regarded them with wary golden eyes. The emeralds of his belt flashed in the sunlight. The jewels were beautiful, like his peacock form, but they couldn’t compare to the brilliant green of Seth’s eyes.
“Well?” Raider prompted Tarjan, seeing no point in having Seth repeat himself. “What about that gold statue?”
Tarjan looked disappointed. “Have you not been well cared for here?”
Guilt squirmed in Raider’s gut. “Yes. Of course. But we still have questions.”
“Jannat is safe,” Tarjan argued. “Jannat is paradise.”
Seth said, “It’s beautiful, but it’s not paradise. It has a dark history.”
“Jannat’s secrets are its own. Why should you think you have a right to them?”
Raider glanced at Seth, needing him to deal with this. Because, damn it, he agreed with Tarjan. And yet … Seth was right too. Raider didn’t like what Seth had told him of the djinn Soroush.
“Jannat isn’t safe,” Seth insisted. “Not if that statue is what I think it is.”
Tarjan’s golden eyes flashed. “The Alchemist brought his own fate on himself.”
Raider asked, “The Alchemist, as in the creator of the Alchemist’s Stone?”
“He is the only evil in Jannat, the only darkness.”
“Is he alive?” Seth asked.
“Yes and no. Living eternally in lifelessness. Preserved by the lives he took to make the Stone. Now, forever guarding it.”
“Whose lives did he take?” Raider asked.
“Five djinn. He bound them with quicksilver. He stripped them of life, of their very essences. Do you understand why this must be a secret? Alchemists would hunt us, seek to enslave us.”
Understanding hit Raider. “That’s why you don’t wear bracelets or necklaces. That’s why there’s no metal in Jannat.”
“Gold is greed. Weapons are death. Quicksilver is worst of all.”
Raider winced. Seth’s hand squeezed his in understanding, then Seth asked, “Is that why you destroyed the people of Ulam? To destroy that knowledge? Then you took their city?”
Tarjan looked frustrated. “It was never their city. It was theirs and ours. We all lived here, peacefully, once. But we killed only the alchemists, and, yes, we destroyed the library. But the others fled, vanished into other cities. Their descendants are everywhere. You must understand that we love humans. You fascinate us. But you frighten us too. Look what your kind does. Look what your kind did to him,” he added, nodding to Raider. “But none of this knowledge can leave Jannat. If any knew the Stone was here—”
“I think they do know,” Seth said. “I think they’re coming. The others we were traveling with. It’s … fuck, it’s my fault. I charted a course based on my guesses about Ulam and Jannat. I never expected to get here,” Seth added apologetically. “I never even wanted to.”
Tarjan shook his head. “No human can see Jannat unless one of the djinn brings them in. We choose carefully. I watched you for days before I chose. Jannat is safe .”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Seth argued. “Soroush—”
“He is angry. His father was one of the five. But he will not harm you or anyone. The djinn swore a sacred oath to never engage in violence again.”
“Perhaps not directly,” Seth argued. “But Soroush said I had been useful . How can I have been useful—except to have drawn the others here?”
Raider shook his head. “But the canyon, Seth. How could they possibly have crossed that? Besides, you and I were brought here by the roc.”
“There was a crossing a few miles north,” Seth said. “I led us to where they couldn’t cross on purpose. But Fadesh, he got my notes and maps. Raider!”
Seth caught him as his knees gave out, lowering him to the stone steps. Raider bowed his head over his knees as the waves of memory crashed through him.
So much had happened since the crisis with the Hammer and Hand—Seth’s injury, Jannat’s wonders—that what Raider had remembered upon seeing the arcanist’s face had sunk back into the shadows of his mind.
That face, unremarkable, utterly forgettable, leered out from his memory, no longer forgotten.
Seth was crouched before Raider, one hand on the back of Raider’s head. “Raider, what is it?”
Raider wanted, desperately, to push the memory away, but he couldn’t let himself do that. Not anymore.
“Fadesh … I remembered him. When we were escaping, I remembered him. Then I forgot him again because …”
“Raider, you’re scaring me. What do you mean you remembered him?”
“He worked with Kahzir. On me.”
Seth froze. He was silent for a long, gravid moment. Then he said roughly, “Fuck.” Voice softening, hand starting to stroke Raider’s hair, he said, “Oh, baby. Goddamn it.”
“This Fadesh is an arcanist?” Tarjan asked.
“Yes,” Seth replied, keeping light pressure on Raider’s head, telling him to take his time before rejoining the discussion.
Raider closed his eyes and tried to breathe. The fear was only a memory. He was fine. He was with Seth.
Tarjan asked, “And you said that Soroush told you that you had been useful?”
“Yes,” Seth confirmed. “Is there a way into Jannat, other than by air? Something that Soroush could reveal to them?”
Raider lifted his head. Seth’s hand slid to his shoulder.
“Yes, there is a pass that leads to the cliff of the Alchemist, but surely Soroush wouldn’t …?” Tarjan asked, seemingly of himself.
“Let them in? So they can take the Stone? I don’t know why he would want that, but I think that’s what he wants. And I don’t think he would have let me see that if he wasn’t close to his goal.”
Tarjan closed his eyes, shuttering the brilliant gold. “Great Fire Mother.”
“Tarjan, give us our weapons. They’re not only death. They’re life too. They defend it.”
“My heart weeps today,” Tarjan said—and vanished in a wisp of blue smoke, leaving behind a pile of weapons.