Chapter 24
My supernatural spouse appeared to be thoroughly enjoying his island adventure. He’d reverted to his magical form, his skin
blue and wildly striped, and the foul heart pulsing from the cord around his neck. The patterned yellow tubban he’d stolen
from one of my sailors looked clean and fresh wrapped around his waist, and he was in the middle of eating a plump red bass,
its blood running down his tusks.
Raksh took another bite of his fish, then cocked his head. “What are you doing here? I thought you were back on the Mara —”
With a bellow like an enraged elephant, I charged him.
Propelled by nothing but spite, I somehow managed to hurl my exhausted body at my traitorous husband hard enough to knock
us both off our feet. I landed on his chest, straddling his waist. Though I knew it would do nothing but irritate him, a fly
buzzing around his head, I punched him square in the face.
There was a solid smack when my fist struck his cheek. Raksh cried out in pain, and I glanced in astonishment at my knuckles.
They were covered in blue blood. Raksh’s blood. The two of us both stared at my hand in mutual shock for a long moment.
His eyes went wide with panic. “Now, wait just a—”
I punched him again. This time his nose crunched under my fist. God, it felt wonderful. So wonderful I did it again. And then
a fourth time. I had no idea what strength had blessed me, and I didn’t care.
Raksh snarled and spat, trying unsuccessfully to grab my wrists. “Stop hitting me!” he cried. “What did you expect me to do? Falco was going to kill us!”
“You motherfucking traitorous son of Iblis, I am going to kill you!” I went for his eyes, intending to claw them out. “You abandoned us! You stole the dunij!”
“You were going to be defeated!” Raksh protested, ducking to avoid my overgrown fingernails. “Why should I have had to die
as well?”
“Because maybe we wouldn’t have been defeated if you stayed! What happened to you bringing me luck ?” I moved for his throat. I was going to choke the life out of this lying, manipulative bastard once and for all.
“To be fair...” he wheezed out, “luck does not always work as neatly as—argh!” He gagged as I tightened my grip, repaying
the favor both he and Falco had granted me earlier.
But the physical contact and fury that let me strangle Raksh gave him strength as well. My overwhelming desire for vengeance
suddenly spiked and partially leached away as he consumed it. The wild rush left me unbalanced, and Raksh took advantage of
my faltering to shove me away. He gasped for air, spitting and cursing.
I was already on my feet and stalking back toward him. So furious I couldn’t think straight, I picked up his fish and flung
it at his face. “You fucking bastard. I should have thrown you overboard the moment we found Dunya. If you didn’t steal the
dunij, I could have gotten some of my people away!”
“Yes. Because the oceanic leviathan who blotted out the sun wouldn’t have been able to pursue two boats at once.” Raksh touched
his broken nose, looking offended when his claws came away bloodstained. “I told you Falco wasn’t going to let her escape.”
“Where is the dunij now?” I demanded.
“Gone.”
“ Gone? ”
“Smashed to pieces. It broke up in the surf when I arrived. You should have invested in a better one.”
I closed my eyes, counting to ten. I might be capable of tearing out his tongue now, but then I wouldn’t learn anything. “Where
are the pieces ?”
“I assume they were washed out to sea.” Raksh frowned in confusion “Why?”
“Because I could have tried to fix them! God almighty...” I paced away, pressing my hands against my head. “Where are we?
Those people—” I waved in the direction the boat and its bizarre inhabitants had flown. “They didn’t look human.”
“Oh, those weren’t humans. Those were daevas.”
“What in God’s name is a daeva ?”
He held up a hand. “You don’t want to know, trust me. More overdramatic creatures have never existed. And they’re not even
the worst ones here. Everyone likes to complain about humans, but let me tell you... spend a couple centuries with the
inhabitants of the unseen realms, and you’ll be aching to haunt a mortal latrine.”
God save me; among Falco’s ramblings around challenging the Divine, Dunya’s enthusiastic translation about magical chamber
pots, and whatever the fuck Raksh had just tried to explain, all I wanted to do was go back to my house with its leaking roof
and never hear a whisper of the supernatural again.
“So we’re stuck on an island of demons?” I asked, despondent.
“You keep calling everything a demon and one of those beings is eventually going to smite you for the offense. Especially the creatures who rule this place.” Raksh rolled his eyes. “Bunch of bores. I should have known when I followed those birds
that this is where they were going.”
“This is madness,” I muttered. “I need to return to Socotra.”
“Socotra? You want to go back to Falco?”
“I want to go back for my crew! For Dunya! To make sure Falco doesn’t commit any more atrocities! What else am I supposed to do?”
He pulled at one of his tusks, seeming to genuinely contemplate the question. “Well. The fish is good. And you might as well
enjoy what time you have left before the island’s court learns of your presence and kills you. We could have sexual intercourse,”
he suggested. “That’s always a pleasant way to pass the time.” Raksh paused, seeming to take in my haggard appearance. “You
know... if you washed up.”
“Raksh...” I clenched and unclenched my fists. “There is no earthly power that would convince me to have sex with you again.
And definitely not when my crew is at the mercy of some lunatic obsessed with a God-damned magical bowl!”
Raksh spun back around. For the first time since I arrived at the island, I saw true fear in his fire-bright eyes.
“ What magical bowl?” he demanded.
There seemed little point in keeping him in the dark. “The Moon of Saba,” I explained. “That was what Falco and Dunya were
truly after in the cave. It’s apparently not the pearl of legend, but a wash—”
“Basin,” Raksh finished. He sounded like he was going to throw up. “Please tell me Falco does not know the truth about it.
Tell me that vile idiot has not managed to take possession of the Moon of Saba the week before an eclipse .”
I blinked in surprise—I would not have thought Raksh one for astrological awareness. But if the eclipse was in a week, that
meant I had been at sea a fortnight.
A fortnight . What terrible things might Falco have done to my crew in all that time? But there was no saving my friends if I didn’t know
what was going on, so I forced myself to return to Raksh’s bizarre question.
“I have no idea if the Frank has taken possession of the Moon,” I replied. “Dunya believes she’s the only one who knows how
to retrieve it, but Falco has Dunya, because you left us in such straits that she was forced to bargain that knowledge to save our lives!”
“The Moon of Saba...” Raksh pulled at his hair in despair, the long black strands drifting around his knees like unspun flax. “Of all damnable things!”
I threw up my hands. “Are you telling me you had no idea what they were truly after? Were you not concerned ?”
“No!” Raksh went to rub his brow and cursed when he touched a rising bruise. “They said they were after treasure,” he offered
weakly. “Socotra is lousy with it. But the Moon of Saba ...” He groaned and then whirled on me again, accusation flashing in his eyes. “This is all your fault! You should have
mentioned the Moon to me earlier. We could have let Dunya die with her knowledge!”
“Letting Dunya die with her knowledge was never an option. And my God... what about this damn bowl has all of you so worked
up?” I asked, thinking back to how fervently Dunya had flung herself before the “instruction” tablets when I mentioned tossing
them overboard. “I thought al-Dabaran was just some moon phase that fell in love with Bilqis!”
“ Fell in love? ” Raksh burst into vicious laughter. “Don’t tell me you fell for that ludicrous tale? I would have thought you wiser.”
If this man insulted me one more time while ignoring my questions, I was going to lose the battle against not tearing out
his tongue. “It’s the only story I’ve heard,” I said through my teeth. “If you believe you know better, why don’t you try
explaining something instead of ranting at the sky?”
“Fine. You want to know the truth about the Moon of Saba?” Raksh challenged. “Then listen.”