Chapter Forty-Five Amunet
FORTY-FIVE AMUNET
I wiped the sweat from my brow, feet throbbing dully as pebbles dug into my sandals’ thin soles with every step.
When I glanced up, I spotted a tree with a strange red substance leaking from it, too vibrant to be normal sap, and my heart sank.
“We’ve come this way before,” I panted. Three times before to be exact.
Jasim sat on a boulder, the same one he’d rested on yesterday. Hand tight around his midsection, face pale. My brow creased with worry, but he waved me off. “I just need a minute.”
I pursed my lips.
Dead Man’s Forest was foggy but not dark, thank the gods.
Leaves rustled over our heads, but that was the only noise.
A forest this large, there should have been creatures scurrying, insects buzzing.
Instead, silence pressed in, and even though we’d used the sun as a compass, we’d been going in circles. It was fucking eerie.
I took advantage of the break and felt for Shaya’s breeze. Hoping for some sort of guidance. But there was nothing. Still, I didn’t lose heart. He must’ve expended a great deal of energy to transport us, out of an iron cage, no less. He would find me when he was able.
I sat on the ground at Jasim’s feet. “Let’s stop here for the day.”
“I’m fine.” He stood, the movement stiff. A muscle in his jaw bulged as he tried to hold back a groan.
I reached for his hand and gave it a little tug. “Please. I’m tired.”
My lie was hardly convincing. A small laugh huffed out of him, but he slowly lowered himself to the ground beside me.
I braced him as best I could, though I wasn’t sure I offered much help.
I’d inspected his wounds earlier, so I knew he wasn’t bleeding anymore, but each day out here, he slowed down a bit more. He needed a proper healer.
“We have to find water,” he said as he rested his head back against the boulder.
“I know.” It had been a few days since my last cup, and I imagined the same had to be true for Jasim. “With this much living vegetation, there has to be a water source somewhere close. We’ll find it.”
Jasim nodded. Then his eyes drifted shut.
Sympathy lowered my shoulders. He was exhausted. I was, too, but with his injuries, it was a wonder he’d passed the sun’s zenith without collapsing.
I curled up beside him and rested my head on his shoulder, gazing out at the leafy branches and fog surrounding us. In my gut, I knew I had made the right decision leading us in here, but… the silence was unsettling. I wished my father’s aims were clearer.
“I would take you to the market,” Jasim mumbled.
I gazed at him in surprise. His eyes were still closed, but a faint smile turned up his lips. “If I’d been allowed to court you. The first place I’d take you is the Ketopolis Market. A new baklawa stall opened last year. Nena’s daughter runs it.”
My heart warmed as I settled back into his side. “Why would we get baklawa from the market when we have a cook who can make it?”
“Because the market is the only place you still smile.” He rested his cheek against my head. “Sorry you have to settle for a creepy forest instead.”
I smiled and cuddled closer. “This is much more memorable.”
He chuckled. My smile stretched.
“Sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
He was tired enough that he didn’t argue. I slipped Jasim’s scimitar out of his callused hand and settled it in my lap as I trained my eyes on the crawling fog around us.
A twig snapped.
My eyes burst open.
I’d fallen asleep. Fuck!
Night had turned the trees into towering shadows. The temperature had dropped with the sun, and my breaths puffed in silvery wisps of vapor. Mercifully, the moon remained bright, chasing away the horrible dark. The moon goddess protecting me when her husband could not.
The space beside me was empty. The scimitar was gone.
My heart plummeted into my stomach. “Jasim?”
Another twig snapped, drawing my attention several paces away. Jasim’s form was barely more than a silhouette, but his blade glinted in the moonlight. It hung limply from his hand, tip scraping the ground.
I lurched up to my feet and hurried to his side. “Jasim, what are you doing?”
His eyes were wide, hardly blinking as he stared into the trees. “I saw her,” he whispered.
A chill passed over me. “Who?”
“Andra.”
“Your sister?”
Jasim nodded.
I frowned and peered into the trees. “Where?”
But he didn’t have to answer. Out of the darkness, an eye gleamed. The moonlight gilded the side of a woman’s face, the resemblance unmistakable in the curve of her cheeks, the tilt of her lips. A whimper broke out of her, like that of a wounded animal.
I shook my head, bewildered. Jasim said his family lived near the dam. Dead Man’s Forest wasn’t as far as Ketopolis, but it was at least a week’s journey from the dam. Not a place someone would accidentally venture.
The hairs along my arms rose. Something wasn’t right.
Jasim didn’t notice. He staggered toward his sister. “An, how are you here? Are you hurt? Is Mama here, too—”
“Wait.” I caught his elbow and jerked him back.
A split second before Andra lashed out at him. Her hand swiped through air as she stumbled forward into a beam of moonlight.
Horror shot through me.
The other half of her face, which I’d thought shrouded in shadow, was nonexistent. As if someone had sliced a blade straight down the center of her body. Half a nose, one eye, one ear, a single arm and leg. Her insides were exposed along the line of symmetry, organs pulsing and bones flashing.
Below her knee, her leg ended in a fleshy tail. She balanced on it but still put her hand out against a tree to right herself after her lunge.
Almost instantly, the tree disintegrated under her touch.
My eyes flew wide. “Nasnas,” I breathed.
Jasim blinked rapidly, struggling to make sense of the image. “Andra?”
I dug my nails into his arm. “That’s not your sister. It’s a nasnas!”
The creature hissed at us and pounced again, propelled by her tail.
Jasim moved on instinct. His scimitar slashed. Half a head hit the ground. The feminine features slipped away until a deformed monster was left in its place, with gummy, razor-sharp teeth and bulging, veiny eyes.
Jasim stared at it, breathing hard. “Holy gods.”
Athar’s playground.
My pulse rushed in my ears. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m—”
Branches rustled. Jasim yanked me behind him just as an inhuman cry echoed. Eyes reflected moonlight out of the trees. Another nasnas burst forward. It wore King Zaid’s face, white hair almost silver under the moon, skin sagging with age, but its tail shot it forward an unnatural distance.
I balked. Jasim twisted away before its deadly touch could turn him into a pile of dust, too, then stabbed his blade through the creature’s chest. It gave a shrill scream. Jasim wrenched his scimitar out, blood black as tar coating the metal.
But there were more coming.
“Run,” he said. “Run!”
We spun around and took off blindly through the forest.
Pounding tails thundered behind us as they gave chase.
Baba, please! I shouted in my head. I had no idea where I was going and barely managed to dodge the trees that seemed to pop out of nowhere. Please, Baba! Please, help us!
We turned a corner—
And burst out of the trees into an unnatural clearing. Stone rose before us. Not a mountain. A wall. It stretched impossibly long to either side, blocking off an escape.
A dead end.
“Shit!” I spun around, ready to run in a different direction. Jasim stepped in front of me, scimitar brandished, ready to take on the whole pack if he had to.
Nasnas glared from within the trees, their eyes like embers against the shadows. My heart thundered in my ears. We had to do something. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t—
“They’re not coming any closer,” Jasim panted.
He was right. They snapped their teeth at us, growled menacingly, but they didn’t approach. I pressed my back against the rock wall, cringing, bracing myself.
A few more tense moments went by. Then the nasnas gave a last resentful hiss and loped off into the fog. The night swallowed them up.
Silence blanketed us. Adrenaline replaced my blood as I waited. But they didn’t come back. “Why did they leave?” I asked, dread knotting my stomach.
Jasim shook his head. After a few more minutes, it became obvious they were really gone. He lowered his blade but didn’t sheathe it as he turned to me. “We should…” His words trailed off as his eyes shifted behind me and widened.
I didn’t even have time to question him before I felt something jab at my back. Jasim caught me as I stumbled. When I looked behind me, the breath caught in my throat.
Something grew out of the stone wall. Something long and protruding, stretching out above our heads.
A curve swept up from the protrusion. Full lips emerged beneath it, and I realized the long protrusion was a nose.
Two closed eyes pressed out until a whole face had materialized.
Huge, taking up the entire wall, dwarfing us.
It had pointed ears. And when the eyes opened, they were twin flames. No irises or pupils. Fire for eyes.
Though I had never seen one before—had never heard of one trapped in a rock—I knew what it was instantly.
A jinni.