Chapter Fifty-Eight Samira #2
“If we leave you here,” the jinni to my left added, “you will never find your qareen. Then you and the Shifter will die.”
The grinning jinni asked, “Do we have a deal?”
I was starting to get dizzy from turning my head so much. Licking my dry lips, I clarified, “You will save all of us from the Mirror Realm. In exchange for what’s in my hand. Mine and no one else’s.”
“That is the deal.”
I lifted my eyes to Keir’s, and he shook his head.
“If we die, Rade dies,” I reminded him. Keir swallowed hard and fell silent.
I tried to assure myself the deal might not last long enough to benefit the jinn. If they got us out of the Mirror Realm, the Kaldfolk would kill me for my betrayal anyway. Then I wouldn’t have time to find, let alone hold, the amulet—or anything else.
But whether or not this plan hurt me in the end, I had to save Rade and Keir.
“I accept.”
The grinning jinni smiled so wide, the void of his mouth cut clear across his face. “See you soon, child.” Instantly, the bodies of sand collapsed back to the earth in a pile, as if they’d never been there at all.
Keir flashed me a troubled look, but there was no time to speak of what had just transpired. The ground roiled beneath us, rippling like waves. I threw my arms out to try to keep my balance, and Keir caught my hand.
The sand caved in.
I screamed, my heart hitting my feet as we plummeted. I lost my grip on Keir.
Sand poured over us, swallowing Keir’s shout. I scrambled for something to hold on to, but it was only sand and more sand, slipping through my fingers fast enough to burn.
The sky grew smaller and smaller, until it was a speck as we tumbled into the sinkhole. Sand blinded me, but I was falling so fast, I couldn’t move my arms to shield myself. Careening, feet over head—
My back slammed into something hard, my bones clanging together with the force of the impact. I gasped for breath, blinking hard as I tried to bring the world into focus.
Keir was beside me, on his stomach. With a groan, he rolled onto his back. He took a few seconds to catch his breath before he asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I panted. “You?”
“Fantastic,” he wheezed.
Walls of thick, dark sand stretched up to the dot of sky above us. Some grains still trickled down the sides as it settled, shifting noisily.
We were in a chasm.
Anger twisted my chest.
“You said you would save us!” I yelled uselessly up to the sky.
But there was no response. The jinn were long gone.
I dropped my head to the sand and squeezed my eyes shut. I’d thought I’d been so careful, but I had missed some loophole and doomed us all. For a second time. If the walls of sand collapsed on us, it would be less crushing than the hopelessness that pressed in on me now.
“Tell me your name again.”
I blinked my eyes open.
Keir kept his gaze resolutely on the sky so far above, refusing to look at me.
Throat tight, I ventured, “Samira.”
“Samira…” he repeated, trying it out. His tongue caressed the syllables in a low rumble.
The first time I’d heard my name in weeks, and it was coated in so much pain and betrayal, my heart sank into my stomach.
“Answer a question for me, Samira. Do your people hate us so much that it was easy to pretend to care for a tent full of refugees? To convince Velka you were friends? Were you laughing, Samira, when I told you about my time in the Shroud? How about when you got Rade to fuck you? Were you laughing then?”
Heat raced to my cheeks. “How did you—”
“Shifter hearing, remember? Don’t worry, I didn’t listen to the whole thing.” When he finally looked at me, the yellow of his eyes blazed with fury. And something more that had his chest heaving and his brows dropping low.
“I didn’t—I mean, we didn’t—” I cut myself off. Not the important part. “No, I wasn’t laughing. I wasn’t pretending—”
“You went through the whole fucking wedding ceremony!” he almost shouted, half sitting up.
“You tricked us all into thinking you were kind, that you gave a single fuck about us. You made me think—” Keir blew out a laugh that was nothing more than a whip of hot air and dropped his head back to the sand.
“Your queen gave you an order and you obeyed. Fine. But you had a month, Samira—if that’s even really your name.
Should we try a few more? See which identity you prefer?
I hear Leila is a popular name in Ashorah. How about that one?”
My eyes burned. “My name really is Samira.”
“I gave you so many fucking chances, Samira.” I cringed. He threw my name at me like it was a curse. “Over and over, I begged you for the truth. None of this had to happen. You could have stopped it.”
“I wanted to tell you,” I whispered. “But then my runes were green, and Rade said he’d seen me in his fortune, and at the Lunar Feast, you…
” A lump formed in my throat; I swallowed past it.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. And then, I… For sixteen years, I mattered to no one, and then suddenly, I mattered to everyone. It was… addictive.” It sounded so selfish when I said it out loud.
No, I’d known it was selfish before. Despite all the excuses I’d made for myself, I’d known, and yet I’d done it anyway. The guilt was suffocating.
After a beat of silence, Keir asked, “Rade saw you in his fortune?”
I nodded.
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. He only told me he’d seen me.”
A long breath streamed from his nose as he considered that. He turned his face up to the sky again, eyes flicking back and forth as he processed how much of the past month had been a lie.
In a small voice, I offered a pathetic and inadequate “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” he repeated dully, just like he had our first night in the Wastelands. “We’re going to die in here while my people die out there, and you’re sorry.”
Tears I could not afford to lose bubbled over my lids. “There’s still the Gods-Chosen.” A weak consolation, a platitude that tasted false on my tongue.
He looked at me once more, and I watched the fire go out in his eyes, replaced with a tired sort of sadness.
“We all have scars,” he said, repeating what he’d told me after I’d shown him my X in the watchtower, the first time he’d really begged me.
“I would have understood yours. If you had just told me.”
“You would have killed me.”
“No, Samira. I wouldn’t have. I never could have. Isn’t that obvious by now?”
Somehow, that assurance, said so sadly, so ruefully, made my heart crack wider. Confusion and despair constricted my lungs, strangling me beyond words.
Keir pressed his hands into the sand to sit up—and paused. “Is this metal?”
Sucking in my tears, I sat up, too, and dusted sand away to reveal a pristine surface with a reflection so pure, I could see my own stunned, sunburned face staring back at me.
A seam cut through it, splitting the metal sheet in two.
I swiped more sand away to reveal curling shapes on either side of the groove. Handles.
We were sitting on two massive doors.
I staggered upright, eyes widening as I took in the enormous double doors made of solid gold. They created the floor beneath us.
Keir quickly stood, too, wincing as the movement pulled at his wound. “What is this?”
“I don’t know.” But that cord around my sternum returned, gave a powerful yank toward the doors. Beneath them. “They want me to go down there.”
“Who, the jinn?”
“I don’t know.” I braced my feet against the metal floor and tugged at the opposite handle with all my might, straining under the weight.
Keir’s hands appeared beside mine. I stilled. “I got it,” he said tightly.
The tension between us was thick. My heart shrank. I let go of the handle and stepped back. Keir gritted his teeth and pulled.
The door lifted slowly. Marble stairs descended beneath it, farther into the earth.
Veins bulged in Keir’s neck, his arms shook. “My sword,” he ground out. “Use it to prop it open.”
I grabbed the sword from where it had landed a few feet away and positioned it under the door, against the corner. “Okay.”
He lowered the door cautiously until it settled against the sword hilt. The blade scraped a few inches until it wedged fully into the corner. “Will it hold?” I asked skeptically.
“It’ll have to. It’s all we have.”
Another tug at my sternum, and I ducked under the door. Thank the gods it didn’t squash me like a bug. Keir followed, brandishing his serrated dagger, the only weapon he had left.
The marble stairway curved partway down, making it impossible to see what might be at the bottom. I descended as fast as my feet would carry me, the pull intensifying with every step. I rounded the curve, and gasped.
Before me spread a gleaming metropolis of gold buildings, each one more exquisite than the last. Bright green trees of all kinds lined the gold-paved streets.
Palm trees, evergreens, birch, pine, ginkgo.
Trees that shouldn’t be able to exist alongside each other—shouldn’t be able to exist dozens of feet below the earth—and above, not the dark curve of a cavern ceiling but, impossibly, the sky.
And the sun. Not sweltering and cruel, as I knew it, but giving off a soft, pleasant warmth.
A breeze teased the ends of my hair, the wisps that had come free of the braids, and cooled the sweat on my brow.
“What is this place?” Keir breathed.
The city was angled so that all the roads and all the buildings looked toward an imposing gold citadel with a domed roof and stained glass windows.
It loomed over the entire area, demanding attention with its high columns and imposing god statues.
Even from here, I could recognize Ketet’s laurel crown and waving braids.
There was only one place this could be.
“The Buried City,” I whispered.
The city King Zaid had braved the Wastelands for. That I had seen in my fortune from Zarqa. That was meant to be paradise on earth. We’d found it.
The city was quiet. Silent. There wasn’t a single person to be seen.
A shudder slithered down my spine.
Keir and I exchanged a look before setting foot on the golden street before us.
As we passed bazaars and apartments, the cord in my chest strengthened further, like a solid thing, yanking me toward the citadel, impossible to ignore. I moved faster, jogging through the splendid city. Wordlessly, Keir kept pace beside me.
When I reached the citadel, I didn’t hesitate.
I threw open the door and skidded into an expansive entryway.
Mosaics covered both floor and ceiling, and from above, all Seven Monarchs gazed down at us regally.
Diamond chandeliers dangled from the vaulted ceiling, glinting in the soft light, and our padded steps echoed in the empty chamber.
To the right, through a curved archway, I heard a rushing sound.
The cord tugged me toward it. Another look passed between Keir and me.
Whatever his feelings, he brandished his dagger and walked in front of me.
A large pool spanned the length of the wide room, glorious and sparkling, sizeable enough to swim laps. Delicate steps descended into it, disappearing into the deep blue. At the rear of the pool, a waterfall spilled from a high golden spout, bathing the whole space in a light mist.
Water.
I collapsed to my knees beside the pool and shoveled handful after handful of clear, sweet water into my mouth, and gods, it was chilled. Refreshing.
Keir’s dagger clanged loudly as it hit the golden floor a split second before he dove in. Water splashed me, and I was so delirious with relief, I laughed and jumped in, too.
Each burn, each blister, each piece of torched flesh gave a sigh of relief as the water streamed through my hair, over my body, and though the cord still tugged, the bliss of the water as it soothed my wounds and slaked my thirst was for the moment stronger.
When I resurfaced, Keir stood comfortably in the center of the pool, while my toes struggled to scrape the floor.
He looped an arm around my waist to hold me up.
Panting softly, I set my hands on his shoulders.
The last of the makeup that usually bordered his eyes had disappeared, and without it, he looked far less intimidating.
For a moment, our relief outshone any jinn or lies.
Keir’s sunny eyes lit up with a genuine smile, his runes glistening against his jaw, and my lips stretched into a matching one.
But then, his nostrils flared and his smile dropped. He whipped around, water sloshing around him as he backed up, cornering me against the pool wall. “Keir, what—”
“Shh.” The muscles in his back bunched tight. “We’re not alone.”