Chapter Fifty Amunet
FIFTY AMUNET
Dead Man’s Forest felt far more menacing without Jasim. The fog slithered over the forest floor, slow and unhurried. I’d barely slept the past couple of days, my senses constantly on high alert, and it was starting to take a toll.
There was no one to rely on now but myself.
Loneliness shadowed my every step. Even at my most isolated, Jasim had always been there.
Even when I thought him dead, he’d worried for me, defended me, rescued me.
For that short while I’d gone willingly into his arms, I’d felt…
happy. I cursed myself for being so fucked up that I’d lost that.
Why couldn’t I have just asked the jinni for what Jasim wanted?
Why couldn’t I be the sort of person who sacrificed?
I knew how to do it, but why… why couldn’t I want to?
With every blink, I saw the look of utter devastation on Jasim’s face. The way his eyes had widened, how that spark of adoration fizzled out and died. The tense set of his shoulders as he walked away.
I hoped he’d find his way out of here. I hoped he made it back home and lived a good life. That he found a girl like the one he’d tricked himself into thinking I was and she met his six sisters and mother and they became a family. Maybe, if he was happy, the ache in my chest would go away.
As the days wore on, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, my throat clicked with every swallow, and hunger gnawed at my stomach lining.
Deep down, I knew that if I ran into a nasnas or another tribe now, I’d be dead.
I couldn’t even outrun a snail in my condition.
I had to resort to lapping up what water I could from wet pools in the mud left by the fog.
Like a dog. Just enough to keep me going but nowhere near enough to actually chase away the burn of my dry throat.
Every step was on unsteady legs, head pounding both from dehydration and the sound of talons clawing against glass.
Why am I here, Baba? Shaya never responded, but that didn’t stop me from trying. I thought it was for the jinni, but that had nearly resulted in my death. You must have another plan. Please, show me what it is. I don’t know how much longer I can last…
I’d lost track of the days. Perhaps there was a single day left until the Igniting, perhaps there were weeks. Both options seemed far too long.
I needed water and I needed it now.
My stomach suddenly pitched hard, and I threw my hand out against the nearest tree as I vomited pure bile.
It burned my throat and made tears burst from my eyes.
Even though it was hot and humid, tremors racked my body, a chill that wouldn’t leave.
I leaned my sweaty forehead against the tree and drew deep breaths.
Baba, where are you? Help me. Please.
“Now, isn’t this a sorry sight.”
My head snapped up.
A man leaned against a tree some feet away.
Though man didn’t seem quite right. There was an otherness to him, even in the casual cross of his lean arms over his chest. His movements were too sharp, almost birdlike.
His head canted from left to right, too fast, making his dark curls flop back and forth over his round, tan face, the sun catching the blond highlights.
“All that calling for Father, but what if he’d found you like this?
Do you think he’d be pleased?” He shook his head sadly, orange eyes beady as they scanned over me with disapproval.
“Where… where did you come from? Who are you?”
He put a hand to his chest as if wounded. “You cut deep, Sister.” Then he pushed off from the tree, and large feathered wings unfurled from his back, curling up toward the crown of his head, blocking out the sun and dousing me in shadow as he approached.
Sister. He’d called me Sister. And I knew those hawk features. I’d passed statues of him on my way into Dead Man’s Forest. This was…
“Athar,” I breathed.
The God of Mischief’s lips quirked up in a smirk at once amused and malicious. “In the flesh.”
My stomach caved in.
A brush of a breeze, a rush of power, that was all the contact I had ever received from a god. Never had one stood before me. Wonder, excitement, awe all warred for attention. But it only took a few seconds for each one of them to be drowned out by fear.
Dead Man’s Forest, Athar’s playground. I’d already survived two of his twisted games—the nasnas and that tribe—but I very much doubted I’d manage against the god himself. Not with my mind and body already in shambles.
His silver breastplate glinted in the afternoon sun as he swept his arm toward the trees in a dramatic flourish. “Shall we?”
I took an instinctive step back.
Athar’s head canted to the side. “You ask for help and then reject it?”
“I asked for Shaya’s help,” I replied.
He laughed, a squawk of a sound. “You’re a rude little thing, aren’t you. Instead of delivering Father’s message, I ought to just leave you to my friends. I think I heard that fun little tribe skulking about not too far away.”
My eyes narrowed. He was baiting me, dangling Shaya in front of me like a carrot. I knew better than to engage with Athar’s tricks in this place, let alone the god himself, but my power roiled violently at my fingertips, and suddenly I found myself asking, “What message?”
The corners of Athar’s eyes crinkled. “A visual one. Which brings us back to…” He gestured to the trees again, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
Athar. My brother. Here. A thought as mad as a dead king’s voice in my head.
I had to be hallucinating. That was the only explanation. I wished Jasim were there to tell me. Nothing good would come from listening to a hallucination in Dead Man’s Forest.
Yet my power continued to writhe, slamming against its confines, begging me—no, ordering me—to go with him. So desperate that I actually staggered a step forward. Then another. Yanked so viciously, I thought it might rip me in two.
“There’s a good girl,” Athar said.
My power came from Shaya. It wouldn’t lead me into danger. At least, that was what I told myself as I obeyed it and followed my brother.
The God of Mischief led me to a clearing bordered by palm trees—healthy, with lush green leaves. Within their circle was a large expanse of black sand as dark as the obsidian candle I used to pray with.
Athar sauntered into its center and then turned to face me impatiently, hands on his hips. For the first time, I noticed he had talons instead of nails, sharp points that clicked against the metal of his armor. “You coming or not?”
Panting with barely restrained nausea and exertion, I gritted my teeth and crossed the sand, the grains sliding beneath my feet like water.
Athar gazed down at me, eyes like two sparking embers. Anticipation seeped out of him, which only filled me with more trepidation. “What is it?” I asked. “What message does Shaya have for me?”
He intoned, “See why you were chosen.”
I waited. Brows high, sun beating into my bare scalp. But Athar said nothing more. “That’s it?”
“Rude and entitled. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
Athar merely grinned and waved at me. “Have fun, Sister.”
“What are you—” But then I realized Athar was growing taller. Looming over me.
No, wait, he wasn’t growing.
I was shrinking.
I looked down as the sand swallowed my ankles. “What—” I yanked, but it was like my feet had been glued in place. No matter how hard I pulled, I couldn’t get my feet to budge even a fraction of an inch.
And the sand was climbing higher, almost to my knees now.
“Help me!” I demanded.
“I am.”
“Athar!”
“See why you were chosen.”
“I don’t know what that means! Get me out of here or I’ll—”
“Don’t you trust our father?”
I paused in my struggle, the sand at my waist.
Of course I trusted Shaya. I’d spoken to him almost every day of my life. I knew him. He hadn’t abandoned me. Not when Anwar held me captive. Not when the nasnas had been after me. He’d brought me to this place. Not for the jinni but for this.
I fought the instinctive panic that rose with the climbing sand and said, “Yes.”
Athar’s teeth flashed as the sand moved up my chest to my neck, the weight of it crushing. So similar to my nightmare, that suffocating darkness, the way it stole my breath. But I wasn’t alone this time. My brother was with me. My father had sent him. I’d be okay.
I repeated that to myself again and again as the sand closed over my head.