She nodded. “Many will tell you that you are the one, Zam, that has a chance to bring the Emperor to his knees. I don’t know how that would be possible. What I have seen in my scryings, over and over, is that you will meet the Emperor and three times he will make you an offer that will tempt you beyond all you could imagine. Three times. That is all I have seen. But do not let others tell you that you are the one to bring him down. That path will end with all our blood spilled in the desert sands.”
I frowned and closed my eyes, ignoring most of what she said, thinking only of what could tempt me—Bryce of course. My brother’s life was the temptation I wasn’t sure I could refuse again. The Emperor had asked me to bow to him twice, and twice I’d refused. What more could he offer me to make me say yes?
Of course, I knew the second I thought of the question, what it would be. A way to free Maks. Maks, who’d been at the Oasis battle, who’d done what he could to fight Marsum then when he’d been younger. Was that why he was so tightly bound to his father now, as punishment for daring to question him?
Which led to a new question.
“Why didn’t Marsum take me at the Oasis? He had me in his hands. Not once but twice.” I looked at Maggi, trying to discern if she was telling me the truth or not. She tucked her hands inside the sleeves of her long dress.
“Your mother is why, I believe. Her bloodline was weaker than your father’s and you obviously took after her. In this case, I believe it saved you. When he touched you, he felt how weak you were.” She frowned. “You are a mixture of possibility, Zamira. Weak, but destined for things even I do not understand. I have yet to figure out why that is.”
“You and me both,” I said.
Before I could ask any other questions, I was jerked awake by a boot thumping into my head. I opened my eyes in the real world and found myself staring up at a gnome. His long white beard tickled my forehead and gray worried eyes stared down at me.
“We found the jewels in your bags,” he whispered. “We must give them to her, but we don’t want to.”
I stared at what he held in his hands.
The emerald from Dragon’s Ground. The diamond that Bryce had stolen from Ish, and the sapphire we’d taken from Maggi herself.
I rolled, throwing Lila from me as I reached for the jewels, snagging them from the gnome. But not before Maggi saw, her eyes blinking wide, and then narrowing. Confusion and then desire swept over her features.
“My jewel. You . . . did not give it to my sister?”
I tucked them into my shirt, but again, not before she saw all three. Her eyes widened as they landed on the other two jewels.
Inside my shirt they dug into my skin and were super uncomfortable, but I needed them out of sight for what I was going to do.
“You should free the Raven,” I said, changing directions entirely.
“No, I need her help yet.” Maggi’s eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do with those jewels? You have no power to tap into them.”
I shrugged. “Trade them for some food, maybe a new saddle.”
Her eyes narrowed farther, and the visage of the Ice Witch and all her anger rolled through her. Shit, I did not want to go head to head with her again. I’d beaten her last time, but I wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t a fluke.
She stood slowly, her skirts billowing out around her and she held out a hand, palm up. “Give me my jewel back, Zamira. It is the least you can do for what I have shown you. Your mother and her love for you. The knowledge of what will happen to your lover if you kill his master. The knowledge that you will face the Emperor. Surely you see the value in those things?”
I took a step back. “Yeah, that’s all fine and dandy, but there was no deal ahead of time. There was no contract that I would owe you. You offered to help. We took it and now Lila and I really have to go. We’ve got werehyenas on our asses, and a Jinn tracking us.”
The sunlight coming through the window told me we’d slept the night away while Maggi had taken us into la-la land. Balder would be, should be, rested.
Assuming the gnomes were as good as their word.
The gnome tugged on my hand. “Your horse is fed, tacked, and ready to ride, my lady.”
Maggi growled at him. “You are my servant. Do not offer her anything.”
He bowed to her, his hands clasped in prayer in front of his face. “And I do not want you to have the gem, lady of ours. You are not kind when you hold that power. And we love you. We wish to be with you always, but not like that.” The words tumbled out of his mouth and her eyes locked on him.
But she spoke to me, and the strain in her eyes was clear. “You may go. Do not come back with any of the jewels or I will take them all.”
That was enough for me.
I spun and bolted, Lila with me. Down the spiral stairs we went, leaping three and four at a time as I scrambled to get the fuck away from the Witch. Maggi had given me some help, and I assumed that was why she’d taken Lila.
“Her addiction to the gem, that’s what tipped her,” Lila said as we burst into the courtyard. Balder stood quietly waiting, and the Raven sat up on the parapet high above, her head and black eyes swiveling to watch us.
I ran as fast as I could across the stone paved yard and leapt at the last second, vaulting onto Balder’s back. He plunged forward and I raised a hand to the Raven. There was nothing I could do for the big bird, at least not now. But a promise in my mind formed, stupid as it was. I would do what I could to free her. Just not right then. Right then, I had to make a run for it before a certain Witch changed her mind about letting us go.
Balder galloped across the courtyard and into the snow. We all but flew across the flat plain, and he stumbled a little when we transitioned back to the rocky firm ground. I let him run as fast as he wished, taking us straight south.
Lila clung to my shoulders. “That was . . . weird. She was so nice before you came, and so nice until she saw the gems.”
“Like a split personality,” I said. As soon as the words slipped from me I knew they were true. Not unlike her sister, Maggi had multiple sides to her, dependent on the power she held.
“Do you think she really wanted to help us?” Lila asked.
I thought about it a minute. “Yes, I do. I’m not sure, though, that she told us everything she’d planned on. The arrival of the jewels kind of busted up that party.”
We rode hard for half an hour before I felt comfortable pulling Balder up. He snorted and danced. Refreshed even though he’d only had . . . “Wait . . . it was morning when we got here. We were out for almost twenty-four hours!”
“Does that matter?” Lila asked.
Something about it tugged on me like an itch in the middle of my back I couldn’t quite reach. “Maybe? Maks had to have been looking for us, and the werehyenas as well . . . and the Raven said that the Witch’s home,” I refused to use her name if she was going to be a camel’s asshole, “she said her home was hidden from the world.”
There was a moment in there when I realized that was what the Witch was up to—she had helped us. She’d hidden the three of us for twenty-four hours, which meant we were behind Maks and Ishtar’s hunters now. She’d given me a chance to get to the Jinn’s Dominion without having to face Maks, without having my hand forced. I still didn’t know why she’d help me. There had to be something in this for her. What, though?
That question in and of itself made me nervous.
We had a chance to get the pride back now, thanks to her, and maybe . . . maybe we could save Maks at the same time.
I didn’t have it in me to hope, to be honest. There were too many factors at play.
The best I could do was a small thing. “THANK YOU!” I yelled the words into the wind and hoped the Witch would hear them. Maybe she wasn’t the camel’s asshole I thought. Maybe she was doing the best she could, just like the rest of us, stumbling along, making mistakes and trying to right them where she could, like she said.
I slipped off Balder’s back and walked beside him. He didn’t need the rest, but I needed the movement and I wanted to think.
Lila scurried up his neck so she sat about halfway, her wings outstretched for balance, the wound from the crossbow bolt scarred but fully healed. “We still don’t know how we are going to save the others. Unless you’ve come up with a plan I don’t know about?”