Home > Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed #3)(8)

Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed #3)(8)
Author: Shannon Mayer

“To catch the unwary,” Maks said. “Damn.”

I nodded but didn’t look at him as the picture shifted. “The blood vine is next, weaving around the stones. But that isn’t right. There are no stones here, none with the bush.” I pointed my hand in the general direction of where we’d encountered the blood bush.

“Symbolism only, that they will come one right after the other,” Shem drawled. “What is the last thing you see? I’ve never been able to interpret it fully.”

Before I looked at the paper, I shot him a glance. “So, you are a bloodline that can interpret this, too, then?”

He shook his head. “I’m a seer. I have a knack for deciphering that which is hidden. But not enough to fully grasp what is here. I need you for that, apparently.”

I dropped my eyes to the parchment again and watched as the vines pulled back and a dark mist flowed between the vines and the stones, eyes set inside of it, and then it blew away, into the vines and the stones. I shivered. “Eyes and mist. Like someone is watching. But then they are gone too.” Gone, like water drying in the desert.

Lila groaned. “I don’t like that. We don’t need more people watching us.”

I looked up at Shem, tearing my eyes from the parchment with some difficulty. “The Emperor is waking, sure. And while I realize this is like a case of the runny shits down the legs of life, what has that got to do with us rescuing the remainder of our pride from the Jinn and Ish?”

Lila cleared her throat and I shot a look at her. She widened her eyes and tipped her head as if to ask why we weren’t saying anything. I shook my head. If we mentioned the voice now . . . then what? What would it change? Nothing.

We were going forward, end of that story.

Shem sighed. “A warning only is all it means. The old evil awakens, and we may inadvertently come across some of the traps he has as they spring up. The Emperor’s power must be fed, and he will seek out blood and magic wherever he can.”

“He sounds like a dick,” Lila said.

I laughed. “Yeah, a floppy dick. Good for nothing.”

She snickered, but I heard the anxiety in her laughter. Funny, but not funny. This was turning stressful.

Again. Surprise!

Maks rolled his eyes, but I saw the twitch on his lips. He didn’t reach out for my hand, and much as I wanted to shift into my cat form and slide into his shirt to absorb the warmth of his body, I had a job to do. One that didn’t involve letting Maks carry the bulk of my weight and responsibilities.

“Take these papers.” Shem pushed them at me. “You can read them better than I can anyway. Perhaps you will be able to decipher more of them.”

Before I could say yes or no, he’d shoved the satchel into my hands and forced me to take them. I clutched them to me. A smell of jasmine floated up. The Emperor’s bastard daughter smelled nice. “You sure? You’re the seer, not me.”

“Yes, I’m sure.” He didn’t look at me again. “You should have them. She’d have wanted . . .” he muttered the rest under his breath.

I tucked them into my saddlebags, my thoughts whirling. This whole transaction seemed odd, even for Shem.

“You never said if there were more traps to look for,” Maks said. “Are there?”

Shem rolled his shoulders. “The Emperor has control of the Ifrit that are left. What does that tell you, Maks?”

Ifrit, I knew that word, but . . . the definition came to me slowly and I gaped like a fish out of water. “You can’t seriously mean the underworld demons?” I blurted.

Shem nodded. “I do.”

Maks’s face was pale and he swayed where he was. “This is bad, Zam. Worse than even I could have imagined.”

Lila buzzed between us. “I don’t know what an Ifrit is. Will someone explain? And fast!”

I drew a slow breath. “The Ifrit, they are demons, and they rule the underworld. In the past, the Jinn traded favors with them and used them to their advantage.”

“That was thousands of years ago,” Maks said quietly.

“Then why the pale face?” Shem asked the very question I wanted to know.

“Because of Marsum.” Maks sucked in a big breath and shook his head, almost as if he couldn’t find the words. “Before I left, he was talking about waking the Ifrit and using them once more. He wants to rule, not just his section of the wall, but all of it.” He looked at me. “He wants the Emperor dead. He wants to be the next emperor. The Ifrit would be a way to make that a reality.”

I snorted, thinking of the man who’d taken me into a dream, and the power I’d sensed in him. “Then we should let that happen. Two birds, one big stone; they can just kill each other.” Maks and Shem shook their heads in unison. I raised an eyebrow at them both. “Why not then?”

Shem held his hands out wide. “Because, there is always another big bad ugly. You know that, Zamira. Just like there is always someone stronger than you, faster, smarter. There is always someone more dangerous. Someone the Emperor in his own way has kept us safe from.”

For just a moment, I stared at him, not comprehending. “What are you saying? That there is someone, or something worse than the Emperor and the Jinn?”

The twist of pain on Shem’s face said it all. But he said it anyway.

“Yes, Zamira, there is.”

Well, howdy fucking doody. How was that for a way to start the morning off right?

I stared at my uncle with my mouth hanging open and my brain stuttering over what he said. That something worse existed, something uglier than the Emperor.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I sputtered the words.

Shem shook his head. “No, unfortunately, I’m not.”

I wanted to put my head between my knees and take deep even breaths until this new twist slowed down. “Really, tell me you’re teasing.”

Shem sighed. “I wish I were, but the Emperor . . . he was not always the tyrant he became. He started out a hero, as so many tyrants do. He saved our world, Zamira, a long time ago. And the world worshipped him for it.”

“Saved it from what?” Lila asked, her tail lashing with irritation. “What the hell could he save it from that was so bad?”

Maks surprised me by answering. “It’s the falak, isn’t it?”

Shem nodded, and I just let my body slump to the ground. “No, no, that is a legend. That is not real. Falaks are not real.”

“Well, there aren’t more than two of them, as far as I know,” Shem said.

Two.

Lila tapped me on the head. “Tell me. What is this falak?”

I swallowed hard, but the two men didn’t seem inclined to fill her in. “The falak is a giant snake-like monster that lives in the fire realm under the earth’s crust.”

The ground below us rumbled suddenly. I leapt up and stared at the sand and rocks at my feet. Lila squeaked and clung to me.

“Listen, much as this conversation is awesome, and the perfect fucking way to start the morning, I think it’s time we go. I want distance between us and the blood vine,” I said. “We can’t do anything about the Emperor other than avoid his traps, and discussing the falak is not going to get us anywhere.”

I held my hands up when Shem opened his mouth. “I get it. Things are bad. But I can only deal with one bad at a time. We are going south into the Jinn’s Dominion, Shem, to get our family back. The land where our family’s blood was spilled until there were so few of us left that we are close to the edge of being nothing. I think that’s enough bad shit for right now, don’t you?”

“As long as you understand that this conversation needs to continue.” Shem stood and went to his horse, Ali. Well, she had been Bryce’s horse before Shem’s. I pursed my lips as I watched him tack her up. She was built thick, a heavier breed of horse for carrying the big men and pulling carts.

She was not built for speed. Which if we ended up running, we were going to need.

“We need to trade Ali in, much as I don’t want to.” I went to her and rubbed her velvet nose. Her big lips flopped around my fingers, looking for a treat. I smiled at her. “There are horse traders down the west side of the Caspian. We should go there. See if we can get you something with running legs on it.”

   
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