He drew himself up. This was about to get interesting.
Chapter Twenty
Before we’d left the safety of the Oasis, I’d lifted a hand to my father’s ghost, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him. This was not the time. The Oasis had been the place of his death, where he’d defended his family and his pride, but it would not be my reckoning ground.
I’d shifted, dropping to all fours. Next to Ford, I was the size of a cub at best. I leapt up and onto his back, hanging on to the bag of clothing and emergency supplies.
“Let’s go,” I said, and Ford jumped forward, racing straight south. Around the eastern side of the water he went, and as the sand kicked up from his huge paws, the flicker of sandblasted bones winked up at me. A glimmer of steel. A chunk of leather.
It was a graveyard that had gone untended for many years. I drew a deep breath, holding the smell of my home in my lungs. The water, the sand, the heat of the day, it all was an imprint that would never leave me.
I hunched down, clinging to the bag as Ford ran, bursting out of the Oasis. He was strong, and obviously used to running in this form because he never slowed or even broke stride. There was no moment where I thought he was going to give up and tell me he needed to walk.
“Ford, how long have you been roaming the desert on your own?” I asked.
“Since Maks was killed. My mother . . . she said I had to leave because I was too much to feed, but I was already moving, already wanting to go,” he said. “I’d stayed because I felt responsible for her.”
Classic alpha lion, and rather interesting. There was more to him than I’d thought. “Looking for him even though you believed he was dead.”
He nodded. “Maybe a part of me knew he was still out there.”
I lifted my head into the wind, breathing in the scent of the desert. Partly because I looked to pick up on any Jinn that might be coming our way, but also because I’d missed this place I had been born. It called to my soul in a way I couldn’t explain even to myself. Like I belonged here.
I wrinkled my nose at my attempt at prose.
Ford began to slow, and I realized we’d covered a lot of ground and were nearing the drop-off point for him. He dropped to his belly, panting. “Here we are, ladies.”
I hopped off and Lila grabbed at a water skin for him, managing to get it open and pour it into his mouth. Really, it was quite the scene, and another time I would have been snickering with the way his head was tipped and how her tiny claws gripped the water skin so carefully.
When he was done drinking, I stepped out in front. Though we couldn’t see them from here, there were two towers waiting for us in the dark.
“You ever been this close to them before?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
I shook my body as if I could shake out the nerves. “Lila, fly low.”
I put a paw on Ford’s nose. “If we aren’t back by morning, go to the Oasis and get the fuck out of here.”
“And where am I supposed to go?” He didn’t pull away from my paw. “Maks is in there too. If you aren’t back by morning, I’m coming in after all of you. Maybe they’ll make me alpha for being the hero.”
I laughed. “Nope, you’d need balls as big as mine for that.”
He snorted a laugh and I spun, and sprinted away from him, headed straight south.
The sand gave under my feet, but because I was so light, I didn’t struggle with it like the bigger cats. Then again, Ford had moved in it at a decent clip, far faster than I would have thought.
“Zam, do you think we’ll be able to do this?” Lila asked softly.
I glanced up at her. “Do you want my honest thoughts, or some sort of made up, make you feel better about the stupid thing we are doing kind of shit?”
She snorted and then laughed. “I think that answers my question.”
I sighed. “I think we have a chance. I’d say we have the best chance at getting in undetected. I’m almost sure of that part. They won’t be looking for us. It’ll be getting out where I’m not sure we’ll be able to move without being caught.” That was the only part of the plan I didn’t have a set idea of how to make it happen.
She winged beside me, our pace next to one another easy. “What about moving them one at a time?”
I frowned. “More chances to be caught.”
“But easier to hide one rather than three,” she said.
Lila had a point. “I don’t know, Lila. Let’s see what we see when we get there.” There was not much more I could plan for at this point. We were going in. It was going to get ugly. And hopefully I could get everyone out. That was my only goal.
Lila landed ahead of me and I slowed my own pace. Ahead, lights glowed in the distance, lights that ran into the sky to the far left and the far right.
“Which tower did Maks say?” Lila asked as we walked forward, our dark bodies not exactly blending with the sand but it was the best we could do. At least Lila’s scales weren’t all glittering, picking up the light like they so often did.
“We stick to the right northern tower and look for a glitter of gold.”
“That’s going to be a bitch to see in the dark.”
I nodded. It was, but again, it was all we had, and still it was more than if we’d tried to figure it out on our own without Maks’s note.
I had a moment to wonder about Merlin. He’d been a pain in my ass as we’d worked our way through the Witch’s Reign, and I’d seen him briefly when he’d gone to speak to my mentor Ish, but that had been in a dream.
A funny twist in my gut caught me off guard. Not that he’d ever been that helpful, but what if he’d been killed? He was the one who put the Emperor to sleep all those years ago. If what he was telling us was true.
And why the fuck would I suddenly be thinking about him now?
A boom rattled well inside the rims of the Jinn’s Dominion and lightning arced through the sky, striking into the heart of their hold. Lightning on a clear night? That was anything but natural.
“Now, Lila!” The distraction was exactly what we needed. I shot forward, belly to the sand as I drew next to the northern facing tower.
I caught a glimpse of what exactly the tower was made up of as I zipped past it. The individual speckles of sand could still be seen, but they’d been heated until it was a tower of golden glass that reflected the light. A screech from the top made my hair stand on end and I couldn’t help my entire coat puffing up like I’d been touched by the electricity dancing through the empty sky.
A glance upward confirmed one of the Jinn’s dead crouched on the tower, looking back at the chaos in the center of the hold. Its wingspan was maybe twelve to fourteen feet, and the wings attached to the arms so they were all one limb. A thick tail lashed off its muscled back, but it was the face I couldn’t look away from. Human, but sunken so far that the teeth protruded and the eyes sat deeply into the skull. Gray skin covered the entire thing, clinging to the bones and muscle, showing each clearly, even in the dark.
I wasn’t sure if it was baring its teeth or if that was just how it looked.
“Deadshits,” Lila muttered. “That’s what I’m calling them.”
I shushed her and looked away from the deadshit—hell, it was a good name—and to the ground. A glimmer of gold caught my eye and once I had a bead on it, I raced along the line. The gold flickered and beckoned, and I kept my paws tight to it for fear of what would happen if I dared to step off.
The pathway took us through the first four levels of the rims with only a pause here and there. The central holding was boiling like a beehive that had been kicked. I pressed my body against the base of the last tower between us and the central stronghold. I stared up at the clear building. The glass was not what I expected; wouldn’t it be easy to break?
The lightning was gone as suddenly as it was there, and I knew whatever distraction we had was over.
“Deep breath, Lila.” I closed my eyes for a moment, orienting myself with what I recalled of the maps my father had drawn. The dungeons were deep, at least three levels down from the main floor. I let myself connect with my pride, finding them easily.