A Bridge of Stars Read online

  The Nasiris. Where are they?

  I searched the entirety of the top floor, consisting mostly of communal areas, grand dining halls and sitting rooms, before descending to a more residential area on the level beneath. As I passed through gorgeous apartments, it was clear why the corridors hadn’t been crowded. It was night-time, and jinn apparently turned in just as humans did.

  Finally, as I neared the second to last apartment on my level, I caught sight of a familiar face floating in my direction. Safi, if I remembered correctly. Aisha’s sister, and the cook whose bony meal River had upchucked.

  She was trailing down the hallway toward me. Her youthful face looked tired and worn. She wore nothing but a red silken one-piece to cover her chest, while silver manacles hugged her wrists. Clasped in her hands was a golden tray holding a goblet filled with a deep purple liquid. And tattooed into her bare right arm was the emblem of a black scorpion. How the tables have turned.

  My first instinct was to speak to her, but I wasn’t confident enough that we wouldn’t be heard. I didn’t know who might be lurking around the corner. So I simply followed as she made her way down the corridor, then took a sharp left before turning into a doorway. She closed the door behind her and I slid through, even as I shuddered at the sensation. It reminded me horribly of being a ghost.

  Emerging on the other side ahead of me, Safi traveled deeper into the apartment. She stopped outside a door and knocked.

  “Enter,” a rumbling male voice called, and I could’ve sworn that her hands trembled.

  She pushed the door open regardless and I followed close behind her before she could shut it on me.

  She definitely shuddered now as she approached a king-sized bed, upon which lay a jinni who possessed all the overbearing features of a Drizan. He was bare-chested, his head leaning casually against the headboard. He looked over Safi with mild amusement before he reached out a hand to accept the goblet she’d bent down to offer him. He drank deep, and then, discarding the glass, pulled Safi into his bed and slid her next to him beneath the sheets.

  I felt sick to my stomach. The worst part was feeling that I couldn’t do anything to help her. Blowing my cover now would be the most foolish thing I could do. It could be suicide for the two of us. I still didn’t know what these jinn were capable of, and other than the ability to switch between subtle and physical states, I didn’t even know what—if any other—powers I had.

  I turned to leave. I had to keep searching for another Nasiri—one I would hopefully find on their own so I could talk to them.

  If Safi was up in these higher levels, perhaps some of the others were too, and they hadn’t all been thrown in prison.

  I roamed from chamber to chamber, coming across many more Drizans, before noticing my surroundings becoming even more lavish, barely an inch of the wall not covered with some kind of elaborate display of rubies and diamonds. Perhaps I was nearing the quarters of the royal family themselves.

  My suspicion was confirmed on entering the largest, most breathtaking apartment I’d entered so far. I heard female voices drifting from one of the rooms.

  “How could you, Cyrus?” They were giggling.

  Following the voices, I entered a stately bedroom, where sprawled in the center of the bed was a man who lived up to every description I’d heard of Cyrus. He was a dark beast of a man. King of the Drizans… he certainly lived like one. He’d turned his quarters into a harem, with dozens of beautiful female jinn fawning over him.

  Seeing all these women around him while he drew one in for a deep kiss every now and then, I still wasn’t sure how certain… bodily functions even worked with jinn, given that they had no lower half. I wasn’t left pondering the conundrum long, however, as I realized that one of the women surrounding Cyrus was none other than Nuriya. She’d been obscured from view by another jinni—who’d been leaning over to drop pomegranate seeds into Cyrus' mouth—but now I saw her, perched near the edge of the bed. Her wrists were manacled like Safi’s, only instead of silver, Nuriya’s cuffs were gold. The poor woman was dressed just as scantily as Safi was and, as striking as her face was, her eyes appeared dull, drained of life. She bore the same black scorpion tattoo on her arm.

  Cyrus reached out a hand and planted it beside her on the mattress. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her indifference.

  “What’s wrong now, Nuri?” Cyrus drawled, and I realized now that his eyes rolled slightly. He was intoxicated.

  Ugh, as my sister would say.

  “Massage me,” he insisted, spreading out his palm. She eyed his hand with resignation before taking it between her fingers and kneading it.

  I felt oddly protective of Nuriya—who, in spite of everything, had helped me during one of the darkest times of my life. My hands were itching to wallop the man with one of the burning torches that hung from his walls.

  But, even as I clenched my fists, all I could do was leave. Again.

  I still haven’t found a Nasiri on their own… Maybe I really did need to go deeper for that.

  After what felt like another quarter hour of roaming, I spied another female jinni who looked familiar to me, and who bore the scorpion tattoo. I’d seen her face somewhere around The Oasis, but had never spoken to her. Like Safi, her manacles were silver, and also like Safi, she appeared to be bringing something to her new master. She held a small pot of heavily scented ointment. Massage oil, no doubt. Since the corridor was empty and I was painfully aware of every minute I wasted in this place, this time I dared take a chance. I willed myself to solidify a little so that she could see me and planted myself in front of her. Her mouth hung open as she stared at me and I feared for a moment that she would drop the ointment.

  She glanced up and down the corridor before hissing, “What are you doing here?”

  At least she recognizes me.

  “Trying to free you,” I whispered back. “You and your family.”

  “It’s impossible,” she gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “We cannot leave this place.”

  “What’s binding you?” I asked, staring at the chains. They held only her wrists, while the rest of her had free movement. But I’d already had first-hand experience of the power of jinn to imprison their slaves. It was no surprise as she glanced at her tattoo.

  “We are bound by a curse… at least, those of us left.” A sob escaped her throat.

  “What do you mean?”

  She brushed her leaking eyes with the back of one hand. “Cyrus, he… he k-killed Bahir. In front of us. In front of Nuriya.”

  Learning of Bahir’s demise came as a blow. I owed my life to that jinni. Poor man. I’d never even gotten a chance to thank him.

  “I-I have to go,” the jinni breathed, glancing around anxiously and beginning to move away.

  “Wait,” I whispered. “Are you really telling me there’s no way for you to escape? There must be some way.”

  She cast one last fleeting glance at me, her eyes wide with fear. “There’s only one way to free us and that is… to slay Cyrus.”

  After dropping that pile of bricks, she hurried away, leaving me staring after her.

  Slay Cyrus.

  Great.

  Ben

  Returning to the others waiting by the portal, I explained to them what I’d learned from one of the female jinn, albeit leaving out the details about how the Nasiris’ family were being treated, for Aisha’s sake.

  “So,” I concluded, “we need to kill Cyrus.”

  My words were met with silence. Jeriad, disappointingly, didn’t have any advice to offer. Even Aisha had pursed her lips.

  “Well?” I asked the shifter and the jinni. “Don’t you have any ideas?”

  “He would kill you first,” Aisha said.

  “But jinn can be killed?” I pressed.

  “Of course they can be killed,” Aisha said, rolling her eyes as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “They can be killed, just like any supernatural can be ended, but
only while they are manifested in their physical forms. Flesh and bone. You could stab one in the chest, chop off the head; there are boundless options, but… Cyrus? Not only does he possess powers above all other jinn, his physical prowess is second to none.”

  I paused, mulling over her words. “What if I just snuck up on him while he was asleep and slit his throat? That would kill him?”

  “Yes,” Aisha said. “But I assure you, it would not be that simple.”

  “It’s the same with ghouls,” Marcilla murmured behind me. “They can only be killed when they’re in their solid state.”

  “So we need to pick a moment when Cyrus is in his solid state,” I said, thinking back to when I had seen him just now. At least his top half had been manifest—and seemed solid. The thought gave way to another question that had been at the back of my mind ever since I’d first laid eyes on jinn.

  “Why are your bottom halves perpetually covered by mist?” I asked Aisha. “Or do you not have bottom halves?”

  She sighed, glancing down at her own wispy lower body. “We do. But we keep them covered because, well, it’s just the way of the jinn. Tradition, if you like. We keep our lower half hidden from everyone but our sworn life partner. In most cases that means a husband or wife.”

  I never would’ve guessed that was the reason. If chastity was their concern, I wondered why they could not just cover up with clothes, like humans did. But who was I to judge? “I see,” I said, my eyes roaming her smoky trail. “So you do have legs and feet, just like humans?”

  “Uh-huh,” Aisha said.

  “Okay.” My curiosity satisfied, I shook away the thought and turned my mind back to more important matters. “So I will need to follow Cyrus around and wait for him to turn his back, or something… I guess…” I was grasping at straws.

  “Remember that you will also have to assume a solid form in order to kill his,” Aisha said. “And I suspect that, like jinn and ghoul, fae can also be killed in their physical bodies.”

  That was something I had not even considered yet. Of course, I would need to be solid in order to assault him in the first place.

  “Remember his superlative powers,” Aisha went on. “While you… well, to be honest, I don’t even know if fae have any powers. I don’t know much about them.”

  That makes two of us. I turned to Marcilla and raised a brow, hoping she might have something to add.

  The werewolf-turned-fae shrugged. “I don’t know everything,” she replied.

  I wished now that I had stopped to ask Sherus for more details about this body, but at the time, I’d simply been too elated to think straight. We all had.

  I sat down at the edge of the crater, in front of River. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling her chest against my back, and I felt her lips press against me gently. Everyone else remained quiet. What could they say? All of us were in the dark. I covered my face with my hands and tried to think. The way my mind whirled with conflicting thoughts and ideas, it felt as though River was the only thing grounding me.

  But a few minutes later, I had found my answer. As much as I loathed even considering it, there was only one clear next step on this path. Before attempting anything, we needed to learn more about Cyrus and his weaknesses. It would be foolish to try to murder him without doing so. There was a reason why he was so feared in the land of jinn. Neither I nor any of us could dive in blind.

  This meant I had to pay yet another visit to the oracle. The same person who had caused me to almost lose my soul to The Underworld… yet to whom I also owed my escape, and this body I found myself in now.

  But can I really stand facing that woman again?

  I didn’t have the luxury of choice.

  Ben

  There was no point in our whole group going to visit Hortencia. So although we all traveled back through the portal to Lake Nasser, it was decided that only Aisha, River and me would go.

  I couldn’t have been more grateful that we had Aisha with us. Not only did she know how to locate Hortencia’s cave, she also found the strength to vanish the three of us there, which saved God knew how much of our precious time.

  We appeared outside the entrance to the cave—a cave that was rather familiar to me by now. I moved forward first, holding River’s hand and pulling her down the narrow passageway leading to the oracle’s front door, while Aisha followed behind us. I knocked three times.

  When there had been no reply after ten seconds, I called her name, “Hortencia!”

  Still no reply.

  “Hortencia!” I called again, more loudly, my voice resounding off the tunnel walls.

  I pressed my ear against the door. I couldn’t hear a sound. Not even breathing.

  As much as I’d been dreading the idea of coming face to face with the oracle again and trying to make sense of her winding words, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of panic now. Is she all right? What’s happened?

  “Let me go in,” Aisha said. She vanished.

  River’s and my breathing was uneven as we waited in tense silence. A few seconds passed before the door opened; it was Aisha, letting us into an otherwise vacant room.

  River and I stepped inside and gazed around. For a moment I feared that perhaps somebody had managed to kidnap the oracle and done something with her—after all, she was a most valuable asset to any race of supernatural—but there appeared to be no signs of struggle here. On the contrary, the few possessions the oracle had—a few pots, an old stove, her orbs and other strange artifacts—were neatly tucked away. It looked tidier than I’d ever seen it. The orderliness gave a chilling sense of finality to the emptiness of the room.

  My throat dry, I looked from River to Aisha. “Where could she have gone?” I breathed.

  Aisha looked just as bewildered as me. “I’ve no idea. She… She’s always been here. At least, every time I’ve visited. I wonder if maybe she went to visit her sister, Pythia.”

  “Where does Pythia live?” I asked, my stomach twisting in knots. It made me sick to think of the time passing. We had just over a day left.

  “I don’t know where she lives,” Aisha said, shrugging.

  Cursing beneath my breath, I was about to grab River’s hand and leave the empty quarters when she pointed to a little package set atop a ledge. We’d been so distracted by the oracle’s absence, it hadn’t been noticed until now.

  I walked over to it and picked it up. The wrapping was made of parchment, and within it was something weighty. I unfurled the paper and a tiny glass vial containing vivid green liquid dropped into my palm. Then I caught sight of four words scrawled across the parchment in burgundy ink:

  Drink deep, curious fairy.

  Ben

  Curious fairy. Grimacing, I handed the vial to Aisha. The oracle always did have a way with words.

  “What do you think this is?” I asked the jinni.

  Aisha examined the vial with a deep frown on her face. “She knew that you were coming for more answers,” she murmured. She opened the lid, sniffed the potion, and wrinkled her nose.

  “Well?” I asked. I’d had enough dealings with vials of liquid to make me averse to drinking anything out of a bottle for the rest of my life.

  “I’m not sure,” Aisha replied, replacing the cap.

  “Well, you can’t just drink it, Ben,” River said, taking the bottle from Aisha and examining it herself.

  And yet the oracle knew I was coming for answers… and she told me to drink it.

  I’d already resigned myself to the fact that the fastest way forward would be to consult the oracle—despite how maddening she could be. And here was her note, giving me a direct instruction… I’d just been to hell and back. Could anything really be worse than that?

  “I guess beggars can’t be choosers,” I muttered, taking the potion from River’s hands.

  As I took a seat in a rickety chair, River’s face drained of all color. I hated to do this to her, but I had no choice. If we stood a chance of having a future together, we had
to take risks.

  I removed the cap and, raising the bottle to my lips, downed it in one shot.

  An unbearable bitterness overwhelmed my taste buds and stung my tongue, but before I could even gag, my vision started to fade. I felt myself falling backward and I guessed that I would have toppled off the chair, but I couldn’t know for sure. My consciousness was elsewhere.

  Darkness enshrouded me, but then there was light. A dim, flickering light. Like candlelight. As if a lens had just focused, I found myself in another cave, quite distinct from the one I’d just left. It was larger, with a concave ceiling. And it was bare except for a burning torch that hung from one wall, a glass flask of murky water, a bundle of tattered blankets on the sharp, rocky ground, and an old, eyeless woman, wearing a long dark dress—the signature garb of the oracle. But this… this was not the oracle I had met. Hortencia, although horribly disfigured, had still appeared youthful. Her face was unlined, as though she was no older than twenty-five. I imagined that if Hortencia had eyes, her face might’ve even been pretty, in a pixie-like way.

  This woman’s face was as shriveled as a hundred-year-old’s, her form bent and crooked.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  The woman slid slowly off the rock and padded with bare feet across the sharp ground toward me. Her skin looked thin. I was sure the rocks would cut her soles. “You know me,” she rasped, her lips curving in a knowing smile.

  “Hortencia?” I asked. Who else could it be?

  “It is me,” she said. “Always me.”

  “What… What happened to you?”

  “I left,” she said simply. “And I will not be returning. But I did not abandon you. I saw that your needy self would come for me, and so we meet like this.”

  I was surprised that she had taken the trouble to leave that note and vial for me. In her eyes at least, Hortencia owed me nothing. On the contrary, I owed her. In fact, I wasn’t really sure why she bothered to help any supernaturals at all. Maybe it was just for her own amusement.