A voice whispered on the wind. Not Naji’s. It belonged to the desertland assassin. Look for him, he said. Stop shouting. It won’t do any good.
“I can’t look for him!” I shouted, struggling against the invisible hands. The Qilari assassins. I knew it and didn’t know it, all at once. “I can’t move.”
With your mind, girl.
I stopped struggling. The wind swirled around me, icing over my bare arms and my bare cheeks. My bones rattled in my skin. The cold was worse than the Isle of the Sky had ever been. But I forced myself to concentrate, to reach out with the fingers of my mind.
I found him.
I found his thoughts, warmed by blood, thin blood, weak blood. He was thinking about food and water. He was thinking about me.
The invisible hands yanked me so hard my head spun round and around and then I was back in the garden house, sagging between the two Qilari assassins. The desertlands assassin was leaned over Naji, tracing blood – my blood, I knew – in patterns over the scar on his chest. My blood was all over the bed. It dripped down my arm, stained my clothes.
“He was thinking about me,” I said, dazed.
“Shut up, girl.” The desertland assassin didn’t even glance up at me from beside Naji’s bed, and the two others dragged me over to the corner. I slumped down on the floor, still dizzy and confused. In my head was an image of myself, standing on a boat, looking out over the ocean. And I was beautiful somehow, like all my insides had turned to light.
He was thinking of me as he lay dying in a world between worlds.
And it was real. I could feel it. I knew it.
I leaned against the wall, taking deep unsteady breaths. The Qilari assassins were singing, the desertland assassin was chanting. Their eyes glowed pale blue in the darkness. My spilled blood steamed and smoked, and it smelled like mint and the ocean.
After a while I couldn’t see much of anything but the blue of the assassins’ eyes and the ghostly trace of magic-smoke.
And then I heard someone say my name.
The singing and the chanting stopped. The smoke lingered in the air. I could feel the walls of the garden house shifting and squirming just outside my vision.
And then a warmth flowed into my thoughts, familiar, barely there–
“Ananna?”
“Naji!” I pushed myself up to my feet, tottering in place. All three of the assassins turned and glared at me.
“Not yet, girl,” hissed the one from the desertlands.
“No,” Naji said, his voice rough and faint. “No, it’s fine, I’m here–”
The assassin turned back to him. The glow faded from the Qilaris’ eyes. I stumbled forward, my arm aching, my head spinning. “Naji,” I said. “You’re alright–”
“Not exactly.”
I knelt beside the desertland assassin, who made no move to send me away. He just stood there glaring. Naji was stretched out on the bed the way he’d been all week, but now his eyes were open and his fingers fluttered against the sheet.
“Naji,” I said, because I couldn’t say what I wanted to. I buried my head into his shoulder. The scent of medicine and magic lingered in the room, and although the smoke was drifting away the air still seemed thick. Naji laid his hand on top of mine.
“You’re here,” he said.
“I had to save you. These buddies of yours ain’t worth a damn.” I blinked, trying not to cry. I was aware of his hand touching mine. “Besides, where else would I go?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might take off with the Nadir, plundering.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out strangled-sounding. “Thought? How could you think anything? You were…” I didn’t know what to call it. Dead?
“I was trapped in between here and the Mists,” he said. His hand was still on mine. “The Order found me, sent Dirar to bring me back.” He glanced over at the desertland assassin and nodded. “Thank you.”
Dirar scowled. “It was lucky the girl was here.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Yes,” Naji said. “I suppose you’ll be alerting the Order of my blood-bond.”
Dirar huffed and crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t answer. Naji chuckled. I didn’t understand what was going on. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“By the way,” Naji said. “It worked.”
I stared at him for a long time.
“One more,” Dirar said. “I suppose you plan on taking another four months with this one? Or maybe you’ll just go for another four years. Why not?”
Naji’s eyes took on that brightness that replaced his smile. “It worked,” he said again. “Can you feel it?”
“No,” I said, except as soon as I spoke I did: a lightness in his presence I hardly noticed. Missing weight. Missing darkness.
“You do,” Naji said, his eyes still bright. “Come here.”
“What?”
“Lean close,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”
Dirar stomped over to the garden house door with the other two assassins. All three of ’em stared at us. But I leaned over anyway, tilting my ear to his mouth. He put one hand on my chin and turned my face toward his.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I kept watch over Naji for two weeks, long after the other assassins left. We had to move him to a room in the palace, because the garden house was destroyed by the magic-sickness, its walls turning into thick ropy vines, the bed transforming into an enormous moon-colored flower. I stayed away from the place where the garden house had been.
But tucked away in the palace, Naji did get slowly better. The color returned to his face. His tattoos stopped glowing. He ate every bite of food Queen Saida had brought to him.
Sometimes he kissed me.
Some days I would lay my head on Naji’s chest, the way I had when he was asleep. I listened to his heart beat strong and sure. He let his hand drift over my hair and down the length of my spine. It was nice. I was afraid to say something about it, though, afraid that if I opened my mouth it would all disappear.
When he felt good enough to stand up, I walked with him around the perimeter of the palace garden, the way he had with me on the Island of the Sun. He pointed out flowers to me, identifying them by name, telling me what sorts of magic properties they had, but all the while his hand was on the small of my back, and I didn’t remember one word of what he said.
Jeric came to visit. He knocked on Naji’s door while I was there, and when I answered, he scowled at me and said, “I’d hoped you’d be gone.”
“Go away,” I said.
“No.” Naji’s voice was bright behind me. “No, Ananna, it’s fine. He can stay.”
Jeric gave me a smug smile and pushed into the room. Naji was sitting on the bed, the sunlight making his hair shine. Jeric gave a scholarly little bow and said, “That one–” He pointed at me, “–gets over overenthusiastic. I only wanted to ask you about the starstones.”
Naji nodded. I was all prepared to chase Jeric away, but when he started asking questions Naji didn’t seem to mind answering them. I guess it was Naji’s university background, and all the studying he had to do for the Order. He told Jeric what it felt like when his skin touched the stones, and his theories about how they had affected the magic in his body. Jeric nodded all the while, scratching notes down in a little leather-bound book, and after they got to talking both seemed pleased with themselves. I sat in the corner and listened, because it was interesting, even if I didn’t always understand the technicalities of what Naji said, even if the thought of the starstones scared me a little, still.
Jeric only visited once, but he became a lot easier to deal with after that. Like Naji’d given him a gift.