Fifty

"Are you okay?" Maz's steady voice called out as I tried not to think of my grandmother dead of the zoraat she had consumed. I tried not to think of me walking away from her, of the choices we'd both made to get here.

Death by her own revenge.

Will that be me?

Noor and Maz waited at the edge of the village, with Mazin's horse saddled and a pack mule waiting behind it. Noor sat on the dirt, her hands and ankles magically bound together, a tie that was once around her mouth now loosened and drooping around her neck. I exhaled with relief at seeing her unharmed; her round eyes met mine and she nodded. Souma's treasure was slung over the back of the pack mule and a single bag of zoraat remained.

"No," I answered Mazin, "I'm not okay."

My eyes narrowed on the zoraat.

I walked past him and snatched up the bag of seeds from the side of the mule.

"And I won't be until these things are destroyed. All of them."

I threw the bag on the ground, my chest heaving, a thousand screaming voices echoing in my brain.

These seeds were death.

My grandmother's. Baba's. All the protestors in the city fighting to survive. The power inside my veins rebelled at what I was about to do, but I ignored it. Instead, I concentrated the energy inside me into a single spear of pure flame and aimed it at the bag. In a flash it lit up, a flame so hot it turned bright blue before blazing red. It was over quick, the bag of zoraat burning to ash.

The ground was scorched black where the sack had been.

"Seems a bit of an overreaction," Noor called out. She lifted her hands in the air. "Care to remove of these djinn-made bindings if you are going around burning things?"

I did the same to the rope tying her hands, concentrating my power there until they sputtered into a small flame and disintegrated.

After Noor was free, she stood, looking from me to Mazin. "The last time I saw you, you were trying to murder him. Now what are you? Friends?" She crossed her arms. "Or something more?"

"I changed my mind about the murder," I said, putting my hands on my hips, deliberately ignoring her other question.

"Have you?" Maz raised a brow. "That's a relief. I thought you might take up the sword against me again." He smiled, and I returned the gesture.

That feeling fluttered in my chest, familiar and yet new. I didn't know this Mazin, and yet he still set my body aflame like no magic that existed.

"I think I liked it better when you two wanted to kill each other," groaned Noor.

I shot her a look. "Noted."

"Your grandmother?" Mazin asked, and I didn't meet his gaze. I felt the sorrow of her death, even though she had been responsible for everything. It was an odd clash of emotions—grief warring with anger. I understood why she had done it, which was perhaps what scared me most of all. That she had loved my mother so much it had trumped all other relationships and prevented her from seeing what she still had left.

Noor's eyes were pinched with concern.

"She took too much zoraat," I explained. "She couldn't handle it. I tried to… purge it from her, but it would have taken all of me. That wasn't something I was willing to give."

Noor looked down at the ground, as if another memory preyed on her. I glanced to Maz whose dark eyes were bleak. We were all haunted by death here, and it was time to finally banish those demons.

But I allowed myself one moment, one small instant of grief.

I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes, thinking of my mother, father, and grandmother. All the people who were now gone.

Mazin's sure footsteps came closer, until he dropped an arm across my shoulders and pulled me in against his chest. I pressed my face into his sherwani and inhaled—lemons, woods, and morning. All the things that made me think of him and I'd wanted to expel from my memories I now helplessly leaned into. He pressed his hands into my unbound hair and pressed his lips to the top of my head as I sobbed against his shirtfront.

My grandmother may have made her choices, but the sounds of agony she made as I walked away would stay with me a long while.

I waited a few moments before pulling away from him and wiping my tear-streaked face with the back of my hand.

"Thank you," I said low, realizing how hard it was to get the words out.

"Always," he said, watching me with those inscrutable eyes.

Noor's voice cut through my thoughts and pulled me back to the present. "The plan is, we pick up Mazin's sister and get out of this damned empire before Vahid finally comes for us. We have enough wealth to make a life somewhere else and get away from all these djinn-obsessed people." She leaned back against a low date tree behind her.

I toyed with the sleeve of my kurta, turning my words over before they all spilled out of me. We couldn't leave it like this.

"I have a different plan."

Noor's mouth dropped open. "Dania, we've been following your plans since you and I met. All it has gotten us is an army of people trying to kill us. Please, tell me you have a suggestion that isn't walking back into the mouth of the demon. We all know you are fond of that."

I puffed out a breath. "We need to go back to the city."

"I knew it." Noor covered her eyes with her hands.

I held my own hands up. "Noor, you know as well as anyone what those seeds can do. We need to get rid of them. All of them."

Desperation leaked into my voice. If there was one thing I could do to atone for all this mess, it was this. I wouldn't let more lives be destroyed.

Noor sat up. "You want to go after the emperor's djinn fields."

Maz walked over to me, his dark gaze determined. "I agree with Dania."

Noor made a sound that was half laugh, half cry. "Of course you do! You're as senseless as she is! And don't think I haven't forgotten you both also want revenge on Vahid."

She looked up at the sky. "He took just as much from me and I want retribution too. But heading back there is madness. Revenge didn't give any of us what we truly wanted, so why don't we leave it behind us?"

I shook my head. "Noor, this isn't about revenge. It's about making sure this power doesn't stay in the hands of anyone who is going to use it to destroy. It's about stopping the cycle."

Noor looked up at Maz, her brow raised.

"It's a little about revenge," he admitted.

Noor folded over, burying her head in her hands. "I hate both of you."

I hoisted myself up onto Mazin's horse and he leapt up behind me. Noor looked up, her face wretched but with a determined set of her chin. I knew that look, I'd seen it before after we'd broken out of prison and she agreed to come with me.

"You know it's the right thing to do," I called out to her.

"I know," she said miserably. "And strangely enough, I think Souma would have agreed with you." She rubbed her shoulder.

"Noor, you don't have to come with us. You have Souma's wealth. You said it yourself, you can go anywhere, be anyone."

"And miss out on everything? I'll come with you. But I'm not happy you are making me ride the mule."

She stood up, and her face turned serious. She glanced at the treasure, the last remaining piece of Souma strapped to the mule she was about to get on, and I knew she was thinking about her father. "I want to destroy all the zoraat there is and take Vahid down with it."

"Now who's out for vengeance?"

She got on the back of the mule and brushed her hair from her face. "I take my lessons from you."