35. Chapter Thirty-Five

Karim was shaking like a leaf, the trembles racking his body so severely that Kalia felt them as they sat next to one another. And it was all she could do not to roll her eyes or hiss an unpleasant are you fucking kidding me to him. He was the one, after all, who had pointed her out, who had assisted in stealing the documents that Nasir held so tightly in his hand as he navigated the archipelagos that appeared at the apex of the crescent moon, who had continued to seek out the Luminaria even knowing what lay at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the situation Kalia found herself in, imprisoned on a rowboat, her hands shackled with a rock that her magic couldn"t penetrate through, she was adamantly more irritated than afraid. She always knew she would meet a sticky end, and she had known it since the first time the madam whipped her for speaking out of turn. But if this was indeed to be her death, she was just pissed that it had to be next to this jittery piece of shit.

"Karim, you"re shaking the whole fucking boat," a man who Kalia had learned was Nasir"s quartermaster said through gritted teeth. At least someone said it. She wanted to thank him.

"S-sorry," Karim replied, clamping his hands between his knees. The move only managed to stifle the trembling enough that the boat wasn"t threatening to tip. "It"s the ad-adrenaline. Gets me g-going."

This time, Kalia did roll her eyes. Though the explanation seemed to appease the quartermaster, she knew by Karim"s ashen face, wide eyes, and flared nostrils that his quivering had as much to do with adrenaline as she had any connection to being a djinn.

Which is to say, absolutely none.

"How far?" Nasir snapped from the front of the rowboat, turning his milky eye to glare at them over his shoulder. "We don"t have much time, and I want this done tonight."

Karim"s trembling only increased, and Kalia clicked her tongue against her teeth in agitation. If Nasir heard her, he ignored it.

"I-I recognize th-that stone formation over there," Karim said, pointing a shaking finger toward a tall, oddly shaped rock in the distance. The dull light from the moon cascaded over it, casting a long shadow that seemed to reach across the surface of the sea toward them. "G-go past that, and the sh-shore leading to the cave is there."

Nasir squared his shoulders to the front of the boat, not bothering to acknowledge what Karim had said, but Kalia still caught the greedy gleam in his working eye. She took a moment to look around, skating her gaze over the waters. It was oddly calm, unsettlingly so. No fish darted below, no crabs skirted along the rocks that lined each small island they rowed past. There was no breeze, no birds, no ruffling of palm leaves atop the trees.

Kalia harkened it to the stillness of the prison"s surroundings and even briefly dipped her eyes to the sea, half-expecting to spot a nasnas floating just beneath the surface. The water was a liquid mirror that they glided through, reflecting the spackle of stars from above.

She didn"t know how long it took them to row toward the rock formation, only that the shadow of the stone had elongated in the time it took to get there. The waters became choppier as they rounded the bend of the rock, the small rowboat tossed around by the rolling waves. Eerier still, there was no wind biting at her cheeks, no rustle of her clothing. It was as though the sea had a mind of its own, refusing passage to anyone looking to enter the cave.

Kalia held on to the side of the boat, worried that she would be tossed overboard. The four men holding the oars steady were thrown into a battle with the waves, sweat coating their faces as they struggled to row. But Nasir…it was as though he didn"t notice the sudden shift around them. His focus was narrowed on the rocky shore, where the salty waters battered the stone into a smoothness that Kalia knew would be slick.

As they inched closer, Karim had begun to mumble under his breath. A prayer to Liddros, a prayer to any deity who might hear him, a prayer for his mother. He cycled through each one, his eyes squeezed shut, and his hands clamped tightly in his lap. If Karim hadn"t led them here himself, Kalia would have thought he made the whole thing up. There wasn"t a chance this dim-witted fool got to the Luminaria, let alone being the only one of his colleagues to survive.

Yet here they were— sidling up to the shore thanks to Karim"s guidance through the archipelagos. Nasir clambered onto the rock first, and the boat held fast against the bobbing waves. His footing was sure, and it was no trouble for him to ignore the other seven people who needed to come ashore. The quartermaster was next, though his boots slid against the wet rock, and he had the decency to hold out his hand to assure Kalia made it off the boat.

The swell crashed around her, booms like thunder echoing around the mouth of the cave, and the mist spraying them coated her in a film of salt and cold water. "I don"t think so," Kalia said with a saccharine smile, an unsaid you inbred cretin pinned to the end of it.

The quartermaster huffed with a dissatisfied sigh as he stepped aside, the most polite answer she was sure she would get, and Kalia scrambled ashore with an ease that surprised even her. As Karim stumbled to the front of the boat, tripping over an oar that one of the men had wedged into place, she turned to study the yawning entrance before her.

It was set back nearly one hundred paces from the sea, jagged rocks that hung like sharp teeth lodged into the upper curve. And while Kalia knew it was silly to think, she could have sworn the two mounds of stone that sat atop the entrance were turned to watch them. She didn"t know what she pictured when Karim had told her and Reshef of the cave, but this was far more horrible than she could have ever imagined. Something sinister slumbered there, something ancient and unforgiving.

The wet wind tossed Kalia"s hair over her shoulder, pulling strands loose from her braid. A shout pierced through the roar. She whirled around, her mouth falling open when she saw that one of the remaining men had lost his balance while trying to climb from the boat. The sea dipped again, and the man with it smacked his head on the smooth rock in front of him. He slumped to the side, blood flowing like a red river between his eyes before he tipped over the side of the boat and sunk into the oncoming swell.

He didn"t resurface, and the booming spray of the waves washed away the remaining stain of red against the stone. The last of him trickled into the water as though he was never there.

Kalia could feel the tenseness of the group, the hard swallows of the men still in the boat, and Karim"s gaping stare.

"Basset," Nasir sighed in frustration, his nostrils flared as he pinned his quartermaster with a stare. "You"ll row on the return."

"Yes, captain," the quartermaster, Basset, replied with a curt nod, though he had a stiffness to his shoulders that hadn"t been there a moment ago.

Apparently pleased with the quick reply of his quartermaster, Nasir stalked toward the entrance of the cave, gesturing them all to follow with a simple flick of his wrist. Kalia was yanked forward, unaware until that moment that Basset had grasped the length of her chains. She lurched, stepping into a tidepool that was shallow enough for the water to bathe just the toe of her boot.

Kalia straightened immediately, staunchly ignoring the jeering men that had finally made it to shore behind her. She used their chortling as fuel to stoke the fire in her belly, readying to rally her anger the moment the shackles were removed. They had to remove them, right? She even briefly considered who she would target first: Nasir or Karim.

While Nasir was decidedly worse than Karim, Kalia had grown tired of Karim"s whining. As Nasir stormed toward the cave"s entrance with an air of unadulterated arrogance, Karim began to tremble, if possible, even more.

The cave loomed before her, an abyss that seemed to swallow any flare of light from the moon. Kalia took a breath to calm her nerves, the pattern of her heartbeat so heavy that she could feel it in the tips of her fingers. Before her, Nasir halted in his path to retrieve a torch and a flint rock from the bag he had slung over his shoulder. It took a series of strikes for the flame to flare, but still, it didn"t do any good against the lifeless dark that stood in steep contrast to the starry night sky.

"Karim," Nasir snapped, tucking the flint rock into the pocket of his coat before dumping the bag into a puddle at his feet. "Come. You"ll lead us."

Karim opened his mouth, looking as though he would rather not thank you very much, but he clamped it shut in the next moment. His feet dragged forward as he moved, taking the torch from Nasir as soon as he got close enough. "Some of the passages are narrow. It"s best to stay close."

Silence stretched between the group, now one short, as they moved through the cave. Water dripped into the passage, lichen the only living thing Kalia had spotted. But as she moved further in, the clip of her footfalls spurred on by the tug at her shackles, that intense feeling of being watched never eased. It kept her on edge, kept her head swiveling from one side of the passage to the other, half-expecting something to be lurking in the shadows. Even Basset seemed restless, evident by the curl of his fingers around her chains and how his eyes darted every which way.

Come to me, come see me…

Kalia froze, her scalp prickling as an iciness slid down her spine. At first, she thought she was the only one to hear the voice. It was beckoning, haunting…, and cunning. But when Basset didn"t pull at her chains, she glanced up to see that he, too, had stopped.

"What was that?" one of the men behind her asked in a hushed voice that still managed to root in the stone walls around them.

"We"re close," Karim noted. The torch"s flame flickered as though on a phantom wind, and she could make out the pale tinge on the back of his neck. She wondered if he was still trembling, though by the way the shadows danced on the ceiling, she realized that he was. Nasir, however, trembled for a far different reason. "N-not far now."

They walked further on, the jagged stone walls clipping Kalia"s shoulders when she wandered too close to avoid the puddles at her feet. The denseness of the cave was off-putting; even the air she breathed was a touch too stale, too heavy. She wondered what could reside down here. Then she thought she probably didn"t want to know. There were no animal bones, no scat, no tiny scrambling of paws against the floor as they walked.

"Here," Karim breathed, holding the torch high above his head. In the dim light, Kalia saw a carving of a serpent around a staff. It seemed to sway with the flame, the body coiling—ready to strike. "I recognize this from the last time."

Nasir shoved ahead of him, snatching the torch from Karim"s hand to inspect the serpent further. His eyes didn"t stray from the carving as he asked, "And how does it open? How do we get in?"

Karim audibly gulped. "Blood."

The men behind Kalia shuffled as though suddenly uncomfortable with where they had found themselves while Nasir paused. His head tilted thoughtfully, and Kalia certainly didn"t like the way his eyes narrowed. She could almost see his mind working, speculation buried on his cruel face.

"Do you remember, Karim," Nasir started, "how I promised to track you to the end of the world if you betrayed me?"

Though his voice was soft, Kalia"s gut twisted at the inflection. Karim, it seemed, had yet to catch on.

"Yes, captain," Karim replied, nodding his head. "I do."

It happened so suddenly that Kalia barely had time to blink. One moment, Nasir was gazing up at the carved serpent; the next, he had pivoted on the heels of his boots, the sparkle of metal in the light of the flame oddly sharp. Karim gasped, the sound throaty and primal before he glanced down to stare wide-eyed at his belly.

Right where Nasir had lodged his sword.

"Thank you for bringing me here," Nasir said. He wrenched the sword from Karim"s gut, who fell to his knees with a nauseating smack of bone against the rock. "I"ve found a final use for you, after all."

Karim gaped like a fish out of water, red-tinged drool dripping from the side of his mouth in long, thick strands. He collapsed to his side, his breathing still quickened and shallow. It wouldn"t be for long.

Nasir bent down, cupping his hand against the wound to collect a palmful of blood streaming from Karim"s belly. The flow slowed before stopping entirely, and Karim finally died with his wide eyes still plastered to the ceiling. Nasir stood, paying no mind to the man he had slain, and slapped his hand against the serpent with a sickening thwack.

For a moment, no one moved. Time stopped. Heavy breaths filled the air, underscored by the steady drip, drip, drip of Karim"s blood into the puddle he had fallen in.

Then a cold swept in, one so frigid that Kalia was sure her lungs would freeze inside of her chest. It tightened her skin, burned her throat, and watered her eyes. It was piercing and never-ending, unnatural and jarring. The torch"s flame snuffed out, plunging them into a never-ending darkness that threatened to swallow her whole if the cold didn"t do it first.

Then, the cave began to shake. Shouts of shock echoed from behind her as the men shuffled closer to the wall. There was a smack and a groan, and Kalia imagined that one of them had cracked their forehead against the stone. They deserved it. The heavy scent of minerals rose around her, and ground rock that had been pulverized was raining down from the loose stones above them. Kalia coughed as she inhaled it, the sudden barrage of chill and dust nearly sending her to her knees.

It all stopped just as instantly as it had started. Sniffles, coughing, and panting filled the abyss again, only this time, there was a grinding of rock on rock. A door slid open, bathing a sliver of pale moonlight into the passage. Kalia counted every pulse of her heartbeat at her fingertips, attempting to ground herself against the wave of anxiety that had begun to roar to life inside of her.

They were in.

"Godsdamn," one of the men said in awe, and Kalia couldn"t help but agree.

She had never seen so much treasure in her whole fucking life. Piles of gold bars and silver coins, chalices embossed with rubies and sapphires. Necklaces that were too heavy to be worn, and gemstones the size of her fist. It was all scattered amongst the chamber, a hall so large that she was sure the palace"s throne room could fit inside of it.

Not that Kalia had ever seen the palace"s throne room, but she couldn"t imagine it was bigger than this.

The men surged forward, whooping and laughing as they dove into the riches. Basset had placed a gold crown atop his head and had begun to stuff the pockets of his breeches full of coins and gemstones. One of the other men careened straight into a pile, laying on top of it as he hugged the treasure into his chest.

The madam would be resentful if she knew where Kalia was now, and she took a moment to bask in that very thought, imagining the indignant press of the madam"s lips and the heated flash to her eyes. All the madam ever wanted was to be filthy rich. Kalia could buy her freedom and more with this, could live without fear of retaliation or being tracked down. It was all right here. Everything she ever wanted was within reach.

But that thought gave way to one more sinister, and Kalia"s stomach clenched when it roared to the front of her mind. Karim had said his colleagues died here, how they had never made it out of this chamber alive. But as she swept her gaze over the jewels that lined the pools of water, the mounds of pearls, the gaudy rings…one particular detail stuck out.

There were no bodies, bones, or skeletons to be seen. As though Kalia was seeing it all in a new light, the piles of treasure suddenly looked too put together, too perfectly scattered. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. The instinct that had kept her alive all of these years kicked to life, and she had the urge to run as fast as she could from the chamber.

But Nasir, who had been the only man not to be distracted by what lay inside, fixed his eyes on the doorway that had been carved in the opposite wall. Kalia felt a tug on her chains as he marched toward it. She didn"t know when he had taken hold of them, but she had missed that exchange entirely.

They passed Basset, his breeches dangerously close to sliding down his backside from the sheer weight of the coins overflowing his pockets. They passed the other three men, all of whom she didn"t bother to learn their names. Each of them was buried in the piles of jewels so tall that she was sure they towered over Rahmi.

Her heart squeezed. He hadn"t even looked at her as she was being taken away, though she heard his screams as she rounded the corner out of the brig. She wouldn"t get the chance to apologize. She knew that now. All she could hope for was that, somehow, Rahmi got away…that he was far, far away from this vile place.

The final chamber was markedly smaller than the first and split into two peninsulas surrounded by a basin of eerily calm water. It didn"t even ripple; it merely reflected the single shaft of moonlight that spilled in from above. A narrow walkway spanned the two capes. And just beyond that, on a jagged stone pedestal, stood a red gemstone.

The Luminaria was stunning. It bore no chips or markings to indicate that it was flawed. It was perfectly shaped with rounded edges that came to slim points, and Kalia wanted nothing to do with it.

"I"m not going to help you," she said, squaring her shoulders to face Nasir. "It"s not meant for you."

Nasir rounded on her, his jaw set tight. "You will help me, djinn." He placed a hand on the pommel of his sword, the blade still stained red with Karim"s blood. "Or you will not make it out of this cave."

Kalia spat at him, the gob of saliva settling on the curve of his cheekbone. Nasir stared at her for a long minute, tension threading the gap between them, before he lifted his hand from the pommel and swiped it off with one finger.

"Was that out of defiance, or has no one taught you manners, girl?"

Kalia smirked, amusement sparking in the recesses of her chest. "Take off these shackles and find out."

Nasir contemplated her as he lowered his hand back to the pommel, and she watched with satisfaction how his finger tapped against the hilt. Irritation. She recognized the tightness of his shoulders and the slight pinch of his brow. And, for that moment, she thought she had won.

But there was an ugly twist to Nasir"s mouth, and he stood a little taller as he peered down at her. "Rahmi is still in my brig. You refuse to get me the Luminaria, and I will drag you back to the ship and kill him in front of you. The choice is yours, little djinn. I would make it quick."