Borrowed Ember (2 page)

Her attempt to push Jai behind her was met with angry disbelief and she resigned to letting him stand at her side. Jai reminded her of a pot boiling over, al frothy and impatient. Ari’s muscles tensed as fear coalesced in her chest. She didn’t want Jai anywhere near White.

However, perhaps it was the memory of her dream in which she’d seen how White had once been… ‘approachable’ … but Ari found herself unafraid of him for

her own sake. Or maybe she was just tired of running from him. Eyeing him suspiciously, Ari crossed her hands over her chest in defiance and took a step forward.

“About what?”

Something flickered in his gaze at her new attitude, and she could almost see him re-calculating whatever plan he’d come here with. “I want to help you save Charlie.”

“And we’re just to believe that?” Jai growled.

The Jinn King’s eyes slid so slowly over to Jai the room was given time to ice over with his menace. “Perhaps you should colar your dog, daughter. His refusal to show me deference might get him put down.”

Instead of frightening him, Ari knew it only made Jai want to attack. She shot her guardian a warning look and he glared at her.
I’m not a fool. I’m a trained

Ginnaye. Do you think I’m going to attack an immortal Jinn King?

To be honest she wasn’t sure. Jai was more impulsive where she was concerned. Just as she often reacted without thinking where he was concerned.

“If you could make your point without being rude, it would be appreciated,” Ari replied to White.

To her surprise, White nodded. “If you agree to return to my home here in Mount Qaf for an indefinite amount of time, I wil speak for Charlie at his trial. Together, Red and I can save him.”

The words unlocked the darkness. It uncoiled in her chest like a python lashing out at its nearest victim and Ari had to grab hold of it, slamming her eyes shut and gritting her teeth to stop herself from commanding White to be suppliant to her for daring to use Charlie’s predicament against her. She reined in the darkness and shoved it back down, her hands trembling so much she had to clench them into fists.

She could say yes and Charlie could walk away unscathed. But she’d be here at the mercy of White, who wanted to bring Azazil to heel. Had it been so long since his talk with his mother that he’d forgotten what such a thing would do to the world? Or was that what he wanted now?

Praying Charlie would never find out that she’d walked away from a chance to save him, Ari shook her head. “I’m never going to trust you, you know. Your deals, your seeming patience… it’s al hiding the truth. You’l destroy us.”

She thought she caught a note of wonder in White’s eyes before he cocked his head to the side in that alien and disturbing way of his. “Your stubborn determination to ignore me is going to get one of your friends kiled, Ari. I am surprised at you.” His eyes narrowed and then he looked at Jai. “Or maybe I am targeting the wrong friend.” Jai glared back at him, unflinching. “Is that what you want? Me, to hurt
him
?”

“As stupid as this may sound to you, al I want is to be left alone.”

White shook his head, his eyes finding her again. “I made you, Ari. I made you for a purpose. I am not going to walk away.”

“Why?” She took an unthinking step towards him, and at Vadit’s growl, she felt Jai’s strong hand wrap around her wrist and pul her back. “Do you realy think commanding your father to your bidding is in line with your supposed wishes to return things to the way they should have been; to maintain the balance? According to Red, commanding Azazil to your every whim could bring destruction to the realms.” Okay, maybe Red hadn’t said al that, but Lilif had.

The White King froze at the knowledge she had acquired, and then he sighed as if deciding it didn’t matter. “I do not want to command my father for every little whim, Ari. I just want one thing from him. Something he wil never hand over unless I force it from him. One thing.”

Ari shook her head, disbelieving. “You said yourself you want to be Sultan.”

“Did I? I do not remember ever saying that. I said I want to return the order. Everyone else believes that my purpose is to dethrone Azazil. Let them. My father knows better. He knows exactly what I want, and he wil play my brothers off of each other to keep me from getting it. But he knows
you
can get me what I want. He knows, Ari, and he wil do whatever it takes to stop that from happening. So you should think very carefuly before you trust him.”

Trying not to let him play mind games with her, Ari shrugged. “What thing? What’s the thing you want?”

“Something that wil restore the Jinn world. Something that wil insure that chaos remains within its own space and does not intrude into others and bring the destruction you have spoken of.”

For a moment, Ari was lost in the unusual sincerity in White’s gaze, but the sound of Jai clearing his throat made her shake her head, spiling the strange and unwelcome questions out of it. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I don’t trust you, and I want nothing to do with the power within me. I’d quite happily spend the rest of my life pretending it doesn’t even exist.”

White’s features froze and a grim determination etched into the hardness. “That is foolish and naïve. Soon others wil discover what you are. You are going to spend the rest of your life running and fighting unless you let me help you. Unless you help me.”

“Here’s the thing… Red is just as powerful as you are and he’s protecting me with no apparent strings attached. I don’t need you to protect me.”

“My brother is my father’s puppet, Ari. He protects you as long as Azazil wishes him to protect you. You wil discover that hard truth soon enough.” He took a step towards her, and Ari wanted to step back. Her real father was so huge he could crush her windpipe with one squeeze of his hand. “I am not asking for much from you, daughter. I want one thing, and then you wil be free. I would even free your mother.”

Cheap shot.
Ari sneered, disgust awakening the darkness again. She shoved it back down and let her own anger take over. “I might have a little more faith in your promises if you did anything that wasn’t ninety-nine percent selfish. Free my mom just for the hel of it, and maybe we’l talk.”

The White King shook his head, his expression blank once more. “I am a businessman, and that is bad business.”

Ari shrugged again, looking braver than she felt. “Then I guess this meeting is over.”

“I’d say it is,” Red growled as he moved through the open doorway with a predatory anger. “Azazil commanded you to keep your distance, White.”

With barely a glance at his brother, White urged Vadit towards the door, and with a look of utter boredom he replied flatly as he brushed past Red, “As if I ever listen to father.”

As soon as he was gone, Ari let out the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding.

The Red King strode towards her purposefuly, his body seeming to vibrate with uncoiled anger. “Are you okay?”

Jai rubbed a comforting hand over her shoulder. “She handled herself beautifuly.”

She shot him a grateful smile and nearly melted at the pride in his eyes.

Oh wow.

A throat clearing broke their gaze and Ari glanced up at her uncle. He smirked at her knowingly, and then, just as quickly, grew serious. He nodded at her. “You can tel me what White said after. For now… it’s time for Charlie’s trial.”

2 -
The Lawlessness of Kings & Courts

It had taken a while for Charlie’s lungs to get used to the thick, rich smel of damp soil. It was everywhere. The ground was untouched, packed dirt. The wals, at least here, had been quarried of their emerald. If he’d had to sit al night in a room with emeralds, he might have gone insane with need. Charlie winced as he leaned his head back against the dirty rock and nicked his scalp. That was about the fiftieth time he’d done that.

He eyed the bars that formed his cel down in the dungeons of the Sultan Azazil’s palace. They were the only source of light, the iron aglow with a fiery magic. He’d been warned by the huge Shaitan that had thrown him in here that if he touched the bars he would be incinerated. After hearing a scream wrench the night air last night, folowed by the vomit-inducing stench of burnt flesh, Charlie was glad he’d chosen to sit in the farthest corner of the smal space and take the Shaitan at his word. After the scream of the dying man wrenched the air the chatter, al around him from the other prisoners had silenced into death and somehow, impossibly, Charlie had drifted in and out of sleep.

The Red King had visited him the night before, the secret of Red’s part in turning Charlie into a sorcerer threading a fragile bond between them. Charlie didn’t know what Red wanted, or if he was only folowing the Sultan’s orders, but he liked to think of Red as an alright guy. At least whenever he looked at Ari, Charlie was sure he detected feeling in the Jinn King’s gaze. He had to believe that one of these scary ass creeps were on their side.

He had to believe that Red wasn’t going to let him die today.

The Jinn King had promised him that much last night, making an oath to do everything he could to save Charlie’s life. Charlie’s stomach roiled and his chest squeezed tight with fear. How had everything culminated in this? His life was weird, no joke, but this? Sitting in a dungeon in another realm, waiting to find out whether he was going to die for kiling a maniacal sorcerer?

Maybe he’d smoked a little too much dope this last year, he thought regretfuly.

A crackle hissed in the air and Charlie heard the mumblings of a guard and the shuffling of feet. Was that the first prisoner being released for trial?

Was it only a day ago he was sitting with Falon as she soothed him over the Jai and Ari situation? The Roes had been briliant, helping him work his way through the guilt of kiling a man.

He’d kiled a man.

Worse stil, his best friend was stil too weak from her own attack at the hands of the same man to help talk him through it. And just to add bitter sour cream icing onto the top of that piece of crap cake, Jai had been sitting at Ari’s bedside, waiting for her to wake up so he could tel her he wanted to be with her.

Charlie had lost Ari.

Falon was a comfort. Charlie could listen to her talk about nothing and everything and for a while it kept the world at bay. That’s what she’d been doing—talking to him about her first job as a hunter, her smal hands tucking his growing hair behind his ear, rubbing his shoulders, stroking the tattoo around his wrist, measuring her smal hand against his own. Sily, familiar stuff that made him feel close to her, that numbed the pain of losing someone so exquisite as his Ari. And he had no one else to blame but himself.

His walowing had been interrupted by The Red King who’d burst out of the
Peripatos
to warn him, too late, that Jinn were coming from Mount Qaf to arrest him for Dalí’s death. The two Shaitans had arrived on the back of Red’s warning.

Charlie couldn’t remember getting to Mount Qaf. He tried and tried but there was nothing there. One minute he’d been in shock at Red’s warning and the next he was being dragged down a dark earthen tunnel, fire flickering out at him from medieval-looking wal sconces. He’d passed cel after cel until he was thrown into his own.

Had he realy anyone else to blame but himself for his predicament? Al along this is what Ari had feared for him when he’d told her he’d become a sorcerer to take vengeance against the Labartu that had kiled his brother, Mike. He’d been warned that kiling a ful-blooded Jinn would end up with him facing a death penalty in Mount Qaf. Charlie had come to terms with that as long as it meant the Labartu was dead.

But to be forced to face trial for kiling a half-blood and one who’d almost kiled Ari? Wel that stuck in his craw more than a little.

He bet it stuck in Ari’s too. The Red King had told him she was here with Jai and had asked to see him, but she wasn’t alowed. Charlie pounded a fist in the dirt beside him. He hoped she was wel enough to be here. He prayed she wasn’t going to do something inadvisably stupid to set him free. God, he hoped she wasn’t going to be like him.

And selfishly, underneath it al, Charlie was glad she’d taken off after him. That he stil meant enough to her to drop everything, including Jinn-Boy Jai. A stupid part of him stil hoped that maybe fearing for him would make her remember their bond. That they were family…

…
“Okay, who’s winning?” Charlie grinned as he strode back into the sitting room with a glass of ice-cold Coke for Ari. It was a blistering summer day

and the a/c in the house had broken, leaving them to use crappy fans that just blew recycled hot air back at them.

Mike frowned over at him from his place beside Ari on the floor, the game controller dangling from his hand. “Where’s mine?”

Charlie shrugged. “I only have two hands.”

Sighing at him, Ari tried to hand the Coke he’d given to her to Mike. His kid brother grinned at her and shook his head. “Thanks, Ari, but I’ll get my

own.” His grin transformed to a glare when he looked at Charlie. “Don’t think I don’t know you did that deliberately so I’d have to give up the control.”

That was exactly why he’d done it. The brat had been hogging the game, and Ari, since she’d gotten here.

Ari wrinkled her nose. “Well, I’d suggest I give up my controller so you two can play each other, but we all know how that ends and I am not in the mood
to clean up blood today.”

Mike grumbled and jumped to his feet. As soon as he left the room, Charlie slid in closer to Ari as he grabbed up the controller, his bare knee touching
her bare knee. He tried to be cool as he checked her out in her short shorts and tank top. Aw man, thank God for heat waves. They were a teenage boy’s

dream come true.

Ari laughed, drawing his gaze up and he found her strange but beautiful eyes twinkling mischievously at him. “Are you done?”

Charlie laughed off the embarrassment of being caught checking her out and nudged her with his elbow as he stared at the screen, starting a new game.

“You did wear those shorts.”

She chuckled again and the sound hit him right in his good-for-nothing places. He sucked in a breath. Being fifteen and friends with Ari was hard on his
libido. “Charlie, you’re wearing shorts.”

He frowned at his long board shorts. “Not the same thing.”

“Maybe it is for me. Maybe I find it just as distracting, but I don’t blatantly check you out.”

At the flirtatious note in her voice, Charlie turned to look at her again. Her cheeks were a little pink but she was still grinning at him. “You checking me
out?” Whoa, he did not mean for his voice to go all low and suggestive like that.

Ari’s smile slipped and he watched her breath catch with a sense of elation. “Maybe.”

With no control over his actions, Charlie’s gaze dipped to her mouth. He had thought about that mouth a lot lately. Okay, more than a lot. Like, every

second.

“What, you haven’t even started a new game?” Mike complained as he sauntered back into the room and broke Charlie’s epic moment with Ari.

Ari laughed and shifted a little so there was more space between them.

Charlie sighed and contemplated fifty different ways to get rid of his little brother. “We’re just about to.”

“Well if you’re this slow starting, I’m putting ten bucks on Ari whipping your ass.” Charlie raised an eyebrow at him and Mike sighed. “Butt. Whipping

your butt.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Charlie replied, reaching over to shake his kid brother’s hand. Ari cleared her throat and the two Creaghs stopped to look at her.

“What?”

Ari shrugged. “You’re about to lose ten bucks. I mean, Mike at least has a fighting chance with me, but you…”

“You think Mike is better than me at Super Mario Bros?”

“Oh definitely.”

Mike laughed happily.

Charlie glared at them both and then turned determinedly to the screen. “Oh it’s on.”

… Charlie was shaken from his memories as a Shaitan approached his cel. The guard from last night. The Shaitan raised a hand and the glow around the bars

disappeared as the bars slid back into the rock to alow Charlie to exit.

“It’s time.” The Shaitan gestured to him with shimmering shackles dangling from his hand.

Charlie stood up and eyed the shackles warily, his knees threatening to buckle. The Shaitan seemed to sense his terror and laughed at him, black eyes flashing red.

His mockery was like a bulet in Charlie’s ass.
Stop being a pussy, you can do this.

Shrugging on a pretense of cool, Charlie met the Shaitan and turned around at his direction. The glowing shackles didn’t burn, but they were heavy as they snapped around his wrists. Walking between the two Shaitans out of the dungeon was humiliating, but as they wound their way up through the earthen tunnels and up a spiraling staircase, Charlie knew true humiliation. The wals of rock around them opened out into wider corridors and inset in the rock was the famed emeralds of Mount Qaf.

The pul of their power whispered to Charlie—it was almost as if every single stone was sucking a little bit of him towards them. He stumbled and groaned, the hunger heavy inside him and the two Shaitans laughed again.

“That is what happens when children are given power beyond their ability to control. They whimper like kittens after milk.”

Their laughter enflamed Charlie’s cheeks and he attempted to ignore the power of the emeralds, his teeth aching with the strength it took him. He tried to focus on his surroundings but there were no doors here, no windows, no pictures, no servants, only torches suspended high along the wals.

When he saw the arched doorway at the end of the corridor, relief shot through him. He wanted out, he wanted away from the emeralds.

The door creaked open and a blast of freezing cold air stung his eyes and whooshed down his throat. He coughed a little, letting his lungs adjust to the fresh but icy air. He blinked as he was pushed forward and the scene around him caused his heart to throb from behind his rib cage.

He shivered in his thin t-shirt.

It was like something out of
Gladiator
.

Before him was a huge amphitheater, ascending seats rising up away from a huge space in the center where Jinn were waiting on him. Jinn were crowded in the

thousands on the seats, a sea of bodies garbed in vibrant silks and velvets and cottons al in the brightest of jewel colors— emerald greens, purple amethysts, sapphire blues and ruby reds. It was like staring into an open treasure box. The amphitheatre itself was less ancient Rome and more Moroccan in appearance, with its stone arches carved with arabesques and twisted pilars wrapped in champagne, ruby and emerald fabric—fabric that fluttered gently in the breeze as if dying to unwrap its arms from around the pilars and fly into the wind. Charlie understood the feeling. Pushed forward again, Charlie descended the stairs in front of him, trying to ignore the murmurs of the Jinn around him. His pulse sped up at the strange mirrored floor beneath his feet, its glass covering the entire main floor space. Shadows against the winter sky caught his eyes in the reflection, and Charlie glanced upwards, his breath leaving him at the sight in the sky above the crowds. News of the Jinn Kings’

involvement in a trial must have traveled because the whole place was so packed there were Jinn floating in the air above the seating, like brightly colored hummingbirds watching him with curious eyes. Charlie gulped, seeing a Jinn sitting upon a floating rug. He felt like rubbing his eyes to make sure he was seeing right. It had al just gotten a little too ‘Aladdin and his lamp’ on him.

Before Charlie could crumple under the stress of being in such a surreal situation, his gaze drew past the flying Jinn and magic carpet and widened at the sight of the mountains glimmering green in the sun in the distance. Now that was awe-inspiring, he licked his lips almost greedily, the need for the emeralds suddenly over-powering any possible humiliation he’d felt earlier.

A prickle of awareness crawled up his neck as he strode into the center and he glanced to his left only to lock his gaze with eyes of a changing color. A worried Ari gave him a tremulous smile as she sat in the front row, dark circles under her eyes teling him she had been up for hours, probably because of her anxiety over today. A rush of warmth flooded his chest and he gave her a tentative smile, feeling better just for having her there. The smile slipped from his lips though as his gaze tripped over the person sitting far too close to her.

Jai.

He gave the Jinn a brittle nod and turned back to face center. Everything felt so surreal, so off, his vision seeming to come in and out. A smal round stage sat center and the Shaitan urged him onto it. The Red King stood off to his left and he gave Charlie a sharp nod of encouragement. On his right was a Jinn almost as tal as Red, his bare head gleaming in the winter sun. Like Red he seemed dressed for the part in black leather trousers, gold armlets, gold wrist cuffs, and a torque around his neck.

Jewels glittered on his fingers and in his ears. His black eyes bore into Charlie with dangerous hatred, and Charlie quickly looked away from who he assumed was The Gleaming King, only to come face to face with life and death itself. The power of the Jinn in front of him almost blew him back off his feet. Charlie felt frozen under the Jinn’s dark gaze. The Jinn was huge, even sitting down on his black marble throne. His long, silver-white hair stayed perfectly stil around his face despite the soft breeze that seemed to whisper through everyone else’s. Turquoise silk robes fel in a waterfal around him. His powerful torso was bare underneath the robes while his long, powerful legs were wrapped in the same black leather as Red and the other Jinn King.