Qaid’s face brightened in pain, but Ali didn’t even get a chance to shout his name before the cold water closed over his face. The lake tugged Ali deeper, and he fought a moment of panic, his memories of being dragged down during his possession returning.
But the pull of the lake was like a worried friend now. Danger, memories that weren’t his warned. The surface was perilous, the fire-bloods who raced over it enemies.
No, they’re my family. The watery grip on his ankle relented slightly, and Ali swam for the boat, calling for the mists above the surface to thicken even further. He waited a moment, searching the sky, then pulled himself out of the water and climbed back onboard.
Relief coursed through him. Wajed was sprawled on the deck, cursing and fighting the djinn attempting to help him with the arrow piercing his shoulder, but still very much alive.
Ali fell to his knees at his side. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Wajed insisted, even while hissing in pain. “We need to get to the docks.”
She’s at the palace. Nahri. Ali traced the distance between the crumbling docks and the palace. They were on opposite sides of the city, and it would take time to get there—assuming they weren’t bogged down by enemy forces in the Daeva Quarter.
“No, please!” A horrifying scream pierced the lake, bouncing around the fog like a ghostly echo passed from ship to ship.
Ali looked around but could see no source of the sound. “Fiza?”
“I don’t know.” Fiza drew her pistol—a new one she’d “found” in a rather disagreeable trading post on the coast of Qart Sahar—and searched the fog. Another wail reverberated across the deck, and he saw her shudder. “Do you smell that?”
He inhaled and gagged as the scent of scorched hair and rotten meat washed over him. “What is that?”
As if in response, there was a sizzle and then a hissing splash as a wet projectile flashed from the sky and hurtled into the lake. A second. The third globule landed on the deck, blood-dark and smoldering as it soaked into a pile of ropes.
The ropes burst into flames. Another foul splash set the sails of the nearest ship on fire. A man screamed, diseased pustules breaking out across his skin as one of the globules struck him.
And then it was chaos. People dashed for cover under anything they could, yelling and swearing as the fiery blood showered down.
Spurred into action, Ali let his marid powers consume him. Energy surged through his limbs, unrestrained and eager. Another time, trying to harness such a thing might have made him black out, but the armor Sobek had given him cushioned the blow, magic rippling through the scaled hide of Ali’s helmet and vest.
They wanted to fight him with fiery rain? Ali raised his hands and emptied the clouds.
The torrential downpour that answered extinguished the flames, but Ali didn’t dare let it stop, shifting his focus to keep calling down the rain even as he urged the lake to carry his fleet toward the docks. It wasn’t easy; it felt like splitting his very mind in two, and Ali was so distracted by the effort that he didn’t notice anything else amiss until Fiza shouted:
“Alizayd, look down!”
Ali obeyed—just in time to see the swollen white hand that had been creeping over the deck, half the flesh nibbled away, seize his ankle.
It yanked hard, and Ali slipped, grabbing the rigging to keep himself from being dragged back into the lake. But the wraith that had seized him was only the first. Before he could cry out, more figures burst from the water below them, landing on the deck with silent, deadly purpose.
“Dear God,” Wajed breathed.
Ghouls. And not just any ghouls. For the tattered remains of the clothes clinging to their putrid flesh was familiar. Very familiar.
“My brothers,” Ali whispered. “No. Oh, God …”
It was the slain troops of the Royal Guard, the soldiers who’d been drowned and murdered the night of Manizheh’s first attack.
That’s not possible. None of this should be possible. The sky should not rain fire, and murdered djinn did not become ghouls.
It was blood magic. Jamshid had been right.
With a roar, Ali yanked free his zulfiqar and sliced off the hand gripping his ankle. He didn’t have time to contemplate all this. They needed to fight.
A shot rang out. Fiza frantically reloaded her pistol, the bullet having done nothing to slow the advancing ghoul. Ali rushed for her. Sick with grief, he nonetheless raised his