over him. “You should have stayed in the water.” Hunger filled her eyes. “I wonder what would happen if I cut the seal from your face, if your soul would be open for me to steal.” She reached out, her claws glittering. “I think I shall try it …”
She hadn’t even grazed Ali’s cheek when everything went very, very cold.
The water lapping at his feet grew chilled, the air turning so icy that Ali’s ragged breaths became steam and goose bumps broke across Nahri’s bare arms. He whirled around, watching in bewilderment as great clouds of mist billowed from the Nile, extinguishing the fires dotting its churning surface with an angry hiss.
The unnatural darkness that had accompanied Qandisha vanished next, beams of moonlight breaking through the cloudless night and the sounds of life returning—insects and frogs and the wind through the reeds, so loud it was like a chorus.
Something moved in the black water. Ali grabbed Nahri, pulling her away as a muscled tail lashed his legs with a swipe of scaled flesh.
Then the largest crocodile he’d ever seen burst from the Nile.
The creature let out a bellow that sliced through the night, shaking the trees and silencing the frogs. Its roar cut through Ali, sending a surge of deep primal fear galloping through his body. With a wet snap, the enormous crocodile transformed, rearing up on its back legs as its reptilian form gave way to that of a man. His body was slender and wiry, his skin an unnatural dark green that spread in a pattern of leathery scales down lanky limbs. Stubby reptilian claws crowned long webbed fingers, bony ridges running down a bare scalp.
Ali did not consider himself a coward. He had dueled with the greatest warrior of his people, faced down a mob of ghouls, and had an ifrit run claws over his throat. But staring at the creature that charged out of the misty Nile, the very land and river gone still in submission, he had never felt so utterly small.
The marid—for Ali knew the very moment the water magic stilled in his blood what he was looking at—studied them all with the cool regard of an uncaring predator. He moved like a reptile, shoulders and neck swaying and twisting as yellow-and-blackdappled eyes shifted between Qandisha and Ali before fixing on the ghouls.
They immediately stilled. The gray veneer of magic vanished from the faces of the slain men, replaced by masks of peace. And then, with murmured sighs, they sank below the water.
The marid hissed, turning back. “Qatesh.”
Qandisha stepped away, shocked fear crossing her face. “Sobek,” she whispered.
The marid—Sobek, she had called him—took a halting step in the ifrit’s direction. “You took life in my waters,” he accused her, gesturing to where the ghouls had slipped away.
Qandisha was still backing up. Ali hadn’t known she could look so afraid. “I did not know you were here. They said you were gone. Killed by—”
“GET OUT OF MY LAND.”
Ali would have been on the other side of the continent, had the marid bellowed that at him, but Qandisha held her ground.
“The daevas are fire-born,” she argued. “You have no right to them.”
“I have every right to them. Leave.”
Flames twisted through her hands. “You cannot hurt me. I am an ally of the daeva Darayavahoush, the one who commands you.”
Sobek’s eyes flashed. “No daeva commands me, and you are alone.” Hunger laced into his voice. “It has been an age since I devoured one of your kind. You have already transgressed; declare yourself equal and I am within my rights.”
“You will regret this.”
“I will regret not tasting your heart in my teeth. LEAVE.”
She was gone the next moment in a whirl of sand and smoke, thunder breaking the air.
Ali, though, was rooted in place. There was no point in running. The river had surged behind him and Nahri, cutting through the rocky bank like a scythe.
Sobek towered over them, blocking out the rest of the world. His scaled skin glittered in the starlight, dazzling. Breathtaking. His visage flickered, a dozen forms shifting in the fog, though the yellow-black eyes stayed fixed.
Ali inhaled, fighting a tremble. The marid was so utterly beyond him, beyond anything he knew. He suddenly had no doubt Sobek was among the creatures painted and carved in the ruins he and Nahri had wandered through, a lost god from an ancient world. Unbidden, the declaration of faith rose to his lips, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he said it as a reminder or