thin excuse. “If you don’t mind …”
He staggered away. Fortunately, the rest of the Daevas were busy swarming Manizheh and Dara spotted enough jugs of wine as he passed the feast that he suspected no one would miss him for some time. He slipped between the tents, letting the encroaching dusk swallow him. But he barely made it four more steps before he fell to his hands and knees, retching.
His vision blurred. He closed his eyes, the drums beating painfully in his head as he clutched at the dirt.
Transform, you fool. Dara could not recover from the magic he’d just done in his mortal form. He tried to shift, desperate to pull the fire that pulsed in his heart over his shivering limbs.
Nothing happened. Stars were blossoming before his eyes, a metallic ringing in his ears. Panicking, he tried again.
The heat came … but it wasn’t fire that wrapped his limbs. It was an airy whisper of nothingness.
And then Dara was gone. Weightless. Formless, and yet more alive than he’d ever been. He could taste the buzz of an approaching storm on the air and savor the comforting heat from the campfires. The murmur of creatures unseen seemed to call to him, the world glimmering and moving with shadows and shapes and an utter wild freedom that urged him to fly …
He slammed back into his body, flames flickering over his skin. He lay there, his hands over his face.
“Suleiman’s eye,” he whispered, stunned. “What was that?” Dara knew he should have been terrified, but the brief sensation had been intoxicating.
His people’s legends flooded his mind. Stories of shapeshifting, of traveling across the desert as nothing more than a hot wind. Is that what he had just done? Had just been?
He sat up. Dara wasn’t exhausted or sick now; he felt almost giddy. Raw, as though he’d touched a spark of energy, and it was still coursing through him. He wanted to try it again, to see what it might feel like to fly along the cold wind and race over the snow-dusted peaks.
Laughter and music from the feast caught his ear, a reminder of his people, as insistent as a leash.
But for perhaps the first time in his life, Dara didn’t think about his responsibilities to his people. Bewitched and seduced, he grabbed for the magic again.
He was gone even faster this time, the weight of his body vanishing. He spun, laughing to himself as soil and leaves swirled and danced around him. He felt vast and yet remarkably light, the breeze carrying him away the moment he allowed it. In seconds, the lake was nothing but a gleaming mirror of moonlight far below.
And by the Creator … the glory spread before him. The forbidding mountains now looked inviting, their sharp peaks and ominous shadows a maze to dash through, to explore. He could sense the very heat seeping through the ground’s thick crust, the sea of molten rock flowing beneath the earth, sizzling where it met water and wind. It all pulsed with activity, with life, with an untamed energy and freedom that he suddenly desired more than anything else.
He wasn’t alone. There were other beings like him, in this state of formlessness. Dara could sense them, could hear whispered invitations and teasing laughter. It would be nothing to take the ghost of a hand, to race off and travel realms he hadn’t known existed.
Dara hesitated, longing tearing through him. But what if he couldn’t return? What if he couldn’t find his way back when his people needed him most?
Manizheh’s resolve—her threat—closed around him. He could see her unleashing the poison and failing to take the city. He could see an enraged Ghassan ripping away his copper relic before it killed him and then seizing Nahri by her hair. Dragging her before her mother and plunging a zulfiqar through her heart.
Fear, thick and choking, snared him, and with it, a panicked wish to return. This Dara did with far less grace, shifting back into his mortal form while still airborne. He slammed into the ground so hard it knocked the air from his lungs.
Gasping and wracked with pain, Dara wasn’t sure how long he lay there, blinking at the thick cluster of stars above, before a chuckle drew his attention.
“Well …,” a familiar voice drawled. “I suppose it took you long enough to learn that.” Vizaresh stepped forward, peering over his body. “Need some help?” he offered lightly, extending a clawed hand. “I suggest next time you land