“Drown him again,” Aeshma suggested. “Maybe this time it will take.” The river danced and boiled around his feet as he started after Nahri.
Dara tried to kick Qandisha, his cry abruptly ending when she plunged him under the dark water. The ifrit laughed as Dara’s fingers clawed at her wrists.
“Stop!” Nahri screamed. “Let him go!” She hopped back, hoping to lose Aeshma in the deeper water and swim back to Dara.
But as Aeshma closed in, the river swept back, almost like a wave drawing up. It pulled from the bank, pulled from her ankles, and in seconds, it was gone from her feet altogether, leaving her standing in a foot of muck.
Absent the sound of the rushing current, the world went quiet. There was not even a hint of wind, the air saturated with the scent of salt, smoke, and wet silt.
Taking advantage of Aeshma’s distraction, Nahri darted toward Dara.
“Marid . . . ,” the female ifrit whispered, her golden eyes wide with fright. She dropped Dara and grabbed the other ifrit by his skinny arm, yanking him away. “Run!”
The ifrit were fleeing by the time Nahri reached Dara. He was holding his throat, sucking for air. As she tried to pull him to his feet, his eyes locked on something past her shoulder, and the color left his face.
She glanced behind her. She immediately wished she hadn’t.
The Gozan was gone.
A wide, muddy trench stood in the river’s place, wet boulders and deep ridges marking its former path. The air was still smoky, but the storm clouds had vanished, revealing a swollen moon and a rich spread of stars that lit up the sky. Or at least would have lit up the sky had they not been steadily blinking out as something darker than night rose in front of them.
The river. Or what had been the river. It had drawn back and thickened, rapids and tiny waves still rippling across its surface, swirling and churning, defying gravity to rise. It wriggled and undulated in the air, slowly towering over them.
Her throat tightened in fear. It was a serpent. A serpent the size of a small mountain and made entirely of rushing black water.
The watery snake writhed, and Nahri got a glimpse of a head the size of a building, with whitecaps for teeth, as it opened its mouth to roar again at the stars. The sound broke across the air, some horrifying combination of a crocodile’s bellow and the break of a tidal wave. Behind the serpent, she spied the sandy hills where Dara said Daevabad lay hidden.
He was frozen in terror now, and knowing how frightened he was of water, she didn’t expect that to change. She tightened her grip on his wrist. “Get up.” She pulled him forward. “Get up!” When he moved too slowly for her liking, she slapped him hard across the face and pointed toward the sandy dunes. “Daevabad, Dara! Let’s go! You can kill all the djinn you want once we get there!”
Whether it was the slap or the promise of murder, the terror holding him seemed to break. He grabbed her outstretched hand, and they ran.
There was another roar, and a thick tongue of water lashed the spot where they’d been standing, like a giant swatting a fly. It crashed against the muddy bank, and water swept out to splash their feet as they fled.
The serpent twisted and slammed to the ground just ahead of them. Nahri slid to a halt, pulling Dara in another direction to sprint across the emptied riverbed. It was littered with damp waterweeds and drying boulders; Nahri stumbled more than once, but Dara kept her on her feet as they dodged the crushing blows of the river monster.
They had gotten a bit more than halfway across when the creature suddenly halted. Nahri didn’t turn around to see why, but Dara did.
He gasped, his voice returning. “Run!” he screamed, as if they were not already doing so. “Run!”
Nahri ran, her heart pounding, her muscles protesting. She ran so fast she didn’t even notice the ditch, a spot of what must have been deep water, before she was sailing over it. She hit the uneven bottom hard. Her ankle twisted as she landed, and she heard the snap before she felt the pain of the broken bone.
Then from the ground, she saw what had made Dara scream.
Having risen once again to howl at the sky, the creature was letting its lower half dissolve into a waterfall taller than the Pyramids. The water rushed toward them, the wave at least three times her height and spreading out in both directions. They were caught.
Dara was at her side again. He clutched her close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. His fingers snaked through her wet hair. She could feel his warm breath as he kissed her brow. She held him tight, tucking her head into his shoulder and taking a deep breath of his smoky scent.
She expected it to be her last.
And then something slammed down between them and the wave.
The ground shook, and a high-pitched screech that would have frozen the blood of the bravest man alive broke the air. It sounded like a whole flock of rukh descending upon their prey.
Nahri looked up from Dara’s shoulder. Outlined against the rushing wave was an enormous sweep of wings, glittering with lime-colored sparks where the starlight touched them.
Khayzur.
The peri shrieked again. He spread his wings, raised his hands, and then took a breath; as he inhaled, the air around Nahri seemed to ebb—she could almost feel it being pulled from her lungs. Then he exhaled, sending a racing, funnel-shaped cloud toward the serpent.
The creature let out a watery bellow when the winds hit. A cloud of steam evaporated off its side, and it flinched, ducking away toward the ground. Khayzur flapped his wings and sent another giant gust. The serpent let out a defeated sound. It collapsed in the distance with a crash, flattening back out across the land, gone in an instant.
Nahri let out a breath. Her ankle was already healing, but Dara had to help her to her feet and give her a shove to get out of the ditch.
The river had lain down along different banks and was busily consuming the trees and ripping at the cliffs they had just escaped. There was no sign of the ifrit.
They had crossed the Gozan.
They had made it.
She stood up, giving her ankle a delicate twist before she let out a triumphant shout. She could have thrown her head back and howled at the stars herself, she was so thrilled to be alive. “By God, Khayzur has the best timing!” She grinned, glancing around for Dara.
But Dara wasn’t behind her. Instead she spotted him rushing toward Khayzur. The peri landed on the ground and immediately collapsed, his wings falling around him as he crumpled.
By the time she reached them, Khayzur lay cradled in Dara’s arms. His lime-colored wings were marked with white boils and gray scabs that grew larger before her eyes. He shuddered and several feathers fell to the ground.
“. . . was following and tried to warn . . . ,” he was saying to Dara. “You were so close . . .” The peri stopped to take a deep, rattling breath. He looked shrunken, and there was a purplish cast to his skin. When he looked up at her, his colorless eyes were resigned. Doomed.
“Help him,” Dara begged. “Heal him!”
Nahri bent to take his hand, but Khayzur waved her off. “There’s nothing you can do,” he whispered. “I broke our law.” He reached up and touched Dara’s ring with one of his claws. “And not for the first time.”
“Just let her try,” Dara pleaded. “This can’t be happening because you saved us!”
Khayzur gave him a bitter smile. “You still don’t understand, Dara, about my people’s role. Your race never did. Centuries after being crippled by Suleiman for interfering with humans . . . and you still don’t understand.”