LIFE AND DEATH IN THE PAGES OF A BOOK

KHALID RODE THROUGH THE DESERT UNTIL THE SUN dipped low on the horizon.

It would take him two more days of hard riding to reach Rey. By that time, his uncle would undoubtedly be at his wit’s end. It would not matter that Khalid was the caliph and therefore entitled to his own freedom. In matters such as this, General Aref al-Khoury only saw an angry boy, alone in the shadows. The same boy he had quietly cared for these many years.

Khalid could only hope the shahrban believed him occupied by one of his many excursions into the city. Or that Jalal had been willing to conceal Khalid’s absence for a short while.

But Khalid doubted his cousin would be willing to do such a thing.

For their exchanges over the past few weeks had been stilted at best.

Downright hostile at worst.

As it was, Khalid did not know how he would ever explain this particular disappearance to his cousin. And Khalid had been unable to find a trace of Despina or the Rajput. Anywhere.

He continued riding at a brisk pace through the umber sands until only a hint of the sun’s warmth lingered across the sky. Then he dismounted from the borrowed steed and removed the pack of provisions from the saddle.

With only a moment to catch his breath, Khalid pulled free the book from its place in the worn leather folds of the pack. The book was still wrapped in a length of coarse brown linen. Tucking it beneath his arm, Khalid strode away from the horse, his hand shifting toward the dagger at his hip.

He did not know what to expect.

Though the strange sorceress in the eastern mountains had warned that the book would scream—would fight back—Khalid still did not know what it might bring about.

Nor did he trust her. Not in the slightest.

Which was why he’d waited to do anything with the book until he was far away from anyone or anything.

No one else would die for this curse.

Not if he could help it.

Khalid removed the jeweled dagger from his sash. Then he placed the book on a rise of sand before him. Once he’d unwrapped it, he studied it for a spell.

It was strangely unremarkable. Ugly, even. Bound in tattered, water-stained leather. Degraded at the edges. Rusted at the bindings. Sealed in its center by a tarnished lock Khalid felt certain even the most unskilled thief could open with a hairpin.

Strange that something so commonplace could signify so much. Could do so much incalculable damage to so many lives. To entire cities. To so many families.

Just a book. Merely scratchings on a page.

Khalid smiled a bitter smile. The power behind words lies with the person. It had always been one of his mother’s favorite teachings. One of the more notable bits of wisdom Musa Zaragoza had ever imparted upon them both.

He narrowed his gaze on the worn volume below.

The words in this particular book would never give power to anyone again.

And, if the sorceress had not lied to them that evening in the mountain fortress, her words would spare Khalid from a life rooted in the past.

From a life spent atoning for his sins.

Khalid removed the black key from around his neck. And unlocked the book.

The pages sprang open. An eerie white light emanated from within. Sickly. The slashing text was indecipherable to him.

When Khalid reached out to touch the pages, a sudden flare of heat shot toward him, burning the tips of his fingers. He swore. With the burn came another flash of light, violent and vivid and bright. Wickedly so.

No more.

Khalid unsheathed the dagger.

The book pulsed in response. Rippled with a vital sort of menace.

He drew the blade across his palm. Dripped his blood onto the metal. It began to glow a fiery red. Then he let his blood trickle onto the pages of the book.

The book began to scream. A high-pitched, keening wail. For a moment, its pages seemed to scorch. The smell took on a presence, heavy and thick in the air. The drops of crimson blackened as they struck the book’s surface. Pale grey swirls rose above them, curling in sinister suggestion.

The wind bowed around Khalid, covering him in an eddy of dust and smoke. With the blooming gusts, the symbols the sorceress had worked into the blade began to shimmer as if in response to a threat.

Khalid lifted the dagger high.

But the smoke stayed his hand. It gathered a life force of its own and wrapped itself around his wrists in an icy vise.

What Khalid felt in that moment was like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life. It was not a vision, nor was it a memory. It was not a dream, nor was it a nightmare.

It was simply a feeling. A naked, exposed sort of feeling. The kind that ebbed from his center, drawing itself to the surface for all the world to see. The kind he’d spent so much of his life trying to deny, for fear it would make him appear weak. Would make those around him see past his skin into his very soul.

It was every moment he’d ever felt alone. Every moment he’d ever felt powerless. Every moment he’d ever wanted to disappear.

Every ugly thought and every empty feeling coursing through him, as though the book had reached within him and grasped every doubt—every insecurity—and brought it to the surface.

Brought it there to tell Khalid he was not worthy.

Of anything.

Not worthy to be a king. Not worthy of his uncle’s faith. Not worthy of Jalal’s loyalty. Not worthy of Vikram’s friendship.

Not worthy of Shahrzad’s love.

After all, what had he done to deserve any of it? He was the unwanted second son of an unwanted second wife. Everything to one person, then nothing to no one.

Nothing.

He’d been nothing but an angry boy in the shadows for so long. A boy who’d envied his brother from the shadows. A boy who’d watched his mother die from the shadows.

A boy who’d thrived in the shadows.

Now he had to live in the light.

To live . . . fiercely.

To fight for every breath.

Khalid grasped the dagger with both hands. But the smoke fought back. The jade talisman coiled about his neck. The screams rang louder around him. The sand swirled in a raging vortex, pressing in, tighter and tighter, trying to swallow him. Trying to make him disappear.

All he’d wanted for so long was to disappear. To take all the ugliness with him—all the vicious memories of his mother’s blood spilling across blue-veined agate and silken cords at sunrise—

And vanish without a trace.

“No.”

He squeezed the dagger tighter.

“No!”

Every letter Khalid had ever written, he’d written for a purpose. Every apology he’d ever made, he’d made for a reason. Every journey he’d taken into Rey, he’d taken with hope.

Because he wanted to be better.

Here was his chance to be better. Finally.

A chance to live—to love—in the light.

Blood dripping from his hands, Khalid slammed the dagger into the book.

As the book let out a final, gut-wrenching scream, the sand closed in around him. Pressed in on him, biting into his skin.

Khalid couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. The wind and the sand strove to choke him. To steal away his last bit of purpose.

To fight for the book’s last bit of strength.

His chest heaving, Khalid tore a scrap of coarse brown linen for tinder, then struck the flint to catch a flame. The wind snuffed out the tinder in the same instant.

It took five tries to light. Five tries to fight against the billowing silt. Five tries to cup the fire close and let the pages catch flame.

The book burned blue and foul for hours.

Until the sand finally swirled back to the ground. Until Khalid finally fell with it, exhausted. He stared up at the sky, his body broken. Every wound across his skin ached, the scars reopened in the struggle. Khalid’s blood seeped into the sand. His eyelids began to droop.

He was losing consciousness. Losing blood. He would die here in the desert.

But it did not matter. If he took the curse with him. If he kept his people safe.

If he kept Shahrzad safe.

Nothing else mattered.

A strangely peaceful breeze ruffled his hair. It brought a sense of calm Khalid had only experienced around Shahrzad. That small measure of peace he always fought to keep. Like water cupped in his hand.

If Shahrzad was safe, he could be at peace.

His eyes drifted closed. Then Khalid slept.

With the jade talisman in pieces beside him.