Khalid swung first, but Lucien dodged the staff easily. Khalid had telegraphed the incoming blow with a loud grunt and a slow start.
Lucien whipped the scythe around and used the butt of the handle to force Khalid to his knees, then he spun out of range. He shouldn’t have been able to evade the blow of a trained warrior so easily.
Khalid was playing with him.
The jinn got to his feet with a smile on his face, confirming Lucien’s suspicions. “Good job, jinabi. I wasn’t sure you knew how to fight.”
Neither was Lucien, but Khalid wasn’t going to get the best of him, no matter how well trained the jinn was. If he wanted to keep up the trash talk, so be it. “I don’t really know how to fight. It’s not what I was trained for.”
“Oh?” Khalid seemed genuinely interested. “What were you trained to do, then? To cut grass like a common gardener?”
Lucien brandished his scythe with two hands. “To kill.”
The haughty look in Khalid’s eyes faltered for a moment, then snapped back. “And again I tell you, I am immortal. You cannot kill me.” He spread his arms. “This is not a fight you can win.”
“I disagree.”
“So be it, but you are still wrong. Let us make a deal. You denounce Imari, go back to your home, and we end this peaceably right now.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
Khalid snorted. “It will make my married life easier if I do not have to hear over and over how I killed you. This way, she cannot hold that against me.”
“I see. Too bad I don’t care about making your married life easier.”
Khalid let out a long sigh. Like he’d exhausted himself trying to be the peacekeeper. “I do not understand your desire for another man’s wife. Where is your honor?”
“She’s not another man’s wife. She’s my wife. You’re the one without honor.”
A new spark of anger flared to life in Khalid’s gaze. “Too far, jinabi. Too far.” He spun the staff in his hands again. “No more talking. Time to die.”
That was Lucien’s cue. He shifted into full reaper mode, allowing his reaper form to take over. With the shifting of his bones and the emerging of his skeletal self came the glowing eyes, the robe that billowed around him like a living thing, and the increase in height that made him seem like a living nightmare.
He gave in to the darkness of the form, channeling the memories of the souls that he’d reaped just as he’d done the night he’d first scared the wish merchant away from Imari.
Those memories took on form in their own way. Hands and faces pressed against the abyss of his body, reaching through the gloom as if they could save themselves. It was a parlor trick, a little reaper shock and awe meant to scare and subdue.
Judging by Khalid’s horrified expression, it was working. “You’re an abomination,” he whispered.
“No,” Lucien answered. His voice vibrated and rattled like chains pulled over a gravestone. “I am death. And I have come for you.”
He lifted his scythe, ready to slice through Khalid and end this challenge once and for all, but Khalid reared back.
The jinn held his staff out like a shield. “You will not take me.”
Before Lucien could respond, the jinn seemed to…fall apart. It was as if he was dust. Disintegrating away. No, not dust. Sand.
Piece by tiny piece, the jinn dissolved into a pile of sand on the arena floor.
Lucien stared at it, unsure what to do. Did this mean he’d won? He glanced at the mediator for some kind of response.
The man gave him nothing.
Then a soft, whirring sound filled Lucien’s ears. He looked back at the pile of sand. Wind, from where Lucien couldn’t say, was picking it up and spinning it around.
The spiral grew larger. Lucien backed up, at a loss as to what was happening.
The whirl of sand increased in size and height, and the rush of wind tugged at Lucien’s robes and filled his ears with a thunderous roar. He struggled against the wind. It tore at him now. Sand stung his face and filled his mouth and nose. It grabbed at the blade of the scythe, turning it and teasing the handle out of his hands.
Lucien squinted against the blast of wind and gripped the scythe’s handle more firmly.
Then he heard a new sound mixed into the growl of the wind. A deep, repeating sound that was very much like laughter.
Khalid’s laughter.
The sandstorm was Khalid. It was another form of his, just as Lucien had become the reaper.
With that realization, Lucien recalculated everything. He couldn’t reap the soul of a sandstorm. He needed Khalid to be flesh and bone. The wind whipped harder, tearing at Lucien’s body and robe with incredible strength. His options were running out.
He recalled the scythe to his forearm and dismissed his reaper form to retake his human one.
Then he let himself fall to the floor of the arena, as if defeated. His face was toward the cavern entrance. He could only think of Imari and what she must be going through waiting to hear her fate.
The wind died away. The sand fell back to the ground. Seconds ticked by. Then he heard what he’d been listening for. Soft footfalls behind him, making their way through the dirt in his direction.
Lucien steeled himself. He would have one shot at this and one shot only.
A foot nudged him.
In a single, swift move, Lucien leaped into the air, calling up his scythe and changing back into his reaper form with the speed of a single blink.
Khalid’s mouth was still opening in surprise, his eyes still widening in shock.
As Lucien fell back to earth, his scythe sliced through Khalid, hooking the jinn’s soul and cleaving it from his body with the efficiency of a hot knife through butter.
Khalid’s eyes finished rounding and his mouth came fully open, but the only sound that left him was something between a sigh and a sob.
The last breath. Lucien had heard it many times.
Hattie had once told Lucien that the feeling of her soul leaving her body was like being forced to exhale cold air. Of course, Hattie’s soul had been reaped by touch. He imagined having the scythe pass through one’s body created an even greater sensation.
Khalid dropped to his knees, then collapsed to the arena ground. A second later, his physical body dissolved away into sand, and what remained of him, a ghost form, arose to confront Lucien. “What did you do to me?”
Lucien plucked the bright tangle of energy off the end of his scythe and held it out. “I took your soul.”
“But…how? I’m immortal.”
“I am a grim reaper, and I can tell you that no one is truly immortal. And if you have a soul, I can take it.”
Khalid stared at his transparent body. “What is this? I don’t want this. I want my body back.” He glared at Lucien. “I want my soul back.”
“Good. I was counting on that.”
With a grunt, Khalid swiped at his soul, but his hand just passed through the pulsing ball of light in Lucien’s grasp. He sucked in a breath, a purely responsive action at this point, and scowled. “How dare you?”
“This challenge that you initiated was to the death. I’ve essentially done that.” He looked up at the mediator, lifting Khalid’s soul toward the man. “I hold the jinn’s soul. Is that good enough for you?”
The mediator stared back for a moment, blinking hard. Then he turned and headed down the steps.
“You can’t do this,” Khalid said. “It’s not how things are done. Death is death. This is…I don’t know what this is, but you cannot leave me this way.”
“I absolutely can. Or I can transport your soul to its final resting place and the form you currently hold will cease to exist altogether. Would you prefer that? Permanent death?”
The mediator shuffled toward them, the fat brass bell in one hand.
Khalid looked horrified. “I want my soul and my body back. You’ve cheated.”
“I don’t see how. There are no rules.”
The mediator settled in front of them. “You have his soul.”
It wasn’t a question, but Lucien held his hand out to the man to let him have a better look. “I do. Does that make me the winner of this challenge?”
The mediator frowned. “We’ve never had this happen before.”
“I want my soul back,” Khalid bellowed. He grabbed for it a second time and had the same results. He immediately started yelling again.
Lucien was ready to move on. He raised his voice to be heard. “I’ll give you your soul back if you agree to my conditions.”
Khalid stopped fussing and turned toward Lucien. “You want the woman, you can have her.”
“First of all, I want Imari and her parents brought in here so this can take place with them all as witnesses.”
“That isn’t done,” the mediator said.
Lucien narrowed his eyes. “Would you like to see up close and personal how my scythe works?”
Hammad hugged the bell to his chest. “I’ll get them.”
He made quick time to the cavern’s entrance, disappearing through it and returning moments later with Imari and her parents in tow.
Imari’s face brightened the moment she saw Lucien. She ran to him. “You’re still alive.” She put her hands out to hug him.
He stepped back. “Don’t touch me. I have Khalid’s soul in my hand. The next person I make contact with becomes the owner of that soul.”
She stopped short, nodding. “Okay. What’s going on, then?”
Her parents kept back a few yards. Farozza kept hold of her husband’s arm, and they both watched Lucien with new respect in their eyes. Or perhaps it was fear. Some people only gave respect when they experienced fear. Lucien wouldn’t be surprised if Imari’s parents were those kind of people.
He held out Khalid’s soul. Little sparks of energy traveled through the twisted mass. It was heavier and more tangled than a human’s. Khalid had been around a long time. “I reaped Khalid’s soul. Now I can either escort his soul to its final resting place, or I can return it to him.”
“I want it back,” Khalid made clear for the third time.
Lucien gave him a little nod. “So you’ve stated. But I have demands that must be met first. Hammad tells me this is all highly unusual.”
“Highly,” Hammad repeated. “It’s never happened before.”
“Which means,” Lucien went on, “that we can establish the rules for how such a thing is handled right now.”
The mediator seemed to ponder that a moment, then he nodded vigorously. “Yes. I will allow that.”
“Good.” Lucien turned his attention to Khalid once again. “You will renounce your marriage contract, setting Imari free without strings of any kind.”
“Yes. Fine.” Khalid crossed his arms and glared daggers at all of them. “I renounce our marriage contract and proclaim it null and void.” He leaned toward Imari. “I never wanted to marry you anyway.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
Hammad raised his brows. “I will see that you’re allowed to choose another bride, my Prince. One a little more to your liking.”
“Good,” Khalid snorted. As much as a ghost could snort.
Lucien looked at Imari. “What else would you like?”
She hesitated like he’d caught her off guard. “For all jinn to be able to choose their futures. For marriage contracts to be abolished.”
A look of pure horror overcame the mediator. “Oh no, that would never do. Marriage for love is very unorderly. Love doesn’t last. It creates chaos! Contracts, however, are forever. Your request is denied.”
She frowned. “Then I want one last trip to the Well of Wishes.”
“No,” her father spat out. “She is banished. She may be freed from this marriage contract, but that is all. You must both leave immediately.”
“Hammad?” Lucien kept his eyes on Zakir.
The mediator cleared his throat. “Vice-Minister Zephara, I will allow it. One final visit.”
“Chaos,” Farozza whispered.
Imari spun to look at her parents. “Is that all you’re worried about? You’re never going to see me again.”
A solemnness settled over their faces that Lucien hadn’t expected, but then her parents turned and put their backs to her. It felt very final.
Imari’s lower lip trembled, and her eyes went liquid, but she lifted her chin as she spoke to Lucien. Her voice was strong and clear, and it filled him with pride for reasons he couldn’t name. “That’s it. No more demands. Just the visit to the well.”
“All right.” Lucien made sure Hammad was paying attention. “By your word, this is final and settled?”
The mediator nodded. “Return Khalid’s soul to him, and I will declare you the winner of this challenge. Imari will be free of the marriage contract and will be granted one final trip to the well. Then you both must go.”
“You won’t get an argument from me.” He pinned Khalid with his gaze. “Hold still.” Then Lucien thrust his hand into Khalid’s transparent form and released the soul, yanking his hand free with supernatural speed.
With a shudder and a painful sob, Khalid’s body stiffened and became whole again. He collapsed to the floor of the arena, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Lucien wiped his hand on his robe. “By the way, there’s a little adjustment period. You’ll be fine in a day or two.” He raised his brows at the mediator. “It’s done. Anything else you need from me?”
“No.” Hammad gave the bell a ring, sending one sharp peal through the cavern. “This challenge is settled.” He headed back to the tower.
Lucien extended his hand to Imari. “Shall we go?”
She watched Khalid a moment longer, then without a word, took Lucien’s hand and nodded.
They walked back into the sun that way, hand in hand. Lucien savored the feel of her palm against his. He couldn’t imagine what was going to happen next between them, but at the moment, he was filled with a bittersweet joy.
He’d freed Imari. He’d done exactly what he’d set out to do. And yet…she hadn’t said anything. She had to be overcome with emotion. She was about to leave her home and her parents for good. No doubt that was enough for her to deal with.
He glanced at her anyway, mostly to be sure she was all right.
Her eyes were still filled with unshed tears and emotions he couldn’t read. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, then faced him and put her hands on his jaw. “You did it. You freed me. I owe you everything.”
“You owe me nothing.”
She shook her head. “No. That’s not true.”
“I didn’t do it because I wanted anything from you.”
“I know.” She smiled, and a single tear slipped down her cheek. “I know.”
His dear Imari. He hated to see her hurting. “Are you ready to visit the well?”
She looked back at the entrance to the cavern for a second. “Yes. Then I’m ready to go home.”