Dark Djinn (The Darkness of Djinn Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Copyright 2016 Tia Reed

  All rights reserved

  For my uncle,

  Paul

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Princess Kordahla thought it best not to confide she found the ragged vendors selling battered pans scoured clean of burned rice bemusing. More bemusing than the tedious Verdaani guest they were riding through Tarana to meet, anyway. Her brothers had affected an air of tolerance for those downtrodden men, and for the tawdry merchants touting the virtues of tasselled kilims as vibrant as their kurtas. In their misguided wisdom, they might have decided the sweat-and-fish stink of the waterfront souk had affected her senses, and sent her straight back to the shackles of the palace.

  If only she could have spent the entire sunny afternoon perusing the bewildering wares. Her freedom would have been perfect. The bloated pots fashioned in the likeness of the fearsome, swamp-dwelling bazwaeel were a novelty she would never tire of admiring – as she, the Terlaani orchid Father rarely permitted to bloom in public, was a delight to the cheering crowd. Not even her sombre escort, the black-robed, hooded mahktashaan, the soldier-magicians of her father’s realm, could dowse her enthusiasm for the cloying bustle and persistent sell. Since they were enduring the onslaught with silent, good grace, she slid her veil onto her shoulders and tossed her walnut hair loose. The gesture set a skinny youth with narrow-set eyes to jumping as he waved a copper bracelet set with a green stone over his head.

  “How much is that?” she asked the nearest mahktashaan.

  Her guard needed only a pointed finger to part the throng from his midnight mount. The wide-eyed youth stilled his grubby hand in mid-air as he gabbled something to the mahktashaan before passing the trinket over with a vigorous nod of his head. Kordahla took it from the guard, careful to avoid his fingers, and slipped it onto her wrist. The smile she added to the boy’s earnings had to be worth at least as many lek as the bracelet if his whoops as he danced his way through the clamouring crowd were anything to judge by. They were, at least, more welcome than the laughter chiming behind her.

  Kordahla glanced over her shoulder, fixing Vinsant with a mock glare. Her tease of a younger brother poked out his tongue as he flipped his cloak over his head in mimicry of the veil. With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, she guided her horse to Mariano’s side. The aloof detachment with which her older brother was surveying Lake Sheraz became the future Shah of Terlaan.

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile when he acknowledged her bare head with a raised eyebrow. It was ever a treat for her to escape the confines of the palace walls.

  “Best you’d be thanking our little brother,” Mariano replied, returning to his contemplation of the velvet waters. “You’re welcome,” he murmured a moment later. “But perhaps you should cover up?”

  Grinning, Kordahla leaned across to place a playful hand over his. His purple turban tight over his dark hair, Mariano did not twitch a toned muscle but continued gazing at the skiffs plying the abundant lake. The fishermen wove around each other, rivalling the sequined dancers Father hired to entertain at court feasts for grace. The trout they hauled up in their nets, flopping and tumbling like acrobats, only added to the charm.

  “Don’t I have your permission, then?” she asked in a pitch that matched his and slew any opportunity for the mahktashaan to overhear.

  “The value of my permission is moot. Levi will report your liberty to Father, and his permission is doubtful.”

  Kordahla chanced a look at the Majoria of the mahktashaan. Sure enough, he had turned his head toward her. As was the custom of the soldier-magicians, the hood of his cloak dangled over his face, obscuring his sharp features. Even so, his disapproval chilled the air between them. Kordahla suppressed a shudder, and only just forbore to make the warding sign. Whatever Levi might be, he was no djinn.

  “You know this,” Mariano continued, looking down on her now, his straight back testament to his expertise in the saddle. His sleeveless silk vest, supposedly the height of fashion in their neighbour, Myklaan, exposed his bronzed chest to the midriff. Mariano had pounced on the garments when the merchant ship docked from the liberal southern land. Why wouldn’t he? Their tailoring displayed his glorious body to perfection. Father had not objected. But the skimpy choli and billowing skirt that barely hugged a woman’s hips, the mere sight of which had rouged Kordahla’s cheeks, the Shah had
commanded burned. No woman of his realm would defile her body with such wanton exposure. For the audacity of introducing such filth to the land, the hapless merchant had suffered twenty lashes, his paltry life spared only when Mariano expressed a desire to expand his wardrobe with further shipments of the stylish garb.

  The memory discomfited Kordahla. She fidgeted in the awkward side posture women were forced to ride, and pushed up her generous sleeves – the only concession to southern fashion Father allowed her – careful not to reveal her tainted elbows lest she antagonise Levi too far. “Perhaps we should find a more fitting diversion for the Mahktashaan Majoria’s sensibilities.”

  Ignoring Mariano’s warning shake of his head, she reigned her horse in and waited for Vinsant to catch her up. Her little brother was still laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked with a mock frown, because nothing could rival his spiky, fair hair for comedy.

  “You. You don’t think Father’s actually going to let you wear that piece of garbage, do you?” he asked.

  Her momentary irritation dispersed on the ripples of her brother’s mirth. This cloudless day of freedom was too gorgeous to waste with sour feelings. “He doesn’t need to know I have it,” she replied, twisting the bangle. She raised a hand to greet a group of squealing children skipping alongside the horses. As her generous sleeve slipped down her arm, exposing the indecent joint, she hastily lowered her hand, but not before Levi had turned in his saddle and fixed her with what she had to imagine was a stare of condemnation. It did not help that, unlike the masses, she had seen the face which scowled beneath that hood. It was the face of an ordinary, if austere, man, slipping past his prime. A man who might well have eyes in the back of his head. A man with a moustache and hair as black as the crystal around his neck.

  “I don’t believe you haven’t gagged on this stench yet,” Vinsant said, wrinkling his freckled nose.

  “Actually, it makes a refreshing change from frangipani, sweet perfume, and the aroma of roasting goat,” Kordahla said, twining the flare of her sleeve around her wrist, palming the end, and averting her gaze from the Majoria’s hood.

  “Surely you jest.”

  “Spend your entire life confined to Court and then tell me an earthy smell bothers you.”

  Vinsant tilted his head in agreement. “Yeah, well. There is that.”

  “Mariano said you are responsible for persuading Father to let me join you.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same without you. Anyway, Mariano promised to defend your honour,” Vinsant said. The djinn only knew how he managed to cast his face into a serious sort of mirth.

  Kordahla sighed as she nodded. She should have guessed their older brother would have had to pledge blood honour before Father would even deign to think of letting his jewel of a daughter negotiate the cobbled streets. Sighing, she looked towards the tangled city, the spice of her privilege dulled. Overpopulated lanes zigzagged between sandstone houses before converging in cacophonous chaos on the fertile strip by the lake. Here Tarana’s linear souk stretched in haphazard arrangement of every commodity available in Terlaan, from ripe plums to gold trinkets, hunting knives to caftans, glazed crockery to pots of rainbow spices which tickled the nose. She leaned forward, drinking it all in. Salted eel, candied figs and gaudy weavings plundered from the hill tribes at a fraction of the lek for which they would sell in the city were exotic to a princess interred behind palace walls.

  She waved to a serious girl who had turned from the flat bread her father haggled over to watch them parade. The little one was sweet to dip a curtsey. Kordahla removed her copper bangle and bid a mahktashaan with a magenta crystal hand it to her. Vinsant was right. If Father ever saw it, he would toss it to a scullion.

  The girl’s father, a tall, lean man, frowned as his unsmiling daughter took the trinket. It was only natural he look for the source of the gift. Look at her, his face drawn in disapproval, no less.

  “Vae’oenka’s shame!” He grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her from the scene. The bangle clanged on the ground, trodden on, picked up, claimed. Kordahla could have died listening to his condemnation of the princess’s bare head ring above the buzz of the souk.

  Every vendor in sight turned to stare at her. Mariano too, one eyebrow raised in an expression that could mean nothing except I told you so. Her cheeks reddening, she flicked her veil back over her hair. The luxurious length of green fabric, embroidered in gold, was fraying in one corner, but it had been Mother’s. However much she was loathe to wear the veil, this one honoured Mother’s memory and love.

  “Oh, you’re not seriously thinking you’ve gone too far,” Vinsant said, tugging it from her neck. He laughed as he flapped it through the air. She reached for it, but Vinsant hopped onto his horse’s back and held it high, drawing a cheer from the black-toothed fruit sellers and sun-baked fishermen along the grassy shore. Unused to the attention, she averted her eyes.

  “Vinsant,” she hissed. “Give it back.”

  “Come and get it,” he said, perfectly at ease in his precarious position.

  “Vinsant!”

  Ahead, Mariano had stopped his horse and turned in his saddle. He was a beast to wear such an amused expression. Since it was plain she would get no help from him, she edged her bay horse closer to Vinsant’s, reaching across to pull him back into the saddle. He was a little monster, forcing her into unbecoming fidgeting. It was a wonder Majoria Levi did not demand an immediate halt to this folly, with it beginning to draw embarrassing murmurs from the onlookers.

  “Vae’oeldin’s rot,” said Vinsant mildly, opening his hand to let the veil fly. “The God of the Sky has stolen your veil.” The garment sailed over the heads of the mahktashaan and descended on a knot of startled onlookers. There was a sudden tangle of arms as they snatched at the prize.

  “There,” said Vinsant, sitting back down. “You can’t get in trouble now. It’s my fault you aren’t wearing your veil, and I shall tell Father so.”

  Kordahla allowed the reins to slide off her fingers and crossed her arms. “That was Mother’s! And besides, since when did I need my little brother to defend me?” she asked. In truth, the need for it was irking her more than the loss of the veil.

  Vinsant turned his head aside. “Since Father kept this realm so backward,” he muttered.

  For once, she lacked the heart to offer even an insincere reproof. The day spoiled after all, she sighed.

  Vinsant frowned. “You can’t really like wearing that thing.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said, watching the lucky winner of her favour struggle free of groping hands. “They’ve stopped looking at Mariano.” Mariano, whose handsome, chiselled features and exalted position never failed to entrance any who laid eyes on him. “They’re all looking at me, like I’ve committed some heinous transgression, and in their eyes, and Levi’s and Father’s, I have.”

  “Nah, that’s not it. Don’t you get it? They’re looking at you because you’re beautiful. By the djinn, Kordahla, Mariano doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

  Kordahla blushed. Vinsant might be prone to exaggeration, but he was never anything except honest with her.

  “They’ve never seen you before, except from afar, or covered with a hideous veil. They didn’t know. Look! Look over there!”

  By a stall of linens, a wife was looking at her husband. He gently reached for her veil and with a few words tucked it behind her shoulders to reveal her glossy black hair. Kordahla gasped.

  “You think because they’re peasants they don’t hear what Myklaan’s like?” Vinsant asked.

  Kordahla felt a flush of shame. That was exactly what she had thought. Who could blame her when she was denied excursions and prohibited the councils of men? It was selfish of her, but she rather wished the Shah had not begun to insist Vinsant attend those meetings. There was time enough yet for her little brother to grow up, and little enough in which she would retain some influence over him. She had never dreamed she might in some small way
shape the future of the realm, but here they were, a handful of young men removing their wives’ veils because she, the princess, had removed hers. It was a small triumph. The few unaccompanied women glanced about as though checking for acquaintances who might betray them to their husbands if they took the liberty. None did. No woman would ever have the nerve to remove it without permission. Except me. And my doing so might have been rash. One or two matronly types were tugging the veil further down their forehead. A bent, old woman even had the gall to spit a curse at her!

  Kordahla threw a pleading look Mariano’s way, but he was engaged in intense conversation with Levi. She edged her horse forward as the Majoria gestured to three mahktashaan, magenta, tan and teal of crystal. They left the escort and trotted to a withered meatball seller who was grinning with disbelief at the veil in his hand. Dear goddess, he did not even notice the mahktashaan dismount. Two of them gripped him, forcing him to his knees before he gathered the wits to see the danger. Beseeching the gods, he struggled against his captors, his faced blanched in shock.

  “Vae’oenka, no!” Kordahla said. She pushed her horse between Levi and Mariano’s. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said. “You can’t.”

  Mariano raised an eyebrow. “I rather think your honour is at stake. Would you have him spread vile rumours about your attentions?” He assumed a cheeky smile. “And what in the Three Realms would Father say if he knew I’d permitted this indiscretion?”

  Curse the blood honour, Kordahla thought, and nearly said aloud. She saw metal glint as the third mahktashaan drew his sword, felt sweat trickle down her neck, took a gulp of air.

  “Hold,” she called, and the mahktashaan’s sword-wielding arm froze in the air above the babbling vendor.

  Mariano’s eyes turned dark.

  “He will return the veil in exchange for his life,” she said.

  “It is not enough,” Mariano replied, his cold gaze fixed on the doomed vendor.

  She knew him well enough to see he was repressing a swell of anger. The Crown Prince could suffer no public challenge to his authority, and from his younger sister no less. The trickle of sweat turned to a rivulet, and ran down her spine. “There is a way,” she said to him. He remained immobile, waiting. She licked her lips. “We’ll take his meatballs as payment.”