"Assassin," she hissed, drawing out the word, and Naji reached into his armor, pulled out the same satchel he'd almost used on me. He didn't throw it at her, though, just reached in and pulled out some dark dust, which he blew across the desert, cutting out all the light from the woman's incandescent sand. The desert plunged back into night. The woman's scream echoed through the darkness, and then her silhouette attacked his silhouette, and I blinked a couple times, willing my eyes to adjust.
When they did, Naji had drawn his sword, the blade flashing in the moonlight. And the woman had a sword of her own.
I held up the charm he had slipped me. It was a necklace, a ball of dusty dried-out vines and flower petals hanging off a piece of narrow leather. I slipped it over my neck and immediately I felt protected, impenetrable. Safe.
Damn him! He was sticking to that idiotic oath to protect me. Which meant he was in the middle of a magic-and-sword fight without protection. The charm must have stopped the magic from before, the magic intended to suck him through the portal – now if she tried anything, it would actually work.
I knew better than to jump into the middle of the fight, much as I wanted to. Instead, I looped around behind the woman, keeping myself low to the sand. The woman knocked Naji back with a burst of magic, and as she regrouped herself, I attacked. I shoved my knife into her shoulder blade. She howled, whirled around. Light seeped out of the wound, and a few droplets flung across my face. It was hot on my skin, and for a moment I faltered, not sure what to do about a beautiful lady who bleeds light.
But then she did that flicking motion with her hand again, only this time I stayed put, protected, and in the few seconds before she could realize the secret hanging around my neck, I stuck the knife into her belly. More light spurted out, landing on the sand, on the fabric of my dress.
There were hands on my shoulders, pulling me backward. Naji. He sang something in his language, and the sky ripped open, the stars streaming in the blackness. He wound one arm over my chest and pulled me close to him, close enough that I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. All the wind in the world blew into that gash in the sky. The woman screamed, and her feet lifted up off the earth, light pouring out of her wounds and turning into stars in the darkness, and then she tumbled head over feet through the air and was gone.
The gash sewed itself back up.
Naji let me go. I dropped down to the sand, exhausted, and rolled over onto my back to look up at the sky. The light from the stars was dazzling.
"Who was she?" I asked.
"Stand up," said Naji. "We shouldn't stay here. It's not safe."
"You didn't answer my question." But I got back up to my feet, shaking as I did. The woman's light was still on my clothes and skin and knife, although the glow was beginning to fade. Naji reached over and plucked the charm from my neck, and I felt his touch long after he'd slipped the charm back into his cloak.
"Well?" I said.
"She's from the Otherworld," said Naji. "She's been chasing after me for some time."
I stared at him. "Another world?" I asked. "What, like the ice-islands?"
Naji's head turned in the darkness. He still had on his mask.
"No," he said. "Not like the ice-islands."
I waited for an explanation.
He sighed. "It's a world layered on top of our world. Some call it the Mists."
"Oh, well that clears everything up." But I remembered the woman refusing to tell me where the green-light portal would send Naji. Elsewhere.
"I'll explain it to you later. We need to get out of the desert before the fallout takes effect."
I took fallout to mean the magic-sickness, since even I could feel that prickle in the air that always comes when you use too much magic at once. Mama'd told me stories about how it changes you, since that's all magic is anyway, pure change – she said she knew a dirt-witch who got turned into a pomegranate tree after trying to resurrect her dead husband. And I'd seen clams and ripples of sea-bone sprout out of the side of the Tanarau after Mama used magic in battle.
Naji turned, cloak swirling around him, and walked in the direction of the city. And cause the air was choking with magic, the sand twisting into figures in the darkness, my own skin crawling over my bones, I followed him.
CHAPTER FOUR
We walked for a long time, the city growing brighter and more distinct on the horizon. Naji didn't talk. I kept trying to think of things to say, and I kept coming up short. Fortunately all that walking warmed me up against the chill of the dusty night wind.
Naji stopped right outside the desert wall, his cloak rippling and casting slinky shadows across the sand. He pulled his mask away and then turned toward me. He looked like he had been in a fight: blood on his face, ragged cuts on his clothing, scratches in his armor. I realized I probably didn't look much better.
"Did you have any belongings in your room at the inn?" he said.
"What?"
"The Desert Light Inn." He jerked his chin toward the city. "Where you were staying."
"How did you… Oh." I frowned, wondering if he had ever watched me through the open window without me knowing. "Some spare clothes." I knew better than to tell him about the money. "Why?"
His face got all intense and he said, "I have to protect you. But I'm afraid you shouldn't stay at that inn any longer. We can find somewhere in the pleasure district."
I saw where he was going with this. We could rent a room in the pleasure district and the innkeeper would probably take me for a whore or a mistress and not think anything of it. Not that I look like anybody's mistress, but you know – there wouldn't be any questions. If I were just some runaway it'd be the perfect place to hide, because nobody ever looks anybody in the face down there. Unfortunately, the pleasure district was exactly the part of town I might expect to find my parents – or worse, a gang of Hariri crewman.
Assuming my parents were still in the city at all.
That thought made me sad. I turned away from Naji so he couldn't see that sadness washing across my face.