Page 70 of Silver & Gold

The roc would take them to its nest. It probably had young to feed. Otherwise it would have already killed him and Seth. When it landed, Raider might have a chance to fight it—if the quicksilver would answer his need. It had before, when desperation had overpowered his horror of it.

The landscape shifted from hard pack to sand. Too much time was passing. Seth was badly hurt. Besides, atop some lonely crag, stuck in a roc’s nest, how could Raider possibly help him?

His plans shattered. Despair weighed his body so heavily that only the mighty wings of a roc could possibly have held up so much weight.

Then, in the distance, something shimmered. It startled Raider from his despair. He zoomed in with his arcane eye, but whatever he’d seen abruptly vanished, just as the watching figure had vanished multiple times today.

He blinked the zoom away. Whatever it was shimmered into sight once more. Rich green. Piercing blue.

It was a vast, undulating oasis.

Hope stirred. If the roc’s nest was in an oasis, if Raider managed to kill it, maybe there was a chance he could save Seth after all.

Raider zoomed in again and it disappeared. A mirage? He closed that eye—and the oasis shimmered into sight once more.

“Seth!”

Still no response.

“Seth, goddamn it!”

Raider squirmed in the roc’s grip. Gods, if Seth was already dead—

He wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

But if …

The roc can have me, Raider decided. Without Seth, there is no reason to save myself.

Maybe he would have a chance, just a moment, to touch Seth again before the end.

As they flew over the oasis, it was a wild rush of shocking green and sparkling blue. So much water. Lakes, rivers, tumbling waterfalls. It was impossible. Amid that rich life was pale stone. In places throughout the oasis’s shifting elevation, the stone’s natural roughness was carved into ornate buildings.

Raider’s breath caught. This was no simple oasis. The roc had brought them to Jannat. This was the eternal garden. The land of the djinn.

Seth had said they were in the borderlands, that the scorpions had been the first sign. Of the djinn, he had meant.

As they reached a tower-like building, the roc flared its wings and swung its legs forward, pumping to slow its descent. A waterfall tumbled from a peak above the building to plunge straight through a cleft in its roof, spilling into the building. Atop that peak, a large gold figure flashed, but Raider had no time to discern its shape.

The roc released him and Seth on the intact portion of the roof. Raider scrambled to Seth, putting himself between Seth’s prone form and the massive bird. But the roc alighted atop a section of stone balustrade and folded its wings.

Raider jammed his fingers against Seth’s jugular. Relief dizzied him at the dull throb of Seth’s pulse. He tore away the strip of his blood-soaked kaftan to find Seth’s pant leg shiny with blood. Raider clamped a hand on the still-pumping wound and checked on the roc. A man—the man—shimmered into sight beside the bird.

But he wasn’t a man. Raider could see that now. Not with his eyes glowing like molten gold. Not with the blue gleam of his skin.

The djinn was wearing a white sarong with a belt of emeralds. Sapphires flashed at the lobes of his pointed ears.

“Help,” Raider gasped. “Please—help him.”

The djinn turned and spoke to the roc. “Thank you, my friend.”

The giant bird launched itself into the sky, its huge wings pumping and lifting it.

“Help! I’ll do anything, trade anything! Just help!”

Seth was terrifyingly pale and horribly still. His chest barely rose and fell.

Frowning, the djinn walked toward Raider. He said, “I am not an ifrit. I do not bargain.”