Page 86 of Silver & Gold
If Raider didn’t want him involved in the conversation, that was fine. (It didn’t feel fine, but what the hell could he do about it?)
Seth would use the time to investigate. He didn’t feel as easy here as Raider did. Some of that came from his worry over Raider liking it a little too much. But most of it had to do with the theory he’d developed while poring over books, scrolls, and maps in the imperial library.
It was that theory that had set his course from Kastari across the al-Hatan. Maybe he should have plotted a different route, but he’d been afraid that doing so would make his intentions too obvious.
Besides, he hadn’t been able to resist the mystery of Ulam. Of course, he hadn’t expected it to matter. He hadn’t expected to actually reach it.
But he was pretty damn sure that was exactly what had happened.
He could see it in the blend of cultivation and wildness, the way that Jannat was refined but also, somehow, ruined.
Raider probably didn’t see it, but Seth had spent so much of his life exploring ancient ruins that he couldn’t miss the parallels. The fragmented buildings. The columns that stood in places, supporting nothing. The plinths empty of their statues.
It was all so beautiful that is looked deliberate. But there was destruction here, lingering in the broken stones.
And all these carvings.
On the stone path that Seth was following, he crouched to examine the symbols etched into the base of a rounded portico. He traced a faint shape with his finger. A raven. A symbol of Kasha, goddess of the arcane mysteries.
The djinn, from everything Seth had read, had no love for the arcane—and therefore no reason to inscribe their buildings with images of Kasha.
The hair rose on the back of Seth’s neck. He looked into the shaded recesses of the portico. There was a smudge of bluish smoke. It vanished as he stared at it.
How many djinn were there, drifting invisibly through Jannat? How many were hiding in the shapes of birds and snakes and cats?
Seth moved on to inspect other faded symbols in the broken columns and sections of balustrade. He found sequences of arcane symbols and ancient writing that he couldn’t read.
Jannat, he was sure, was Ulam. That was how the city had been lost, hidden by the djinn. That was why no one had ever found it, even if they had reached it. Over the centuries, a few humans had been allowed into the garden-city, hence the stories of it, but they had not realized where they were—because the truth was hidden in plain sight.
So what had happened here? Why did the djinn live here in this lost human city?
And what had happened to the humans?
CHAPTER 26
RAIDER FOLLOWED SETH down the spiral stone staircase to the waterfall and pool near their room. Purple trumpet flowers flared out from the climbing vines along their descent. A yellow bird flashed out into the sunlight, bright as gold.
It was the only gold he’d seen here. The djinn, Tarjan had told him, didn’t like metal, precious or otherwise. Except …
Hadn’t there been a gold statue overlooking the tower on which the roc had landed when it had brought him and Seth to Jannat?
Of course, Raider might have misinterpreted the glint of gold, or maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d seen things that weren’t there. Besides, he’d been so terrified over Seth at the time that nothing else had really been processing in his head.
At the bottom of the staircase, Seth turned to wait for him, offering his hand. Raider smiled. He loved when Seth did things like that. Hand in hand, they walked to the edge of the clear pool. Bright fish darted through the water where it lay calm outside the waterfall’s white spray.
Standing atop a flat rock beside the pool, they undressed. Wearing only his sarong and sandals, Raider was finished before Seth even got out of his boots, so Raider went to help him
Unbuckling his vest, Seth leaned in to nip Raider’s lip. “That’s going to turn me on.”
“I should certainly hope so,” Raider replied as he unlaced Seth’s pants.
“I thought you wanted to swim?”
“I do. But if you thought I suggested a swim in a secluded pool under a fabulous waterfall without intending for there to be fucking, I question whether you know me at all.”
“Oh, I know you,” Seth rumbled and spun Raider around, hauling his ass against the semi-hard cock that Raider had just freed from Seth’s pants. Seth reached behind himself with his free hand then showed Raider the bottle of oil. “Why do you think I brought this?”
“I wondered what was in your pocket.”