Chapter 39 #2
“I knew that our grandparents were murdered, but I didn’t know their staff did it. Zahhak told me in my dreams once that the rebels that killed them would be destroyed one day. I think he said it to rile me up.”
“The div, right?” My voice shook.
“Yes. They’re against Zahhak and his dictatorship.
But it’s not even just that—they don’t agree with the way jinn live, now that some live relatively normal lives.
Or even that there is an agreement that’s been made with the angels, about the balance of life.
They want pure chaos. In our world, as well as in the Underworld.
They, among other jinn, killed most of the royals. Why they kept us alive is a mystery.”
“Maybe because we didn’t know we were jinn?” I offered.
Azar chewed on her bottom lip, unconvinced. “Maybe.”
We lay on the bed side by side, staring up at the ceiling, at the painted clouds we had grown so familiar with after numerous days spent ruminating on how we could get out of here.
We had even established which clouds were our favorites.
Mine was the wispy one on the right-hand side that faded into the sky and almost resembled a dog if you squinted hard enough.
Azar liked one that was perfect, thick and fluffy, floating unattached to anything else.
I made a quip about what that said about her personality, considering she often ended relationships with boys before they made it official.
“Maybe clouds mean a little bit more to you than me,” she shot back.
“Considering you’re flying through the sky with your little angel in this life and others.
” At this, I whacked her with a pillow. I didn’t know how we could make light of my situation, but apparently that was what we were doing now.
Silence stretched on for a while. “Don’t you think you should be the one getting married, and not me, seeing as you’re older?” I joked.
Azar let out a small sigh. “I wish it was me.”
“I don’t,” I said. I’d rather deal with whatever being married to a jinn entailed than watch my sister go through it. “But I am scared.” I said the words so quietly I wasn’t positive she heard me.
She put her hand over mine. “We will rip their throats out before we let that happen, okay?”
While people said that I was scary, Azar was something else. She took shit from no one, and the fire in her eyes told me that she meant it. I nodded, tucking away that fear for another time.
After the first few nights of me waking and being sick, Azar had begun sleeping next to me.
We felt safer next to each other, and even if I still couldn’t sleep, her presence kept the nightmares at bay.
While she slept now, I allowed myself to think about Zain.
I missed him. I missed him more than I thought I ever could for a person I had known less than a month.
Give or take a few lifetimes. I let myself think of him as he knew me; I had to, because if he knew what I had done to those hunters…
I wouldn’t blame him for hating me, for seeing the darkness within me and being repelled by it.
While Azar snored next to me, I decided to get my mother’s diary out. I skipped to the later entries and ran my fingers over the swirling handwriting in a language I couldn’t read. The ink was blotchy in places, smudged, like she had been writing quickly.
I wished, so badly, that I had been taught to read and write in Farsi. That Azar had been, and I hadn’t, presumably because they’d had more time with only one child, bothered me. I was more bothered, though, that I hadn’t cared enough about my culture to insist that I be taught.
I didn’t realize my sadness had taken hold of me as strongly as it had until I felt my bones tingling, a rush of fire with me, like my powers were erupting.
I gasped, clenching my hands into fists and pushing myself into the headboard.
No. I would burn this bed down if flames erupted from my palms again.
I was about to leap off the bed when I realized that my hands weren’t on fire.
I still felt that warmth, but as my eyes settled on the pages of the diary on the bed in front of me, I found that I could read the words.
They were still in Farsi, but I knew exactly what they said.
My past selves had given me that knowledge—and so I read:
Tomorrow is the day. Everything is set. At one a.m., while everyone is asleep, I will leave the Underworld for good and return to the Middleworld.
Zahhak is away; he has been for a week now.
There are rumors that he is experiencing bad health, that the snakes upon his neck are not content.
Their existence was intended as a punishment, to eventually end him.
I think that even Shaitan didn’t believe he could coexist with them for hundreds of years. Zahhak’s will is too strong.
Pouran told me that his soul is contained within the basement of this palace, his immortality linked within the object, and if it was destroyed, he could be destroyed. Sometimes, I dream of traveling down, finding it and crushing it, and letting the rebels kill him. End all the pain he’s caused.
But it’s not just him they would kill. Their aim is no better than his. Both sides want division. There is no simple answer.
Pouran has coordinated with the maidens to ignore various doors that will be left open. I have to trust her.