Chapter 43
Zain wrapped his arms around my back and legs as he flew us low through the open skies.
Azar and Keyon had opted to fly over to the palace using their own powers.
The scene below was bloody. The guests that had chosen to stay—and fight for Zahhak, or against the div, whatever their reasons—were now dead, their bodies in tatters around the grounds.
The mirror on the table by the altar lay smashed into tiny pieces in the garden.
Walnuts and fruit scattered, trampled on.
There were few div in the garden, though they didn’t approach us as we flew over them, instead patrolling the area, sniffing around like wild dogs.
“Where are the rest of them?” I asked into Zain’s chest.
“Presumably trying to get to the king.” Just like we were.
His gaze swept to my dress, as it had when he’d first seen me. “You’re wearing a wedding dress,” he said quietly.
“It’s not very conventional. I wouldn’t really call it a wedding dress.”
He continued to look at my gown like it was his nemesis.
“You don’t like it?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
We stopped just outside the doors leading into the palace, where Pouran had hinted about our powers not working inside the walls. Azar and Keyon came a few seconds after, and when they appeared beside us, the air smelled even more heavily of smoke.
As we went into the palace, I was surprised to see Pouran still in the room, arms crossed, almost like she was waiting for us. How hadn’t she been killed by the div?
“Leave,” Keyon barked at her.
But Pouran did no such thing. In fact, she ignored him, which was probably the best and worst thing you could do to someone as arrogant and entitled as Keyon. She was the one who had praised him as a reputable khan, and now she was acting like he mattered little to her.
“You need to destroy his soul,” Pouran said to me, voice fierce. Zain wrapped his hand around mine. When she noticed, she groaned.
“Whose soul?” I asked.
“The Jinn King.”
“And why would we believe anything you say?” Azar said, pushing us aside. “You work for him.”
Pouran let out an exasperated breath. “Not by choice.”
“You said his ruling is better than what’s out there,” I said. “The div are the rebels you were afraid of, right?”
“I helped your mother escape, you know that. I left the diary for you to find. For you to learn from. I would never betray Zahhak unless I thought it might work. The palace is under attack now. If there was ever a time to end him—to break his spell of immortality—now is our chance.”
How does one even destroy a soul? The thought passed me by before I recalled the words from Mum’s diary. Zahhak’s soul was contained within an object.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“His soul is in one of the rooms in the deepest depths of the palace. It is warded against anyone other than the royal family…”
“So only Roxana and I can get it?” Azar continued. She huffed. “Of course.”
“It is heavily guarded, but I can take you there,” Pouran offered.
Zain crossed his arms. “I still don’t trust you.”
“I was brought here against my will! This isn’t the life I wanted.” Pouran’s usually icy tone cracked.
I put my hand on Zain’s arm, wondering if I was being a fool as I said the words “I believe her.”
“We could just kill her,” Keyon offered with a smile. “Might make things a little easier.”
“In what world would that make any of this easier?” I retorted.
“Well, she could be leading us to our enemies,” he purred. “Is that what you’re doing?” he asked her, like she would reveal her plot to him. Except, when he asked her that question, she wore a dazed expression, almost as though she was resting with her eyes wide open.
My eyes darted from her to Keyon, whose focus never left her face. “What is he doing to her?” I muttered to Zain. He squeezed my hand.
“I think seeing into her mind,” he said.
“Jinn can do that?”
“Some can.”
And then Pouran snapped out of it. She appeared deeply affronted and took a step back from us all, reaching into the folds of her cloak to produce a dagger.
Keyon barked out a laugh. “I only wanted to see your intentions.”
“Get out of my head,” she said.
“And?” Azar asked Keyon. “What did you see?”
“You’ll believe whatever he says he saw, because…?” Zain said.
Keyon ignored Zain. “She is telling the truth.”
“Right, well now that we have established that, we haven’t got long,” Pouran said. “Shall we go?”
It would be so easy for us to just flee, but the problem would never go away. I would always be haunted by Zahhak, and he had killed so many just to sustain his unnatural body. Only Azar and I had the power to break him. We had to do this.
“Let’s go,” I said, kicking off my heels.
Pouran led us through the palace with stealth, though the main floor we were on was deserted and eerily silent. Zain and I walked directly behind Pouran, while Azar and Keyon were behind us.
Pouran stood in front of a small wooden door, which I assumed was a closet until she opened it and exposed a rickety spiral staircase going down into the depths of the palace.
It was completely black, with no light. Without hesitation, she began her descent, and we followed.
The air grew thicker and heavier with each step, smoke and the enveloping darkness gaining power.
Zain gripped my hand tightly. I knew what he wanted to say, that it wasn’t too late to back out of this. Except it was, and he and I both knew it.
I struggled to get down the stairs in the dress. Zain made us pause on the steps and ripped the bottom of it so the fabric stopped at my calves instead.
“I have a feeling you’ve wanted to do that for a while,” I said.
His lips quirked. “It’s awful.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He leaned in close. “You look beautiful in anything, but seeing you in a wedding dress for someone other than me…”
I shivered. “I see.”
The staircase seemed to continue its spiral without end. I began to feel dizzy and had to skim my fingertips over the handrail to balance myself.
“While I’ve been gone, have you seen my dad and Ehsan?” I whispered.
I could barely make out his features, though I felt his presence behind me.
“When I didn’t hear from you, I went back to your house.
I heard your dad—he was frantic, looking through your things in your bedroom.
I heard him from the outside saying you had run away.
He and Ehsan were upset, but they’re okay. I made sure of it.”
Even though I had been the one to ask, the description of my dad and brother was too much for me to deal with, so instead I asked, “How can you make sure of that when you’re here?”
“Sebastian and Alec are watching over them. They knew I was coming here and wanted to join me. Even if they don’t necessarily agree with us, they are like brothers and wanted to help.”
That soothed my anxiety. “Okay, that’s good.”
“You know that Penny woman?”
I frowned, curious about why he was bringing up the perfect Pilates mom. “My neighbor? Yeah?”
“She’s a div. Has been pretending to be the real Penny ever since you landed in Denver. Sebastian found the human one locked up in the basement of her house.”
“What?”
“He took…care of it. But Castiel had to get involved, memory erasing the real Penny.”
“She was so close with my dad…”
“I think that was the point,” he said stiffly, before rubbing circles into my back. “But they’re safe now.”
Behind us, I heard Keyon laughing while Azar exclaimed, “You’re such an ass—has anyone ever told you that?”
It was almost like they were…flirting. I tuned out of whatever was going on there because I couldn’t deal with that right now.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Zain said into my ear, stroking the inside of my hand. “I’ve been looking for a way into the palace all week, scouring the Underworld for information about how to get to it. There was talk about the wedding and…I’m just very glad we stopped it in time.”
I squeezed his hand. “Me too.” I gulped, even though my throat was dry. “Before I was taken,” I began. “At the gas station, I—”
“I know,” he murmured.
I shook my head. No, you really don’t.
“You were defending us,” he said. “They were no better than jinn. You had to do it.”
Okay, so maybe he did know. “How did you find out?”
“Castiel.” When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “Don’t beat yourself up about this, Rox. They were trying to kill you.” It was almost like he was trying to convince himself that I wasn’t a murderer.
“I could have left them injured,” I said in a small voice.
“They would have come back again,” he said gently. “Death isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary sometimes.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, it was still completely black.
Keyon flicked his hand, and balls of fire hovered high in the air, providing us with illumination for the full stretch of the hall.
“How many powers do you have?” I asked.
“Many,” Keyon murmured.
We switched places, with Keyon and Azar in front, moving slowly and with as much stealth as possible. I forced myself to take stock of our different turns. If we were separated, I needed to know how to get back out.
We passed numerous doors until we reached the final door in the hallway on the left. Pouran halted then, raising her hand in the air. “Here,” she breathed.
“I thought you said it was heavily guarded?” Azar said.
“It is,” Zain said.
One of the fires above us flickered and extinguished, dimming where we stood.
“Excellent,” Keyon muttered. He turned away from us and pulled out a dagger, holding it in the air just as a shadow crossed the hallway and pounced.
Keyon batted it off with one arm, like the shadow was a flea, then stabbed it with his dagger.
Rather than yell, whatever it was hissed, the sound endless, echoing through the hollow hallway, until finally it crumbled into a heap and turned to dust.
“What was that?” I asked, voice shaking.
“Those of the night,” Keyon said, sighing. “Annoying creatures. Where there is one, there are hundreds. Vermin.”
“Not vermin…” Azar said slowly, gasping as two more approached.