“What happened in the pits?” Ashur asked. “They told me you were dead.”
“Who?”
“Zoraida’s guards.”
“They wish,” Nasir scoffed. “Though I nearly was. I stayed alive based on sheer hatred alone. I was assigned a
mu’allim
who trained me, but it was Kavin who kept me from turning into the monster the highborn Ghuls wanted me to be. I wasn’t kidding when I said she saved me. She did. Mind, body and soul—in every way a person can be saved. ”
Ashur could barely believe what he was hearing. But he could tell his brother wasn’t kidding. Nasir had always been the most logical of the brothers, and since he’d blamed the Ghuls for his betrothed’s death, it was clear he truly loved this Kavin if he’d put aside his hatred for her. “And you’re going to marry her.”
A sheepish smile curled Nasir’s mouth. “I already did. I couldn’t wait. Plus, I didn’t want any from our kingdom to question her loyalty.”
Holy Allah, this was serious. “What did Father say?”
Nasir looked out over the water. “He wasn’t thrilled at first. Assumed the same things as you. But then he heard what she’d done for me, and he got to know her.” He looked back at Ashur. “I want you to get to know her too, brother. She has a good heart, not like the Ghuls Zoraida so easily corrupts. She’s made me see things differently, made me realize that the people we thought were our enemies just might not be. I made her a promise that we’d go back to liberate the pits and free all who are imprisoned there—every race—and I plan to uphold that promise. Just as soon as we figure out a way to break Zoraida’s hold on you.”
Ashur’s mind spun. Everything was out of focus, different from what he’d believed—what he’d been told. He didn’t know whom to trust.
I trust you
…
His pulse picked up speed all over again, but not because of anything Nasir had said. Because of an angel who was now… He didn’t know where she’d gone. Just knew she was close. Close enough to touch if he wanted.
“Tariq’s been here, searching for the bottle since the day he was freed,” Nasir went on. “It’s why he lives on this island in Puget Sound, why he has that sailboat down there at the dock, so he can follow the currents if need be. And Kavin and I have sent search parties to every corner of the realm in the hopes of locating Zoraida’s hideout. But we always came up empty. We didn’t give up, Ashur. None of us did. Zoraida’s greatest weapon is deception. She wants you to think we abandoned you so she can control you. But think logically, brother. Why would we do that?”
Nasir the peacemaker. Not a lot had changed, Ashur realized. Not really. Except…what his brother was saying… It made an odd sort of sense. Zoraida’s guards had tried to break him, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d pulled him in, trained him, convinced him he was one of them and that his brothers were the real villains.
His skin grew tight, and perspiration beaded his forehead. He looked toward Nasir again. “Why hasn’t she called you back? I sense the opal on you, even if I can’t see it in this world.”
Nasir looked down at his feet. “I don’t know. I’ve wondered that myself. My opal started vibrating yesterday. That’s how I knew the bottle had been found and opened in this world. She could drag me back at any time but hasn’t yet. Maybe she doesn’t know I’m still alive.”
Or it could be that she was too weak to go after Nasir just yet. Ashur remembered how pale Zoraida had looked when she’d first reappeared and sent him to Claire, and how frail she’d seemed when he’d gone back.
“That’s why Claire’s soul is so important,” he mumbled, pushing to his feet.
“What do you mean?” Nasir asked.
“Claire isn’t what she seems.”
Nasir’s eyes narrowed. “What is she?”
Something Ashur wasn’t ready to discuss yet. Not until he talked to Claire. For the first time, hope ignited deep inside, the thought that maybe she’d been right. Maybe she could help him after all. Of course, that depended on just what she needed from his realm and why she was so hot to go there. “I need to talk to her.”
“Tariq’s waiting to speak with you.”
“He’ll have to go on waiting. This is more important.” He turned for the house.
“Ashur.”
Ashur glanced over his shoulder, and in his brother’s expression, he saw just how much Nasir had hoped to be that peacemaker tonight. The rest of Ashur’s anger slid to the wayside. “I’ll talk to Tariq when I’m done. Okay?”
A slow smile spread across Nasir’s lips. “More than okay.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Claire rolled to her side, dragging the blankets with her. The muscles in her eyes tightened as she waited, a sense of anticipation alive inside her. For what…she didn’t know.
Slowly, the fog cleared, and she chanced a look down. Her stomach rolled, and her head grew light. She shuffled back, but pebbles and dirt skittered off the edge of the precipice she stood on, skipped over and cracked against the wall of rock forming a sharp drop. Below, the red glow of flames rising up from a river of lava met her view. Yet above, a bright light overwhelming the darkness, blinding in its intensity.
She blocked the glare from above with her hand, turned to look over the edge at the winding river of red below. From somewhere deep inside, an overwhelming urge to step off the ledge consumed her. Happiness was down there. Sadness too. Emotions of all different kinds. Uncertainty. But intermixed…a future.
The pull was quickly blanketed by the need to look skyward, to the light above. And she did. To knowledge. To answers. To enlightenment.
Indecision raced through her. She didn’t know where she was supposed to go. What she was supposed to do. Her heart pounded hard, but before she could choose, the fog rolled in once more, blocking both darkness and light.
Claire jerked awake with a gasp and sat straight up. Moonlight filtered through the window, casting an eerie white light across the dark room, but she didn’t need to look to know she wasn’t alone. She could feel the presence of another. Could feel
him
.
Her gaze darted to the side and landed on Ashur, sitting in the chair beside her bed, a look of confusion across his rugged face.
“Ashur, you scared me.” While her heart raced, she tried to slow her breathing. The dream, vision, whatever it had been, felt too real. She chanced a look at the bedside clock and realized she’d only been asleep about an hour.
Just a dream. Darkness and light. Doesn’t mean anything
.
“What are the specific reasons?”
Her gaze jerked back to his face. “What?”
He studied her carefully. Too carefully. Had he seen what she’d been dreaming? Had he influenced it somehow? “Outside you said you had very specific reasons for summoning me. I think it’s time you tell me what those reasons are.”
Claire brushed her hair back from her face and scooted up in the pillows, shaking off the last dregs of sleep. Right. Her reasons. She’d been stupid to think she’d skate free of that conversation so easily.
“Well?” he prodded.
Shit, she had to tell him the rest. She’d already vowed to help him. And even though he’d made that comment out in the woods about still wanting her, from his intense expression now she had a sinking suspicion seduction wasn’t going to work anymore. If she wanted his help in return, she had to be honest.
She drew a deep breath. “The celestial order is complicated. Years ago, before I was even born, the High Seven trapped the angels’ emotions in the firebrand opals. It was their way to control us, to take away our free will and command us at every turn. Then they scattered the opals in the djinn realm, where we cannot cross without an escort. Since djinn and angels don’t mix, as you pointed out earlier, that prevented any of us from finding out about them.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Right. His question. “I’m getting there. Even though I’m banished, I’ve never been able to
feel
. Not the full range of emotions, anyway. It’s hard to explain. It’s like having a filter. Angels can feel happy or sad for their assignments, but it’s never personal. We don’t experience emotions like djinn and humans. But then Mira destroyed Tariq’s opal, and everything changed. Suddenly the world became a different place for me. Those emotions I felt before became amplified, and for the first time, I knew what it was like to experience joy or heartache for myself, not through someone else. For the first time, I realized what it was like to truly live. And I wanted more.”
“More. You wanted to feel more emotions?”
She wrung her hands together and looked down at her fingers. “No. Yes. I mean… You don’t know what it’s like to be numb on the inside. Emotions… They’re like a drug. I summoned you because I want to cross into the djinn realm and destroy the other opals so that not just I but my fellow angels can experience more.”
He didn’t immediately answer, and when the silence got to be too much, Claire finally looked over. Except, when her eyes met his, she sensed there was something else he wanted to ask her. Something…personal.
Her pulse quickened all over again.
“Why were you banished?”
Surprise registered. And was followed quickly by disappointment because it wasn’t the question she wanted either. “I already told you. I wasn’t supposed to ask—”
“Don’t give me the line about asking too many questions. I may not be celestial, but even I don’t believe you’d be banished for that.”
Why the hell was he so smart? He was djinn. She’d always been told djinn acted on their base desires. But in the time she’d been with him, he hadn’t once done anything she’d expected. She sighed. “Angels aren’t supposed to question authority.”
“Then why give you a brain?”
He had a point. She frowned. Tried not to laugh. Hated that she wasn’t just being honest, she was exposing everything now.
The dream came back to her as she debated what to tell him, but this time it seemed so real, she was sure she could hear the crackling flames. “All angels have jobs. Mine was to test the souls of newly departed. Every soul develops on a path to enlightenment. The good and evil souls are easy to ascertain; it’s the ones who skirt the middle line whom I was sent to test.”
“How?”
“I was supposed to tempt them. The road to the afterlife, or the chance to go back and try again.”
“Reincarnation.”
“Not necessarily.” It was hard to explain, and she knew she wasn’t doing a good job of it. She shifted against the pillows. “You’ve heard of a person dying, then coming back to life? Sometimes it was as simple as that. For the truly good, it was a chance to make amends. For the ones we were unsure about, it was a test to see what they’d do with extra time. Would they use it for good or evil?”
“So you passed judgment.”
“No.” On this she was clear. “Judgment is reserved for the High Seven. But if I sensed a hesitation, I had the ability to send the soul back.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you were banished.”
Claire pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “There was a man. In his thirties. He’d been walking along the side of a road at dusk and was hit by a car. I was sent to determine if he should be sent for final judgment. I sensed goodness in him, but I also felt his desire to go back. When I questioned him, he told me he needed to go back for his son. The son was four, suffering from cancer, and would likely die soon, and the man claimed there was no other family to take care of him. His mother had passed in childbirth. I knew the man would have easily passed to the Seven Heavens, but I made the decision to send him back.”
“I’m guessing your superiors didn’t like that decision.”
That was an understatement. Claire sighed. “As angels, we’re supposed to do Allah’s will, nothing more. When I made the decision to send that soul back, I superimposed my will on him. And that decision impacted not only him and me, it messed with the celestial balance. By sending him back, I opened his soul to the possibility of doing evil and jeopardizing his chance to eventually make his way to the Seven Heavens.”
She looked out the window toward the moon high above. She’d paid a price for her decision, but as much pain as she knew that man had felt when his son eventually did pass, she took comfort in the fact the boy hadn’t died alone. There weren’t many things Claire could picture worse than being alone. And a soul as strong and bright as that man’s… She had faith he’d find his way back to the Seven Heavens.
“What happened to the father and son?” Ashur asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” She cut her gaze from the window and looked down at the blankets beneath her bare feet. “I was banished before I found out. Sent here to experience the life I forced that man back to relive. For good or ill. ”
“To be tested yourself.”
A chill spread down Claire’s spine at Ashur’s words, and slowly, she looked his way. Was she being tested? Was that what this was all about? Not just a punishment, but her being forced to make the conscious decision between good and evil?
“The red swirl of fire, flames, and a heat that can consume every part of you,” he said in that same low voice. “Or peace.”
He had seen her dream. Or maybe her mind. Claire’s pulse picked up. And again, the same feeling she’d had during the dream—that the fire and flames held life and uncertainty and a future for good or bad that she just couldn’t see while the light above held clarity—consumed her all over again.
The draw to step off that ledge grew stronger. She lived now, but she wasn’t truly alive. Not inside. And that was what she wanted. That was what she needed before she could make her final decision…whatever that might be.
“Life is not all it’s cracked up to be,
maya
,” he said softly, and for a moment, she wondered if he’d read her mind, but then she decided he couldn’t have. Not so quickly and not when she didn’t even truly understand what she was thinking. “I, my brothers, the horror strewn across my kingdom from the wars that still rage there, are proof of the harsh cruelties of life. You speak of emotions and living, and yet you don’t see what is before you. I live, and I am a slave. In your quest to be free, you could be condemning yourself to this. Trust me when I say slaves are willing to sacrifice everything—including their honor—for peace.”