No way, Ari thought. There was no way he was keeping important information from them.
“This means something to you doesn’t it?” she probed.
Sighing, Red took a moment. “I don’t know how much to tel you. Or where to begin.”
“Let’s start with the truth. Please… uncle.”
His eyes sparked at her use of his familial title. Sighing again, Red turned away from them, his long, bright red braid swinging against the leather label on the back of his jeans. “Lilif… my mother… she tried to destroy everything.”
“Why?”
He shrugged and threw Ari a forlorn look, seeming so much like a young man whose parent had deserted him. “We were raised to believe in the balance, and yes for many years the Jinn fought in al the wars of men, but then my brothers and I were born and we brought a new balance to the world. Now we only fight in large-scale political wars. Wars that determine the outcome of a grander fate.” Red rubbed his forehead, as if he were trying to see his memories. “I always knew my mother was unhappy with the state of things. I didn’t know why, but I knew she was. As the centuries passed and the birth of her sons failed to bring the changes she obviously sought, she began to plan… to plan the destruction of the balance.
Her first stop was her sons. Each of us had more of one parent’s essence within us. White, Shadow, myself and Gilder al have more of Azazil within us. Glass, Lucky and Gleaming have more of Lilif. She attacked Glass first because even though he had her essence, he was most like Azazil in his bearing. Ironicaly, Glass was her favorite.
She planned to kil my brothers because over the centuries we had become embroiled in so many destinies, and so many bloodlines, that we had been threaded so deeply into the fabric of nature that our deaths would rip at the seams of our world just as Lilif wanted. Think of this realm as made up of milions of paths, and those paths are created by bilions of people as though they were paving stones. Al those paths are connected to seven major roads—my brothers and I. Think of Azazil as split into seven bridges that connect us to him, to this realm and the Others. If you destroy the roads one by one, everything begins to disconnect, to crumble, and eventualy al the paths are destroyed too. It would leave a barren landscape; a new world with nothing in it, but only those powerful enough to have survived without connection. That’s what Lilif wanted. She wanted The After.
But I saved Glass. She was no match for the two of us. I warned Azazil and tried to warn White… White did not believe us. He was poisoned by Lilif. He actualy believed she was trying to protect the balance.”
“I think he stil does,” Ari whispered sadly.
Red nodded distractedly. “My father believed me, but he had a harder time convincing Asmodeus. With my brothers now protected by Azazil, Lilif stooped to the one level none of us ever imagined she would. She went after Asmodeus.
Though it so clearly pained her for there was no one in either worlds that my mother loved more than her twin brother, Lilif believed that by kiling Asmodeus she could steal his essence and become powerful enough to take on Azazil. You see, they were the half of one another, Asmodeus and Lilif. Asmodeus was calm, light, wisdom, patience. Lilif was passion, darkness, impetuous, and unforgiving. Together they were able to balance one another out, that’s why they were never without one another. But Lilif began to withdraw more and more from Asmodeus until finaly she attacked him. My father saved his life and Asmodeus has been completely loyal to him ever since.”
“But changed,” Ari said, thinking of how different Asmodeus was in the past compared to now. “He’s darker.”
“He doesn’t make sense without Lilif. Asmodeus goes through periods of dark and light. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be one of the latter, and I am curious as to what exactly he wants with you, Ari.” He shook his own comment off, not wanting to be derailed. “My father kiled Lilif. He stole her essence and destroyed it. He then buried her body in a tomb no one has ever seen. No one knows where it is. White has never forgiven him. That’s why he wants to use you. To punish Azazil. To somehow overpower him without ticking off the balance.”
Ari blinked, trying to take in al the information. She glanced at Jai to see his reaction, but he was just listening to Red in utter fascination. Something niggled at Ari but she couldn’t put her finger on what that was. Not wanting to be distracted from her own point, Ari took a step toward her uncle. “So these dreams… they are memories?”
“It would appear so. How else could you know such things?”
“How is it possible? Why do I know this stuff? Why am I dreaming about it? What does it mean?”
The Red King held up a hand to quiet her. “I have no idea. Leave this with me, Ari. I wil find out but I wil have to tread very carefuly here. Tel no one else what you have told me here today.”
Despite her impatience, despite the ugly darkness in her chest wiling her to take a stand and force Red to find out everything he could as soon as possible – the consequences be damned – Ari took control of herself. Taking deep, even breaths, Ari struggled for calm and eventualy gained it.
“So what now?” Charlie asked quietly.
Flicking her gaze over her friend, Ari felt another wave of relief that he was here in the mortal realm and in one piece. “How would you feel about joining to the Roes?”
He smiled slowly, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
Ari winced, seeing the excitement starting to burn in his eyes. Charlie was clearly desperate to get back to Jack and his training. She hoped to get a moment alone with him soon to get a better understanding of where his head was at. Ari was stil clinging to the hope that after the fright of a Jinn trial, he had finaly put his need for vengeance behind him.
“Red,” she turned to her uncle slowly, “Can you talk to The Guild? Make sure we’d be welcome there. As hunters, I mean.”
“You want to hunt?”
“I’m sick of waiting for crap to happen to me. I want to be the one that the bad guy fears for a change.”
Silence greeted her and then the three of them snorted. Jai at least tried to cover his laughter but it was too late. She saw.
“What?” she snapped. “Bad guys wil fear me.”
“Not at first,” Red disagreed, stil smiling. “But your appearance wil act in your favor. They won’t be expecting your kind of power.”