Azazil’s side. “Why?” she asked him bitterly.
“He is your trigger.” Asmodeus was a bored school boy again as he shrugged at her. “I needed to unleash the Seal to see if I was correct about something.”
“So Jai is okay?” Ari’s heartbeat thundered in her ears.
“Jai is fine. Stil imprisoned, but unharmed.”
Disbelief and betrayal wrenched her from the ground and she stumbled inelegantly to her feet to gaze up at the Sultan, desperately fighting her rage and the Seal. That last time had been terrifying. The Seal had truly taken over her, and she’d known what the Seal was. Whom it was. She gasped, her anger at finding out Jai was stil imprisoned dissipating as she turned to gaze wide-eyed at Asmodeus. “Lilif,” she whispered.
Asmodeus gave her a mocking smile of congratulations.
“I don’t understand.” Her chest felt too tight again.
Azazil lifted a bejeweled hand to draw her attention. “When Lilif dared to take the essence of Asmodeus from him—the one being she loved above al others—I
knew I could no longer sit idly by. The problem, my dear Seal, is that Lilif—like myself, my sons and Asmodeus—is part of the balance. I feared kiling her would tear too deeply at the seams, so I separated her essence from her body and hid them where no one could find them. It meant she was gone without realy being gone. The only son who realized I hadn’t destroyed her essence was White. I am grateful for the distrust between him and his brothers. It has kept it a secret from al else. It has kept White silent. Silent but persistent.
Centuries passed. I grew weary. A little bored, I suppose.” He shrugged carelessly. “And along came King Solomon, whom I knew was destined to have his place in religious history. Something about him reminded me of Lilif in her youth. She had been so eager for more, so eager for power. So eager to be extraordinary.
Sometimes I would return to the place I had kept her essence just to feel her around me, and one day I had a thought. Jinn can take another Jinn’s essence and trap them within a Jinn body, but the essence is never truly gone unless it is in another body. I didn’t want that then. Someone having her power inside of them. But it was a shame to waste the power so I took her essence and I trapped it in the Seal. The ring was cast with my own magic, the only thing powerful enough to trap her essence in metals and I divided that essence into light and dark so that Solomon could command good Jinn with the brass part of the Seal and command the evil with the iron part of it. It was so beautifuly poetic, Ari. My Lilif’s power out in the world again, but reined in by me as I had always wanted. The brass and iron stamps were merely for my own enjoyment. I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of good and evil.
But Solomon failed just as Lilif had done. He could not live up to my ideal of the ring. He abused it.” His features hardened. “So I sent him into the desert to die and replaced him with Asmodeus, who fulfiled his destiny for him. After that, I asked Asmodeus whether he would like me to return her essence to its hiding place or whether he would like to guard it as it was.”
“You already know what I chose,” Asmodeus interrupted quietly.
“Why?” Ari felt like crying at the knowledge of what had been placed inside of her by her father. “And does The White King know what it is he has done to me?”
“No,” Asmodeus replied. “He doesn’t realize that what he’s looking for is the actual Seal. He thinks the Seal wil procure what he’s looking for. As for your former question… my reasons are my own.”
“No one knows that Lilif’s essence existed within the Seal. Although, I expect my clever sleuth of a son, Red, has surmised the truth by now after learning of your dreams and paying a visit to an old friend of mine.” Azazil seemed to take in Ari’s searching, burning eyes with little feeling as he continued his story, “I admit to being intrigued when I discovered White’s plans to steal the Seal and use it to conceive a child who would carry its properties within her or him. He thought he was merely creating a conduit for his scheme to find Lilif’s body and essence, whereas I was curious if Lilif’s essence, so naturaly placed within a Jinn, would bring her back into the balance without the danger of her madness. So I ordered Asmodeus to let your mother seduce him for the Seal.”
“Oh my God.” Ari felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “It was al you. Al this time, it was al you.”
“I wanted you for myself. I wanted to see if, through you, I could have a Lilif the way my Sultana was always meant to be. She was supposed to be light and dark.
True, she was always heavier on the dark and Asmodeus always heavier on the light, but there was always a balance. Until she let the darkness destroy her. But through you there was hope that at least her power could exist as it should have.” He dropped his head, seeming almost sad. “But Asmodeus, unaware of my true hopes, grew suspicious of what the Seal was realy doing to you. When you argued, your eyes changed to black like Lilif’s and your whole being reminded him so greatly of her, that he decided today to trigger the Seal and see once and for al if his suspicions were correct.”
“What suspicions?” she asked, taking a step back, but the fear in her gut was teling her she already knew what he was about to say.
“That Lilif’s essence is escaping the Seal and fighting to take control of you.”
“How is that even possible?” Ari whispered. “I thought the essence was just the power?”
“Lilif is no ordinary Jinn, Ari. She is almost as old as I. No Jinn was ever meant to carry her essence within them. I see that now.”
“So I’m what? An experiment gone wrong?” she spat.
He shrugged. “Succinctly put. Now I think we should take the Seal back before Lilif causes any more damage.”
Back? Back… back would mean kiling her. Right? Oh God, she despised them! Ari wanted to destroy Azazil, she wanted to command the damn son-of-a-bitch to
his knees… and Lilif was in there ready to help her to do it…
As if sensing the danger within her, Asmodeus began to move a hand and Ari felt the gathering of his power in the air. She blew back from him using her newly found speed and held up a hand. “Stop!” she commanded and both Azazil and Amosdeus’ expressions darkened, like thunder clouds roling over a sky that had only moments ago been calm.
To al of their surprise Asmodeus took a menacing step forward, the Seal’s command seeming to have no effect on him.
“Stop, Asmodeus!” she cried out in desperation, her hand flying up as if to pulse the power of the Seal out of him.