It wasn’t fair that someone should suffer so much grief in less than a year, but that was life. And that was definitely Jinn life.
In the end, Ari cried herself to near unconsciousness, barely aware of Jai carrying her up to her room where he tucked her into bed so she could sleep and block out the pain for a while.
Instead of the mind-numbing relief of deep black, Ari dreamed.
Somewhere Ari could feel the dreams like an unnatural pressure in her head, but that feeling was overwhelmed by the images in her mind. She floated from dreamscape to dreamscape—from Sandford and Vicker’s Woods with Charlie, to Cincinnati Zoo with Derek, to Arizona with Fallon. And then Pazuzu was there, splicing her, lashing her, shouting his threats of forever in her face until she fell to the ground, only to have to watch as Pazuzu slashed Jai to ribbons, cut Trey’s throat, and wiped a hand across the sky to reveal the faces of Michael and Caroline and the rest of the Roe Guild Hunters. Her heart literally stopped when Rachel and Staci appeared in the group.
Pazuzu was taunting her. Letting her know that all the people she cared about were going to die for what she’d done to him.
Their faces and voices lambasted her with color and sound and pain.
And just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, they swirled and blurred into a funnel, a vacuum, disappearing into a black that quickly transformed to a scene so vivid, it was like it was happening all over again.
Azazil’s palace. Azazil himself.
Ari glanced up at him before her.
And Asmodeus. He stared at her with a strange intensity.
She was going to die. They were going to take the Seal from her …
She fought to control her breathing and relax the way Jai had taught her. Sacrificing herself meant Lilif would be kept imprisoned. Surely that was worth the sacrifice?
But if she offered to sacrifice herself and there was a chance that she actually made it out on the other side, she was getting something of worth out of it.
“Come any closer and I’ll command Azazil to kill you before you make a move,” Ari told Asmodeus softly.
The room darkened as Azazil’s energy thickened with what Ari assumed was his anger. “What do you want?” he asked shrewdly.
Ari drew in a shuddering breath. “If I die, you save Jai and let him return unharmed to his Tribe.”
“Done.” He nodded, his expression one of utter boredom.
Ari narrowed her eyes. “And—”
“And?” Azazil sat forward, his eyebrow raised in haughty enquiry.
“If I do this willingly … and I live …then I get to call in a favor.”
“I thought that was your favor.”
“No, that was a gesture of good will.”
He smirked. “If your favor then is for the sorcerer … I cannot save him if he kills the Labartu. I am sorry. That is out of my hands.”
Dammit. Ari forced down her helpless tears. They were of no use to her here. “Fine. But I still want a favor if I survive. And I want your oath that you’ll give me whatever it is I ask of you.”
She flicked a gaze at Asmodeus to see his eyes gleaming at her again, as if he almost … respected her in that moment.
And as she turned to find Azazil’s answer, she saw he was smiling, as if enjoying himself immensely. “You have my oath that if you survive, I will grant you a favor, if it is within my power to do so.”
“Done.”
Asmodeus was a blur, his glowing fist crashing down into her chest before Ari had even blinked. Shocked agony tore through Ari as his dark eyes bored into her pleading ones. I am sorry, his voice whispered inside her head. Or had she just imagined it?
It was with relief that his fist withdrew from her, light pulsing between the cracks in his fingers. They uncurled slowly, and the throbbing ball of ember in his palm was the last thing Ari saw before the sweet relief of dying pain swept her away on its tides …
Ari clawed her way through the dark and forced her eyes open.