“They’re here,” Falima said softly.
I stood slowly and peered down into the room.
The djinn and Asura warriors were indeed here. Sprawled face down across the tables, some with goblets still clutched in their hands. Civilians moved among them like ghosts, working in pairs to move the bodies.
I stumbled down from the platform, my pulse thudding in my throat. Craven and Walia were side by side, Farid and Sabha on the ground by the table behind them. The ascended Asura and the djinn that had kept the Authority on their toes for centuries, the army that had lived for truth and justice, was gone.
The devouring force…
The army was dead.
Wiped out by poisoned wine. But he’d left me alive so he could use the bond between us to get into the royal domain.
And the civilians? Either they were no threat to him, or he’d only had enough poison for the troops.
“We woke an hour ago,” Falima said. “I don’t recall falling asleep. It was an unnatural slumber, and it overtook the whole settlement. Dodi was the first to awaken.”
“I saw him,” Dodi said. “Iblees. He was holding a crown made of black stone above his head. It made my stomach hurt because it’s not his crown. It’s yours. You’re meant to hold it. I’ve seen you wearing it. But something has changed.”
Wahida came running into the chamber, her hair wild as if she’d been tugging on it. “Forgive me. I remember. I remember now what I did. It was as if in a dream. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” She wailed and fell to the ground, beating at her chest as if it was a drum she wished to tear.
Ice crystalized in my veins. “Where is he? Where’s the evil bastard?”
“Gone,” Falima said. “Last night, we believe.”
“Last night…What…How long have I been asleep?”
“We slept the whole night and the whole day. The sun set an hour ago.”
“The coronation…It’s tonight. He’s going to steal the throne…But how? I don’t understand how he could take it. Fuck, where’s C’ael?” My heart sank. “Was he in on this too?”
“I didn’t know…” A soft whisper brushed my ear. “I didn’t see…”
“C’ael?” I turned this way and that, searching for him. “Where are you?”
A strangled sob tore at the air, and C’ael materialized beside me, his expression a mask of torment. “I…I remember things now. Things I believehemade me forget. Iblees was in the prison, and there was…something else. Something cold, calculating, and hungry, and it…” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “It gotinside. It latched on when we…when Araz freed us.”
“Freed you and Iblees?”
“Yes. I…I believe that when Iblees first called me forth, something else came too. It became a part of us.”
“The primordial evil…” Falima said. “We believed it to be a tale, one woven by the Asura to mask the truth of Iblees, but it’s real, and it has taken over our god.”
Iblees was Araz and Araz Iblees, but the primordial evil was in the driver’s seat. My mind whirred. The deva had left thethrone to Iblees, so it stood to reason that he would have claim to it. Hence the reason he’d been locked away by the Asura in the first place. A prison where the throne couldn’tfeelhis claim, and now…Now it would accept him, and in doing so, it would accept the primordial evil.
Oh gods. I had to stop him. But what if the throne chosehimoverme? What if my claim wasn’t strong enough now that the djinn god’s essence was free from the prison, even though it was tainted by a parasite?
I had to try. “I need to get to the royal domain and stop the coronation.”
“There is no way out,” Falima said. “Only the generals and Iblees can open the wards to let anyone in or out.”
Think, Leela, think. “What powers the wards?”
“There is a convergence in the temple, I believe,” Falima said. “I have heard of it but never seen it firsthand.”
“Then take me there. Now. Maybe we can figure out how to drop the wards.”
“Even if you take them down, there is no way you can get to the royal domain in time to stop him now,” Falima said. “It’s hundreds of miles away. It would take too long by carriage. There is no way to get there before high moon, not unless you use transference or fly.”
