“Right,” Joe says, his gaze roving the ceiling.
“Drohi are not permitted in the Vidya tower in this domain,” Chaya says. “And neither are demigods.”
“But pari are,” Bina says.
“Erabi!” Joe and Dharma say in unison.
It looks like I have a way into the building of knowledge. All I need to do now is convince Erabi to sneak me in.
Chapter 24
I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS GIFT, BUT I’LL TAKE IT
PASHIM
Time moves oddly here, passing in a blink one moment and stretching out into an endless loop in the next. I’m not sure how to measure its passage except to live in each moment and experience it. The future, when I think of it, feels as if it doesn’t exist, and the past is entwined with the present, so I’m not sure how long we stay at the waystation. I don’t recall sleeping, even though Priti assures me that I did.
But I’m glad to be moving once again because moving means we’re headed toward something. Toward a future. And having a future…it matters.
The terrain shifts from dustlands to grasslands and then to mountains. I recognize the landscape here. It’s familiar in a way that makes my stomach tighten. This road, the mountain pass ahead, the gorge… “I have been here before. I was with…with Leela. That’s the gorge that holds the restless dead.” The sky darkens suddenly, starlight replacing midday sun. “What’s happening?”
“We’re getting close,” Priti says.
“What is this place?”
“An imprint. A memory. One that is shared by enough souls to have become a part of this landscape.”
“What do you mean,enough souls? Do you mean people who visited this place when alive but who are now dead?”
She looks across at me with a sad smile and shakes her head. “No, Pashim. I’m saying people who died violently nearby.”
My breath snags in my lungs as the world tilts, and when it rights itself, I’m in the gorge, Priti beside me.
The silence is so loud it might as well be a scream, and when Priti speaks, her voice is a blade, slicing through the viscous quiet.
“Come forward,” she says. “I mean you no harm.”
A low, whistling sound fills my ears, and the wind picks up my hair, rifling chilly fingers through it to caress my scalp. The space around us shimmers, and several spectral forms manifest. Tall, powerfully built males with fire in their eyes. I recognize them. Notwhothey are butwhatthey are.
Djinn.
A collective voice rises around us. “If you have come to lead us home, then abandon your quest. We must stay.”
Priti holds up her hand. “I’m not here to convince you to do anything, but may I ask why you must stay?”
A long silence stretches. “We do not know.”
“Okay, wanna know whyI’mhere?”
“We are curious, yes.”
“To ask you to help your kin.” She indicates me. “A soul who was taken before his time and who has a destiny yet to fulfill.”
All eyes turn to me, glowing brighter, as if seeing me for the first time. “He is us, and yet…not of us.”
“Yes, much changed after the war.”
“But we won, did we not?”
