That was my and C’ael’s cue to leave. “Thank you for everything.”
“You can thank me by stopping the primordial evil,” he said.
“We will,” C’ael replied.
He climbed out first then lifted me into the water. We waded to shore, where the party waited.
Bhartina and Ramashi hurried down the beach as we stepped out of the sea.
“What are you doing here?” Bhartina asked, wide-eyed. “We were not sent word of your arrival.”
Not sent word? “Didn’t Zarael tell you what’s happened?” She stared at me blankly, and a pit opened up in my belly. “Zarael was bringing djinn here to safety.” I searched her face as I spoke, looking for an inkling of recognition.
Her brows pinched. “No one has arrived here since you left for the labyrinth.”
Oh gods…
C’ael slipped his hand into mine and squeezed.
The wind screeched, and a huge raindrop hit me in the forehead.
“Move!” Jasha ordered. “Storm is going to hit.”
Bhartina nodded and hurried us up the beach.
“We can talk back at the village,” Ramashi said. His gaze flicked to C’ael then back to me, but he didn’t ask who he was.
I jogged up the beach surrounded by djinn, my heart fracturing because if Zarael and Jaantor weren’t here, then something awful must have happened to them.
It wasstrange being back in the village. Back inside the building where I’d stayed with Araz and my friends when we’d trained for the sea trial. Nostalgia was a lump in my throat and a fist in my chest.
I sat at the worn wooden table, mug of herbal tea clutched in my hand, attempting to wrangle my emotions into neat boxes and arrange my thoughts into words that would relay the full gravity of what was happening to this world.
Bhartina and Ramashi took seats opposite C’ael and me. Jasha stood by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, gaze narrow as it flicked between me and C’ael.
Zarael and Jaantor were gone.
That much was obvious.
The primordial evil must have done something. Maybe the same thing that he’d done to the settlement? Gods, what if my other friends had met similar fates?
C’ael reached up to graze my cheek with his fingers. “Breathe, Leela. It will be all right.”
“Who are you?” Jasha demanded. “Who are you to touch her in that way? To console her inhisplace?”
C’ael fixed Jasha with a cold gaze. “I’m her friend. Andheisn’t here. But if he was, I have no doubt he would appreciate my efforts to comfort Leela.”
“I doubt that very much,” Jasha said. “Leela is bonded to Araz, and bonded drohi do not take kindly to any other male touching their demigod.”
He should know. He’d taken a fist to the face for laying hands on me, but I’d also learned that his hatred toward me had been jealousy. He was in love with Araz, and he obviously had no clue what had happened to him. No one here did.
“Jasha…Araz has been taken over by the primordial evil, and the primordial evil has taken the throne in Aakash Sansaar.” He blinked sharply, his mouth parting in shock. “The primordial evil has the residents of the royal domain in his control and has cut off entrance to the sky world.”
Bhartina cursed softly. “Well that explains why communication with the Isle has dried up. Tell us everything.”
I spilled the whole story, from the labyrinth to how we’d believed Araz dead, to the primordial evil kidnapping me and tricking me into believing I was engaging with Araz. I told them about the revelation that Iblees was Araz. How the evil had latched on to him, and how I was Iblees’s twin flame. I explained how C’ael fit in to it all, then paused for a beat to let them absorb everything, expecting questions, but Bhartina urged me to continue.
I explained how I’d failed to save the throne and had to flee, leaving my friends and anchor behind, about the camp, the vayujaari and the nagrata. About Pashim being back and Priti being Yama.
