My chest tightened, but I nodded. “Okay, I’ll bear that in mind.”
He handed me the coffee mug. “Sit. Please.”
I sat opposite him, cradling the mug in my hands, my stomach weaving itself into knots as I waited for him to tell me this awful thing that he’d been keeping from me.
“We were friends, you and I,” he said. “Vayelle…” That name on his lips sent goosebumps racing over my body. “We were more than friends sometimes…” Heat flashed in his eyes, and my mouth went dry.
He dropped his gaze, giving me the reprieve I needed to pull my mouth off the floor and sip my scalding coffee.
“I loved you then,” he said. “I wasinlove with you, and I believed you felt the same. But then Ilyarien entered your life,and there was no competition.” His chest rose and fell. “When the war between Asura and djinn began, I was on your side, helping you where I could despite the risk to myself. I told myself it was because I loved you, but I know now it was because I wanted you to see me as the one you should choose. I hoped you would change your mind about Ilyarien…About Iblees. I even helped broker the peace treaty.
“But you still turned to him, and it broke me. It released a part of me that I will never forgive. The part that betrayed you. I let the Asura forces into your inner sanctum on the night of the consummation of your mating vows.”
Ice flooded my veins. “You…You caused Iblees to be captured? You caused mydeath?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes. I wanted you, and in trying to claim you, I lost youandmy self-respect.”
Fire churned behind my sternum, anger bubbling and wanting to rise, but the tears in his eyes, the pure remorse, the waves of guilt beating off him quelled the wrath.
It wasn’t my wrath; it was hers. The woman I’d once been. The one my soul remembered. But that personwasn’tme. I couldn’t allow it to be, because if I did, I’d be consumed by the need for vengeance. Hatred would blacken my heart, and that…that would serve no purpose in the greater fight ahead.
The Chandra thatIknew had saved my life more than once. The Chandra that I knew was my friend. “I forgive you.”
“No.” Tears slipped down his cheeks. “I do not deserve forgiveness. Not for that, and not for?—”
A djinn burst into the kitchen, his eyes wide. “Bhartina summons you now.”
Chandra wiped at his tears, composing his features. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“A ship has arrived in the sky above the eastern cliff. A ship made of clouds.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I shoved my chair back, heart pounding hard. “Zarael’s here. They made it. They fucking made it.”
The journeyfrom the residences to the cliff top above where the ship hovered passed in a blur.
The cloud ship hovered several meters above the cliff, and a group of djinn and drohi led by Bhartina stood facing two figures dressed in leather and mist.
Relief tore a soft sob from my throat at the sight of my vayujaari friends.
Jaantor stood, hands fisted, jaw tight, but Zarael had a haunted look about her, dark shadows beneath her eyes. She broke away from the others and jogged down to meet me.
“Leela!”
I caught her in a hug. “You made it.”
She buried her face in the crook of my neck, her powerful frame shaking as she soaked my skin with tears. What the fuck? I made soothing circles on her back, locking eyes with Jaantor as he approached.
Where were the others? Where were the civilians? Jaantor must have read the questions in my eyes.
“They’re dead,” he said flatly. “They’re all dead.”
Part Five
Is this the end or the beginning?
Chapter 32
ENOUGH OF THE REVELATIONS ALREADY!
