Harley Merlin 12 Bella Forrest (100 best novels of all time txt) 📖

and her black smoke thinned out. “So, I have decided upon the safest course of action. I have encouraged all djinn to endure, in the faith that Erebus’s power will eventually return.”

The winds whipped up again, though they didn’t howl so much as whimper. The djinn were afraid, and they had every right to be.

“Then your faith is misplaced, Safiya,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t mean to defy your authority, but Erebus has taken on a personal project involving the city of Atlantis. I don’t have the details, but I am certain that it will take a while. Longer than you, or I, might have.”

Safiya’s eyes flashed brighter, and whorls of sand twisted up around us. “He is pursuing this path again?”

“Yes, that’s what he’s up to,” I replied, squinting. “I didn’t know he’d tried before. Can you tell me why?”

“Sadly not. I only know that it relates to reaching that ruined city; his reasoning has always been unclear. At least now I understand why we have been separated from his power.” Safiya’s smoke billowed wildly, her skin pulsating with obvious rage. “And no, this is not his first attempt at Atlantis. However, if we are suffering this way, he has reached much further in his quest than ever before. It is my guess that he has succeeded in the part where he must take a human form. He tried that once before and failed. Yes, that must be why we have been cut off and are suffering.”

“Surely you already know that? You must’ve already known about the human body thing, right? Aren’t you all connected to his brain or something?” Santana squinted in confusion.

Safiya sighed. “A common misconception. The djinn are connected to each other, but we are not connected to Erebus’s mind unless he desires it and wishes to send messages to us. When he shut us out and the illness began, we had no sense of why. But now I understand. So, I suppose we must sit and talk awhile… There is no other option now.”

I sat cross-legged on a patchwork of intricately woven rugs, with the warmth of a fire taking the chill from my bones. Santana sat beside me, clutching a satin cushion to her chest with a heavy woolen blanket draped over her shoulders. Without a word, she took the edge and put it around me, and the two of us huddled inside. Kadar may have kept me relatively toasty, but nothing beat having Santana near. Even if I’d been roasting, I would’ve bunched up next to her.

One of the bioluminescent pools glowed nearby. The palm fronds swayed in the breeze while the fragrance of desert rose mingled with the earthier scent of woodsmoke. Abdhi sat opposite us, keeping a reverent distance from Safiya, while the rest of the free djinn stood or sat close by, listening in on our conversation.

“As I mentioned, I was created from Erebus’s primary Purge Plague, many thousands of years ago. One moment I was energy, drifting in nothingness, and the next, I was forced into sentience through an innocent magical. She died, as the rest of the mortals in that first wave did. Our power was too great for them to survive.”

“Were there other djinn like you?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes, but they are long dead now. As they passed into the ether, returning to the Chaos from whence they were birthed, Erebus created more of us, though he granted us less power than before. No doubt he feared an uprising, either from us or from Gaia herself to protect her own creations, if he kept killing them the way he did during that first expulsion. I imagine that was his way of preventing punishment befalling him, by promising to find an alternative method and undoubtedly claiming that the first bout of killing had been an accidental effect of our release into the world.”

“So you’re the only one of your kind left?” Santana queried.

“Indeed. I am the last of the first. All these djinn around you now, and within the wider world, are echoes of that initial glory. However, his intention never faltered—that has remained constant. We were made to be Erebus’s eyes and ears in the mortal realm, watching and listening and working in his name, covering all corners of this earth.”

Santana tapped her lip with a finger. “His network.”

“Yes, his network of unwitting emissaries.” Safiya sighed. “But, with all Child creations, there were unavoidable flaws in our conception. Flaws he is not able to undo, even now, or we would not be what we are.”

I frowned as I held my hands up to the fire’s warmth. “Flaws? What kinds of flaws?”

“We are bound to his will, and we rely upon him for our power, but he cannot intervene or negate the spells that we perform of our own volition,” she explained.

“I’m guessing that doesn’t work in your favor now, though?” Santana pressed, leaning forward.

“Sadly not,” Safiya replied. “Erebus has never succeeded in gaining a mortal body before. As long as his being is restrained in human form, the djinn will continue to be separated from his power, and we will slowly decay and fade back into the ether we emerged from. We cannot stop him, and we cannot prevent our own demise. It is the tragedy of the perpetually subservient.”

I raised a nervous hand. “Is it okay to speak in front of… them?”

“They are free djinn, hiding here to avoid the call of Erebus. They hold no love toward him, and he evidently holds no love toward them. Anything you say here will be treated with utmost discretion and will not leave this city,” Safiya promised.

Funnily enough, I believed her. What djinn would be mad enough to defy their matriarch? Erebus might’ve been their “father” in a sense, but he was an absentee father if I’d ever seen one. Which made Safiya the single mother, trying to figure out what was best for all her children.

“I guess that’s