I sat up, Lila slid off me and rolled to her feet. “Is that it, are we there?”
I looked around us. “I think so.”
Maggi sat in her same chair with her eyes at half-mast as if she were dozing. “You are both fully here. That is interesting. Most don’t dream so deeply into this world.”
“This is another world?” I couldn’t help the question.
She gave a single nod. “It is. And in many cases, what happens here is reflected in the real world. So, you must be careful if you find yourself here. Death is final in these dreams, and not a game.”
“Awesome,” I muttered. “One more place that can kill me.”
She smiled. “I doubt it will ever come to that. But be wary.”
Lila trotted in a circle. “I feel awake. Are you sure we are not awake?”
“Yes, you are bound to Zamira, and she is here fully, so you are as well.” Maggi looked at me again. “But that is not why you are here. You want to understand what is happening. Why all this is coming at you, all at once.”
I didn’t dare hope for that much. “And why you’re helping me. You really haven’t answered that one yet either.”
She smiled, but the smile slipped as she settled into speaking. She waved her hand in front of her and the wooden floorboards turned to sand and a miniature Oasis I knew all too well. The water sparkled a clear blue, the trees around it were thick with foliage, but none of that held my eyes. The sand was covered in red spots and golden-furred, unmoving bodies. My throat clenched at the sight of one of my worst memories.
“This is where the world turned on its head, Zam, not only for you, but for all of us. The Jinn and Marsum, in particular, believed he could become the super power the Emperor had been for so long. You see, even asleep, the Emperor still draws on the Jinn. He uses their power to keep from being put too deeply into stasis. That is how he kept his son from killing him. He knows his time of escape is coming, and he is banking on not being weak when he emerges.”
I stared at the bodies of my family as the memory, the smells, the sounds, rolled through me as if I stood there again. “What has that got to do with my family?”
Her eyes lowered as she stared at the water of the Oasis. “Because the lions held the Jinn in check. Your mother held the Jinn in check. She taught the Bright Lions to fight in a way that allowed them to battle with the Jinn on a more even field. She led them into battle, not your father.” She swirled her hand and the scene changed to one I didn’t know. This one was frozen too, a still picture cut out of time.
A woman with black hair and green eyes fought from the back of a huge chestnut horse with a flail I knew all too well in her hands as she clashed with a Jinn. Her eyes were narrowed and mouth open in a scream of what I could only think of as defiance. My skin prickled. It was like looking at myself, but I had never fought in the desert with the flail from the back of a chestnut horse.
“That’s . . . your mother?” Lila whispered. “She looks just like you, Zam.”
Maggi swirled her hand through the image, turning it and showing all sides of the action. “She was determined to see the lions live for more reasons than that she loved them and your father. She knew there would be one with the blood of a lion in their veins that would become the Wall Breaker. She believed the wall needed to come down, that the Emperor needed to be freed.”
She swirled her fingers and the scene shifted to another I didn’t know, one that made my heart freeze in my chest. A little girl with dark hair and bright green eyes sat crying in the sand, her chubby legs not yet able to stand on their own. In front of her stood the woman who was my mother. My whole life I’d been told that I was the cause of her death. Shem had said I wasn’t the cause, that I was older, but I’d not really believed him. Because that would mean the truths I’d lived with and carried as a weight for so long were in reality, lies.
What I was looking at put that belief and those truths into question in a way that Shem’s words could never have done. Unless it was something worse that had stolen my mother from me. For the first time, it hit me that my childhood was nothing what I’d thought—what I’d been trained to believe.
My breath came in little gasps. I couldn’t help it as understanding flowed through me, what Maggi was going to show me. . . “Do not make me watch my mother die.”
Maggi lifted a hand and gave a single nod. “I will spare you that. But you need to see what comes before, the pieces of the puzzle that may help you understand who you are.”
The image swelled until I stood within it behind my childhood self. My mother’s back was to me and she faced someone I knew.
The man in front of her was Shem—a younger version, but Shem without a doubt—and he was arguing hard. The action and sounds went from nothing to full-on in the single beat of my heart. My child self cried softly, and the two adults raised their voices.
“You must run. Take the girl and go. The Jinn know she’s the one,” Shem said. “They will come for her and what then? You must go, for all that is holy in this land, you are not strong enough to protect her here. If you run, you’ll have a chance.”
His words were like a slap to my face. My mother had been weak, and everyone believed her incapable too. Just as they believed of me.
She shook her head. “They don’t know any such thing, Shem, and neither do you. You are speculating once again. The Jinn might suspect, but there are others who could be the Wall Breaker. There are others who could fit the prophecy.”
“No.” He snapped the word at her. “There are not. You might cast doubt on those here to protect her and you might make it look like another cub has the potential, but you and I know the truth, and so do the Jinn. You are a fool if you think she will make it to adulthood without some sort of protection. Without continually running.”
“Ishtar has agreed to take her if something should happen to me,” my mother said. “She will raise and protect her.”
“Then send her there now!” Shem roared, and my little self cried harder. I wanted to stop the noise, but my mother didn’t look back at me. She couldn’t turn her back on Shem. That was a sign of submissive behavior in the pride and I understood she couldn’t do that even for a crying child.
“No. She is my daughter, and if we are to be separated, I would have as much time as I could have with her.”
“You are a dead fool then.” He spun on his heel and stalked away, his shoulders hunched. She watched him go and then turned and dropped to her knees, holding her hands out to me. I’d been told my whole life that she’d died shortly after my birth.
I had to be at least six months old in this memory, assuming it was true. I didn’t know if that was better, knowing I’d had her love for a little while. But why then tell me I’d been the cause of her death? That my birth had taken her life? The guilt I’d lived with for as long as I could remember was not easy to let go, but I pushed it aside.
Maybe it was not my fault she died.
Of course, I was wrong. My birth hadn’t caused her death. But my life had.
“My little Zamira, can you crawl to me, lovely girl?” She wiggled her fingers at me and I obediently flopped forward into the sand and squirmed my way to her. She scooped me up and held me to her face, her eyes closed, and more than one tear tracking down her face. “What can I do to protect you, my darling? What can I do to help you survive until you are old enough to stop that old bastard? You are the only one who can. Such a heavy burden for one so young.”
She held on until the little me squirmed and squawked to be put down. My heart thumped wildly as the light around the scene changed, shifting to an early twilight. What old bastard was she talking about? Who could she possibly mean?
Marsum . . . it had to be Marsum.
As if thinking his name had summoned him, a dark mist flowed along the sand and through the trees until it formed into a man. A Jinn. My throat clenched because there was nothing I could do. This was a dream, a memory that couldn’t be changed.
&
nbsp; Marsum’s dark eyes and white-blond hair marked him clearly as a Jinn even if the mist he floated on for legs did not.
My mother spun and let out a hiss. “You wish to die today, Marsum?”
“Not today, princess,” he grinned at her, “but you carry with you the child that will ruin my plans. You and I both know she will be a powerful lioness, that she will lead this pride, and as such, I need her. Give her to me, let me raise her, and I will let the rest of your lions live—hell, I will even let you live. All of them. Surely a single life for the lives of so many is worth it to you?” He arched an eyebrow at her and I put my fists to my mouth.
Lila tightened her hold on my shoulder and it was only then I remembered she was with me. I reached up and put a hand on her, using her for an anchor. I wasn’t really here. I could do nothing to change what was happening.
That didn’t mean I didn’t want to change it, that I wouldn’t have given anything to stop what was coming.
“No,” my mother said softly. “She is not the one you believe her to be, Marsum. She will be small, nothing like the lions who are destined to take you down. She will be nothing more than a house cat at best. Just like me.”
He shrugged. “Do not ever say I was not generous, princess. Do not ever say that I didn’t give you a choice to save her now. To save yourself now.”
His words hovered in the air and the tension grew until I thought I would scream with it. She clutched my little self to her chest, her lips pressed to my cheeks as the tears flowed down her face. The scene exploded into action. Arrows flew from every direction and my mother dropped, curling her body around my much smaller one. The scene froze in that split second before any of the arrows hit my mother’s curled frame.
Maggi walked between the still form of Marsum and me, drawing my eyes to her. “She died protecting you and protecting what she thought you would become. You are the Wall Breaker, but I do not believe you will be the one to face the Emperor as some believe. That was meant for a lioness of great strength. That has always been the understanding.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, not giving half a shit about the Emperor. “Marsum killed both my parents.”
“He did.” She nodded.
“I’m going to kill him,” I whispered, feeling the truth of those five simple words to the core of my bones.
Maggi sighed softly. “But do not be quick to kill him, Zamira. He has a part yet in this story of yours. And I do not think you will like what will happen if you kill him. His son would be forced to take his place as the leader of the Jinn, and Marsum’s power would go to him.”
My knees wobbled and I locked them in place. “But then Maks would be free, and he would stop the Jinn from doing so much harm.” If anything, killing Marsum would solve a great deal of our problems.
Maggi grimaced and she held both hands up, wiping away the scene in front of us. “No. That is not how the succession works with the Jinn. Marsum carries his father’s cruelty, and his father’s father’s cruelty. When one leader dies, the next absorbs not only the power of his predecessor, but his very energy and memories. Maks as you know him would be lost.” Maggi looked at me. “Assuming you do not free him of the Jinn before that happens.”
My eyes snapped to hers. “What? Is that possible?”
Part of my mind said that Maggi was distracting me from finding out more about the truth of my life, and of my world, from answering my questions. The other part of my brain reminded me that I had asked her. This was the direction that my questions had taken us.
She clasped her hands in front of her and slowly nodded. “There is a way to free your Maks, if that is what you truly want. If it’s what he wants. Because you don’t know, Zamira, if he wants to be free of the Jinn. They are all he’s known his entire life. You’ve known him for a year at best, if you count the time he spent at the Stockyards. How do you know he even wants to be free?”
Her words could not have hit me harder. “He said he loved me.” I whispered those words, hating how weak they sounded. How frail. Because love was frail, love was dangerous. I knew that better than anyone else. It could be the worst of any weapon when it came to cutting someone.
“Perhaps he does.” She held her hands out, palms up, and in them swirled a new image. Maks riding Batman hard to the south, his face scored with cuts. At least he was alive. “He rides now at the will of his father, and his father will not let him go again.”
“How do we free him?” Lila asked.
Maggi looked from me to her and back again. “The only way is one you will not like.”
“Tell me!” I yelled at her, anger making me bold. “Tell me how to free him!”
She took a breath and held it a moment before answering. “There is no way to untangle a Jinn from his herd. To free him from his fate, you must kill him.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Ice Witch was right. I didn’t like her answer. And even though we were in a dream world, I couldn’t pretend that it was only a dream answer. I felt it in my bones.
Saying there was no untangling a Jinn from his herd sounded weird, and I let that weirdness keep me from absorbing the rest of what it meant. Her words settled into me slowly and I repeated them to myself under my breath before I let it reach the front of my mind.
Maggi was saying there was no way to save Maks. That he was lost to me. To us. That his freedom from a fate where he would absorb all his father would come only on his death.
As quickly as the understanding hit me, I balked.
No, I refused to believe that. There was always a way to save someone. Like Bryce. Like Darcy.
I clamped my teeth together, took a sharp breath between them, and shook my head before I spoke. “Nope. That’s not the answer I want. Fuck you, that is not the only answer!”
Lila grunted. “Me neither. We can find a way to save him. If anyone can, it’s us.”
Maggi smiled, but it was sad and full of a deep pain. “I believed I could save someone once. I believed I could save the man I loved. I could not, Zamira, and I am a powerful witch. You have power, but not the kind that could break spells. Your mother was a weak shifter with a fierce fire in her belly—the same fire you carry and that has brought you this far. You saw her. She died for love and it gave you nothing but a childhood without her.”
The words were like slaps. I took several steps back from her until I was no longer in the desert dream and once more stood inside her room with the fire crackling. My body slept. I could feel it resting while I sought the answers I needed in this dream world.
Lila let out a hiss and her tail lashed a warning. “You said you would help us. All you’re doing is being mean.”
“The truth often hurts, Lila,” Maggi said, not unkindly. “That is not my fault. I am but a messenger.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wallowed with indecision rearing its ugly fucking head.
I wanted nothing more than to kill Marsum, but if I did, then Maks would be bound in ways I could never free him from, unless I was willing to kill him too. But if I let Marsum live, Maks would never be free either. There was no winning this new game laid in front of me.
I shook my head. “I won’t give up on him. I won’t.”
“Me either,” Lila said. “He called me his sister. Family sticks it out through the worst. Even if he thinks we’ve abandoned him, we’ll keep on hunting for a way to free him.”
Thank the desert gods Lila saw and felt the same as I did—I was not sure I could find all those words in that moment. Because Maks was . . . he was the other half of me, and I couldn’t imagine him not being in my life. Even if we couldn’t be together, I needed to know he was safe and happy. I needed to know he was free of manipulations that would make him do things he didn’t want.
I didn’t think that was too much to ask.
Maggi spread her hands wide. “Peace to you both. I do not wish to bring either of you tumult in your hearts. I only wish to save you some pai
n. Hunt for a way to free him then, and if you find it, I will gladly help you with whatever you may need to make it come together. But be wary of false promises from those who would tell you they could break the ties between him and his kind.”
I stared at her, not sure where to go with this dream now. “Is there anything else you think I need to know?”
She nodded. “Many will tell you that you are the one, Zam, that has a chance to bring the Emperor to his knees. I don’t know how that would be possible. What I have seen in my scryings, over and over, is that you will meet the Emperor and three times he will make you an offer that will tempt you beyond all you could imagine. Three times. That is all I have seen. But do not let others tell you that you are the one to bring him down. That path will end with all our blood spilled in the desert sands.”
I frowned and closed my eyes, ignoring most of what she said, thinking only of what could tempt me—Bryce of course. My brother’s life was the temptation I wasn’t sure I could refuse again. The Emperor had asked me to bow to him twice, and twice I’d refused. What more could he offer me to make me say yes?
Of course, I knew the second I thought of the question, what it would be. A way to free Maks. Maks, who’d been at the Oasis battle, who’d done what he could to fight Marsum then when he’d been younger. Was that why he was so tightly bound to his father now, as punishment for daring to question him?
Which led to a new question.
“Why didn’t Marsum take me at the Oasis? He had me in his hands. Not once but twice.” I looked at Maggi, trying to discern if she was telling me the truth or not. She tucked her hands inside the sleeves of her long dress.
“Your mother is why, I believe. Her bloodline was weaker than your father’s and you obviously took after her. In this case, I believe it saved you. When he touched you, he felt how weak you were.” She frowned. “You are a mixture of possibility, Zamira. Weak, but destined for things even I do not understand. I have yet to figure out why that is.”
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 13
