Page 84 of Heavensent & Hellbent

She knew. She knew all this time and didn’t tell me.

“I don’t know…” I whispered to myself, sure she wouldn’t be able to hear me.

It was unclear if she did, but she growled, “Roxana, just fucking do it.”

Her anger was something I wanted to avoid, and it was for that reason that I did as I was told. I stepped back, took a deep breath in and out, and warned her to stay back. I shut my eyes and imagined that I was someone different. I was the kind ofperson who worked out and was strong. So strong I could lift a car. So strong I could fight Zahhak with my bare hands and win. So strong I could rip a lion apart. That thought made me open my eyes. I was an animal lover and was not inclined to fight a lion, let alone kill it. I had no clue where that came from.

“Rox?” Azar yelled.

I shut my eyes again.Focus.I could kick the door down. It would be easy—I simply had to lift my leg and kick.

When I opened my eyes, the door was on the floor, and Azar was running across it to grab me into the tightest hug I had ever received. Her hair smelled like it always did, of cherries and berries, her favorite shampoo that she had used for as long as I could remember. I buried my head in the crook of her neck. At five foot two, she was shorter than me, so that involved stooping while I sobbed into her. Once I let it all out, she released me from her grip and held on to my shoulders, examining me.

Azar wore the same cloak as me, and it oddly suited her. My sister resembled a feline, both in her features—with her catlike eyes and upturned lips—and in the way she presented herself. She often wore tight-fitting dark clothes and slunk around, her hair in a sleek bob. This was all to the dismay of my dad, who wanted her to be more covered and look less like a reminder of the woman he lost.

It had been months since I’d last seen my older sister, and these were not the circumstances in which I had imagined our reunion.

“You knew about all this?” I asked, accusation thick in my voice.

Her pale lips were set into a fine line. She nodded but didn’t elaborate.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” I pressed. Despite the overwhelming relief at seeing her—and realizing I wasn’t stuck here alone—resentment overtook all other emotions. She’d known all about what we were and had never once considered telling me? Things could have been so much different had I known.

“She told me not to,” she explained. “Mum wanted you to have a normal life. She hid it from everyone, but when she died, she left me a note…One of us needed to know, just in case. And as the eldest, I was the one given that particular privilege.” There was a hint of resentment inhertone, too, which softened my anger.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get out of here?” I asked in a small voice, instinctively looking behind me, to the locked door. Surely someone had heard me break down a door? If they had, they didn’t seem to care enough to rush in.

“Of course,” Azar said, though her tone didn’t match the certainty of her words. She took another step into my room, surveying the area. “Well, you got the better room.”

Even now, she was trying to pull the big sister card and get the better of the two rooms.

I raised an eyebrow to her back. “Really?”

She turned on her heel. “I’m just trying to figure out what this place is.”

“It’s the Underworld.”

She let out a noise of impatience as she peered out thebarred window, disappointed at the lack of view. “I know that, Sherlock. I mean this palace specifically.”

“I’ve been here before.” I explained everything to her, having to repeat myself several times when I told her about Zain and me being reborn into many lifetimes.

“An angel?” she interrupted. “You fell in love with an angel?” She stared off into the distance, through the doorway leading to her room. “Okay, we’re screwed.”

“Azar!” I scolded, eyes widening. “You can’t say that. You need to be the voice of hope.”

She bit her bottom lip, was practically gnawing on it in her increasing anxiety. “That was before I knew that our evil grandfather was stopping you from making a generational mistake that meant you would be—burnt at the stake, wasn’t it?”

“That only happened once, though,” I said.

“Yeah, well, that isn’t the context I was given.”

“Why did you think he’d taken you, then?”

“Well, since Mum died, he’s been visiting my dreams every so often. He knew I knew, so he wanted me to really turn to the dark side. I started taking zopiclone to sleep, along with some recreational drugs, which did block it out, but then he began visiting me in my waking life while I was in clubs and stuff, so I stopped taking those drugs pretty quick. Since you guys went to Denver, he’d become a bit more persistent. I hadn’t been replying to you because I was just trying to survive.

“Then he told me now that I’m twenty-one, I had to join the jinn army. Apparently, royalty or not, service is compulsory.And he wants me to lead the army one day, as the eldest. He said in a previous life I was a great warrior, a leader.”

It was unsurprising to an extent; Azar had always been the athletic one of the two of us. She relished going for early-morning runs, lifted weights every day, and even worked at a gym. Icouldsee her leading an army. Just not a jinn army.