The door burst open, and there was Tamin with fury in his eyes, and his men behind him, two of them holding a woman dressed in black, the other two holding crossbows. They had Annalie, Ifra realized, after a moment of connection. She looked so serene that the men kept jostling her as if trying to get a reaction.
“What are you doing?” Tamin hissed. “Do you want to put our entire kingdom in jeopardy?”
“I want to free Erris,” Belin said.
“But what does he know? How is he fit to be king? Are you so desperate to go against me that you’re willing to let him have the throne?”
“Tamin, we can’t do this,” Belin said. “We’re making the trees sick. Father did this to us, decades ago, and it hasn’t made us stronger. Only weaker. I agree, Erris may not be fit to rule now. But we could help him.”
“Oh, well, I see. You’re going to make a hero out of yourself now? Somehow I don’t think you intended to bring Ilsin and me along. I mean, you’ve got your betrothed! She is a Tanharrow! A rightful heir! She would have fixed it all with the old magic and you would have been the one looking to the future, so why bring Erris into it at all? I just don’t understand. I don’t think you’re really doing this for any noble purpose; you’re doing it to spite me.”
“Maybe I am,” Belin said. “In part.” He glanced at Ifra. “But the jinn… he asked me what sort of king I wanted to be. He told me I could be great ruler. And I thought then, that I would like to be that sort of ruler. But I can’t. None of us can. Because of this.”
As Belin spoke, Erris Tanharrow himself appeared, crawling rather shakily out of the catacombs. He looked like someone recovering from a bad bout of influenza, all pale and wasted, but he was up and alive, and even Belin looked a little startled.
Ifra seemed to sense the danger before he saw it; he looked at Tamin and saw the shock and anger in his eyes, saw his fingers gesture an order, saw the crossbow. He dived to cover Erris, taking the bolt in his side, gasping with pain, unable to cry out.
“Ifra!” Violet screamed.
But it took more than that to kill a jinn. Jinn couldn’t even take their own lives with ease-not that Ifra had tried. But he knew poison, knives to the gut, hanging ropes, and even fire were all useless. The curse of a jinn was not death, but to live at almost any cost.
“Ifra, kill Tamin, now!” Belin shouted in his ear.
Yes… that was the curse. Living at any cost, a life that was not his own. The wish roared through him, drowning his sense, overwhelming right and wrong and everything but a sudden surge of energy that made him spring to his feet and sweep his arm toward Tamin. Another crossbow struck Ifra and he hardly noticed. The Green Hoods pushed through the doors; he saw Keyelle’s familiar face, but it didn’t matter. Tamin’s body flew into the air, slammed against a tree with force, and Ifra felt the crack of his bones and the crush of organs. He had had to break Erris, and now he had to kill Tamin. There was no choice.
Tamin’s body slumped to the ground. Most lives were so fragile.
Ifra dropped to his knees, buried his face, and wept soundlessly. He’d never killed before. He’d done everything to get to know Belin, talk to him, convince him to choose a noble path. He didn’t like Tamin, of course, but what did that matter? Now he’d never wipe the sight from his eyes, never shake the feeling from his limbs of that power overcoming him. Why did he have so much power, even now, even without three wishes? It wasn’t fair. He didn’t want it.
The commotion in the room died down quickly. With Tamin gone, and the Green Hoods there, Tamin’s men didn’t fight back.
Violet’s hands, small and cool, were touching Ifra’s shoulder, his head, then gently probing wounds he barely felt. “Ifra. Ifra.”
Violet couldn’t console him either.
“Ifra, it had to be done,” Belin said.
Violet sprung to her feet. Ifra slowly stood behind her. “It had to be done?” she cried. “What do you mean, ‘it had to be done’? Then why didn’t you do it? You’re a coward, an awful coward, to ask somebody else to kill your brother!”
“I couldn’t do it like Ifra could.”
“But you’re the one who wanted it!” Violet picked up a fallen branch shed by one of the trees and struck Belin with it. “You should have seen Ifra after what you made him do to Uncle Erris. It made him sick. He took care of me and was pretty much the kindest person I’ve ever met, and you wouldn’t even let him speak. You made him do an awful thing he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life.”
Belin’s brow was bleeding, his eye rapidly swelling. “I know… it seems harsh, but Tamin… just tried to kill Erris. He’s ruthless like Father. If I had put him in jail, I could never have rested. None of you grew up with him, none of you really knew him like I did. But I couldn’t wave a hand and kill him. It was my last wish. Ifra-I’m sorry.”
Ifra would not forgive Belin that. No. He didn’t even let Ifra speak, and now Ifra knew why. Belin couldn’t bear to hear Ifra beg or plead when he made that wish, maybe he didn’t even want to hear Ifra cry afterward. It was easier that way. Easier to pretend Ifra wasn’t mortal.
But Ifra himself had wished, for a moment, that Belin would ask him to kill Tamin. Just as jinns twisted the wishes of their masters, Ifra felt Belin had somehow twisted his own unspoken wish. Was it somehow his fault?
And then: “I wish to set you free now,” Belin said.
Ifra had dreamed of this moment. He would fall to his knees in gratitude. He would cry with joy.
But now, all he could say was, “I’m glad you gave me that.”
Then he took Violet’s hand.
He turned to Erris. “I will serve you, Erris Tanharrow, as a free man.”