Into the Unknown (The Djinn Kingdom Book 4) Read online

  “She misunderstood. I warned her to be wary of who she trusted until she came full circle in her power. She has now accepted the Djinn, and soon it will become very dangerous for her to remain in Launi as well, just as it was for me. But for Nova, it could be much worse. There has not been a half-Djinn in hundreds of years, and never one born away from the temple. There is no telling what will happen to her if she does not join us soon. Therefore, Lurlina is using all her powers to bring Nova here.”

  “Then why didn’t your slave, Captain Phoenix, just take her instead of using me as bait?”

  Lurlina’s smile dropped for a moment. “It is true we helped Captain Phoenix return to Launi. The use of our power in order to twist the fates of one’s destiny comes with a price. So, in return, we required the captain to find Nova and offer her the chance to come to the temple. I made it clear he could not force her, I do not want anyone to do anything against their will. The same goes for the captain. He did as I required for my services and is free to terrorize the skies of Launi once again.”

  Raine eyed Lurlina cautiously. It made sense. The captain was nowhere to be found at the temple. Perhaps he had returned to Launi, which would be deadly for the people of her kingdom.

  “Raine,” Kamali said. “I cannot return to Launi, and I cannot force Nova to come here. I warned her to stay away until she could make her choice of which power to embrace. Now that she has, it is time for her to join the temple.”

  “I just…I just don’t know what to believe.”

  “We understand,” Pacem said. “Truly we do. You’ve given us the courtesy of hearing our side of the tale. Now if you would still like to return to Launi, we can arrange that. But if you would like to linger, and get to know the empire of Unten, we feel you will find it very educational.”

  Raine bit her lower lip, feeling unsure about everything she’d once thought. The Djinn were courteous, and they had treated her kindly. They’d offered to return her to her kingdom. But her mind beat wildly against her heart; it could all be a charade. Something tugged inside her as if wrapping a thin chain around her insides. The Below was a real place, full of people—culture. It could only benefit her to learn more about the mysterious place.

  “You…you said there hadn’t been a half Djinn in hundreds of years. Were there more like Nova before?”

  Lurlina smiled. “Yes, long ago. And I think you will be particularly interested in that story because it directly relates to you.”

  “Me? How?” Raine said, shrinking away from her stare.

  “There was a time when it was common for those with extraordinary abilities to marry and have families with people who did not. But as time passed, the people of Unten yearned for solid leadership, and those with supernatural tendencies were chosen to rule the empire. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, those people are now known as the Djinn.”

  “To keep the lines of leadership clear, as requested by the subjects of Unten,” Pacem said. “The Djinn did not marry and did not have children. We are part of the original family, you see. Our father, Orion, was the Djinn placed as ruler over Unten. His four children were the only remaining full Djinn.”

  “Four?” Raine asked.

  “We had another brother, Hadwin,” Lurlina said with a sad smile. “Unfortunately, he was murdered by Dia pirates. I’m sure you can understand why we don’t want pirates to come here after such an experience.”

  “I’m sorry,” Raine said. “So how does this relate to me?”

  “Well, although the Djinn no longer formed intimate relationships with the people of Unten, the half-Djinn bloodlines carried on all the way into Launi as people moved back and forth between the two worlds. You are part of one of those ancient bloodlines, Raine. You have traces of Djinn power within you, which makes you so strong. You are resilient just like a Djinn, you are a warrior just like a Djinn. That horrid king, who had the audacity to call himself a husband, was attracted to that power. You know it was his obsession.”

  Raine nodded, remembering how Insel would try and get her to call upon forces to create a better outcome. She had often cried through his tyrannical shouting when she could not do as he asked; she could not even understand what he wanted her to do. It was nonsensical at the time, but if what Lurlina said was true, it would give some clarity to the king’s madness.

  “It wasn’t just you, Raine. He had several wives before you if I’m correct. They all were from similar bloodlines. When he grew tired of their lack of power, which would be impossible to access so many generations down the line, he disposed of them. You are fortunate you were freed from his sick mindset.”

  Raine rubbed her thumbs against her palm incessantly, feeling the sting of tears spill onto her cheeks. “It was Nova who saved me,” she said after a long pause. “And I won’t betray her now. If you’ll excuse me.”

  Raine rushed back into the temple, wiping the free-falling tears from her face. Lurlina had dug through the Pandora’s box of her heart. Bringing out such hurt and painful memories made it throb inside her chest.

  Leaning against a marble pillar, Raine released the heart-wrenching sobs and crumbled in a heap on the cold floor. The pain from the years locked away as a prisoner, with the façade of being a royal, burned her throat in heaving emotion.

  The day the king had arrived at her father’s home was forever engrained in her memories. Insel stormed into the beautiful entry hall of her father’s sprawling mansion. The purple tunic was fitted tight, although his belly was rotund, as if he dressed to appear slimmer than he was. He’d bellowed the demand to take her as his wife by threat of arrest and execution on her family if her father had refused. Raine’s family had been sworn to secrecy never to reveal the truth of the rotating Queen Neah.

  Raine wiped her eyes, remembering the last time her mother had held her close before they’d removed her mother for resisting. Their faces were solemn, almost without emotion, but the terror of separation had hung between them as she whispered in Raine’s ear.

  “Be strong, my girl. Do not lose yourself. I pray we meet again,” her mother had said while squeezing her hand tightly before Insel ripped her from her contented life.

  Through years of Insel’s abuse and unhinged behavior, her mother’s voice pulled her through her time as queen. Insel was no lover, he was terrifying, and she’d never felt freer than the day he’d sunk with his royal ship. She held her midsection, remembering how her friends fought for her. Nova, Kale, and Atlas. They’d risked it all to save her from the king and had given her refuge when they could’ve left her in the Underbelly and moved on. They’d helped her adjust to life as Raine once again. She’d had to sacrifice her born family, but they had become her new family.

  “They will come for me,” she said out loud. Standing straight, her eyes burned, heavy and swollen. She pushed through two heavy French doors and down a winding staircase leading down the hillside toward the towns beneath the temple. She wouldn’t turn on them so easily. If Nova and Atlas believed the temple to be untrustworthy, then that was her truth.

  With each level she descended, the air was a few degrees cooler, but still crisp and clean. Finally, a winding road came into view, leading into a quaint village. The homes were made of smooth gray stone, each with unique flecks of glittering crystals that gave the humble homes texture and personality.

  Raine marveled at the trees with spiraling trunks. Each trunk was shaped differently; some had braided in on themselves, while others looked like winding staircases to the heavens. Roots rounded out of the ground like serpents diving up and down in the earth, and vines tied around the thick trunks like slithering snakes claiming the tree for its own. Bits of warm sunlight broke through the shaded treetops, creating magical blasts of sunbeams along the dirt path winding through the town.

  Raine gasped, startled as a black creature hopped in front of her and into the forest. It paused briefly, resting on its large hind legs, and snapping its wide, rubbery lips around a buzzing blue insect. The creature belched a
deep groan, watching her suspiciously with bright silver eyes before hopping back toward a fallen log.

  “You are fortunate,” a small voice said.

  Raine turned toward a small house surrounded by a stone wall. The bluish grass was neatly trimmed, and pots of wildflowers decorated the flagstone path leading to the doorway. A woman dressed in a yellow, silk tunic with matching pants took small steps toward Raine.

  “The Bellow Toad spits a poison that leaves your feet numb for at least two days. I’ve been clearing my property of the pests all morning. I do not know why I have been blessed by a sudden infestation,” she said, chuckling daintily. “I am Chechan. I have not had the pleasure of meeting you.”

  Chechan bowed her head, keeping her bright smile on her youthful face the entire time. She was a head shorter than Raine, as were most of the people she’d met in the Below, and her dark hair had the same bluish tint she’d seen in Kamali’s.

  “My name is Raine. I’m…not from here.”

  Chechan’s eyes widened. “Then you must be a guest of the temple.” Raine nodded, a wave of sadness sweeping her heart once more. “What a great honor.”

  “I am not so sure.”

  Chechan’s mouth parted in disbelief. “How could you not feel how fortunate you are to have found favor with the Djinn?”

  Raine’s lips pursed into a tight line. “I…have been taught they oppress, rather than lead.”

  Chechan dropped the small spade she’d been holding. It clattered on the flagstones and seemed to echo across the valley. “Who would tell such lies?”

  “Do you feel differently?”

  Chechan nodded vigorously. “The Djinn serve us. One time, long ago, my son became ill. He was going to die and the Djinn saved him.”

  Raine’s brow furrowed. “Just like that?”

  Chechan nodded. “He serves in the neighboring village now as one of the people’s judges. The Djinn helped us, as they have helped countless others.” Chechan paused. “You mean, you are not from Unten, don’t you?”

  Slowly, Raine nodded and Chechan offered a sympathetic smile. “Above, many have abandoned us. They spread a twisted truth. I speak the truth of what life is truly like in Unten.”

  “I don’t know what to believe sometimes,” Raine admitted, feeling pitiful and disgusted with herself. Every time she met someone in the Below, she seemed to question everything she’d once thought of the Djinn. Was she so easily swayed?

  “You look tired. Won’t you come in? I will give you some food, then I would be honored if you would join me in seeing the town. You can see for yourself what life below the temple is like.”

  Raine smiled and followed Chechan inside her humble home. The woman bustled around the kitchen, handing Raine a cup of purple tea. The drink slid down her throat with ease, seeming to warm her from the top down to her toes. Chechan continued to boast her pride of her son as she prepared their plates. Raine was surprised how much she seemed to enjoy the motherly talk. She’d missed it so.

  As her burdens eased with each warm swallow, a nagging in the back of her mind also seemed to disappear. A nagging that warned her something wasn’t right.

  Chapter 5

  Mr. Kobb

  Varick slammed his fist down on the small wooden table in his quarters. Nova jumped at the clatter as her father paced the length of the room, running his hand through his thick brown hair. The meeting with the Three Brothers had ended before it even began, and only Nova had been brought into the meeting with her father and uncle. Even Briggs was left to calm the curious members of the band of shadows as they’d whisked away to Varick’s small room.

  “How do you know, Hadwin?”

  “Our temple contact has seen her, Varick. Kamali is not herself. She is living in an illusion for the benefit of Lurlina.”

  “I don’t know what this all means,” Nova said, her voice cracking as her father grew more distressed with each clomping footstep.

  “It means my wife is not my wife,” Varick seethed at the thick stone wall, toppling a chair in anger.

  Nova’s eyes brimmed with tears. Never had she seen her father so angry yet so terrified in the same moment.

  Hadwin’s golden eyes met hers sadly as he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Your mother’s mind is being overtaken by Lurlina’s power. The Kamali who is your mother, who warned you about the temple, is getting locked further away each day as the illusion in her mind spreads.”

  “What…what does that mean?”

  “It means Lurlina is erasing us from her life,” Varick said, his lip curling in frustrated fury. “Soon, she will believe whatever that wretched woman wishes her to believe. I’m certain she is convincing Kamali what a mistake it was to leave the temple.”

  “But she…she loves us,” Nova said weakly.

  Varick stopped ranting, and faced her. His face fell and quickly he wrapped his arms around Nova’s trembling shoulders. “We are everything to your mother, Nova. Don’t you ever doubt that. But, love, when we meet her she may not seem the same as when you last spoke. It is not her. It is Lurlina’s warped power over her.”

  Nova buried her face in her father’s chest, feeling the heavy guilt settle like a block of iron in her chest. It was her fault Kamali had gone to the temple in the first place to get help to save her. Now, her mother could be lost. “But she could fight it, right?” Nova asked hopefully, her words muffled against her father.

  “If I know my sister, Nova, she is fighting every moment of every day. But with her power gone, it will be very difficult to resist for too long,” Hadwin said softly. “Listen to your father. You are everything to your mother, no matter what Lurlina tells her. In her heart, that will never change.”

  “We have to get to her,” Nova said, wiping her tears as a wave of powerful tension replaced the heavy burden against her heart. “We can’t let her stay there any longer.”

  Varick pushed her back, gently. Bending down slightly, his eyes blazed with fire as the muscles twitched in his jaw. “We will get her back, Nova. I won’t stop until we do. I promise.”

  “If that’s what is happening to your mother, then what are they doing to Raine?” Atlas shouted, heaving a blackened, dead branch off the edge of the coast. It bobbed for a moment, catching a drifting wind current before sinking beneath the gray clouds into the Below.

  Kale rubbed his thumb methodically over the top of her palm. He hadn’t spoken, but his eyes stared at the fading light in the distant horizon as he drifted into deep thought.

  “I don’t know what is happening to Raine b—ˮ she began.

  “The informant, whoever he is, doesn’t want to take any time finding her, I see,” Atlas interrupted, his words dripping in frustration.

  Nova’s eyes narrowed as the dark anger seared through her blood, hot like boiling water. As if feeling the shock of her fury, Kale held her hand tighter warning her to be calm, though he never took his eyes off the sky. Taking a deep breath, Nova tried to dull her temper before responding. Atlas turned his back on them and whipped a large stone off the edge. His darker hair hung wild around his shoulders, free from the usual leather strap holding it back. His pain and helplessness were evident in his light eyes.

  “I’m sure if he had seen Raine, the informant would have said something. She could still be sailing on the Scarlet Moon. We don’t know if she’s at the temple.” Nova’s words were terser than she’d intended, and Atlas took notice. His expression pulled together in the same annoyed look he’d given her weeks earlier in the cave when she told him they were not a good match for one another.

  “Don’t act as if we don’t care about Raine, Atlas,” Nova warned.

  “You could have fooled me,” he bit back.

  “All right, both of you stop,” Kale finally said. His voice was powerful enough to bring both Atlas and Nova to attention and to stay quiet until he spoke again. “Listen, I know all three of us have had…an interesting relationship at times. But right now, we need to stick together for Raine�
��s sake and your mother’s, but also for all the people in that cave.” Kale paused, pointing to the island’s mound.

  “They have loved ones down there, loved ones willing to kill for the Djinn without a second thought. Atlas, Nova’s right; it’s not that Raine doesn’t matter to us, but we don’t know where she is. We can only move on the information we’ve been given, and right now we only know about Kamali.”

  Atlas huffed but nodded. “You’re right,” he said, though it was clear he hated saying the words. “Raine is just…well she’s just…she’s not like us. She is strong and powerful, yet…pure. I don’t want to imagine what they’re doing to her, that’s all.”

  “We’ll get her back. Just like we’ll get your mother back, Nova,” Kale said with confidence.

  Nova bit her bottom lip, trying not to show emotion over her mother’s fate. She was fighting against powerful Djinn, but as she watched the last glimmer of silvery sunlight fade below the clouds, she allowed the dark power of the Djinn to swirl within her. Hadwin warned her about using the power to alter fate too much. He warned of the consequences and ramifications it could bring. But the power seemed to lessen the importance of his warnings.

  Closing her eyes, she imagined destroying the temple, freeing the people lost in the Below and returning with her mother and father in one piece. She forced the thought of going back to the days of laughter, family trips to the lush ponds of Mollem. They were days that seemed so long ago, days when they were safe, without the threat of attack around every corner. If she had anything to do with fate, she would make sure those days happened again.

  Atlas was mumbling something to Kale, but her focus drifted so far away, she hardly heard anything they said. The sun had faded below the clouds, and only faint rays of light painted the twilight colors ushering in the night. She watched night birds sing their songs as they swooped their dark wings into the clouds, happily twittering with one another as they caught chirping insects for supper.