Because there was no way I could fulfill that bargain I made. Not when I saw where it would lead me.
“It’s not too late, Nanu.” I held my hand out to her again. “You don’t have to do this.”
She shook her head, her eyes still wild but sad. “Keep your forgiveness. I don’t want to be forgiven. I gave my daughter justice. I gave—”
She broke off, a choked sound cutting off her words. Her hands went to her neck, gripping the skin hard.
“Nanu? What is it?”
She doubled over and screamed, more black tendrils spreading from her hands, filling the room around us.
“I… can’t… I can’t,” she gasped, and I knelt next to her writhing form. She screamed again, and I saw that her tongue had shriveled inside her mouth, her teeth blackened.
“The seeds.” She had taken too many, and not in the right quantities. She must have taken different quantities to Thohfsa, giving her power temporarily before poisoning her.
I swallowed, my throat thick, my eyes burning with unshed tears.Nanu had killed my father. Betrayed me and got me arrested. Did she deserve my kindness? My empathy?
I exhaled, placing my hands on her. I wouldn’t destroy my soul for revenge, no matter what she deserved. “I’ll try to help you.”
I closed my eyes and pulled at the power that bound me to the djinn. So far it had bent to my will when I had called upon it. Something whispered inside me, dark and deep. I could save her, I knew I could.
I pressed my hand over her mouth as she convulsed with the stain of the poison inside her. I concentrated on flushing her body of the toxin. She screamed, but I held fast, stopping her wriggling with an arm wrapped around her middle.
“I’m trying to help you, Nanu.”
But the more I flooded her with power, the more I realized I needed… more.
The zoraat wasn’t responding in the way I thought it would, it was resisting me.
I would need more power, more strength, perhaps everything I had.
Nanu stopped struggling at the same moment my arms went slack. I released her and she got on her hands and knees on the floor.
“Help me,” she begged, fear lacing her voice. “Get it out of me.”
I wet my lips with my tongue, trying to tell her with the right words. That I wanted to try, but it would take all of me.
“I can’t.”
“What?”
“It’s too much. I can’t save you without destroying myself.”
She coughed, black liquid spilling from her throat onto the date palm mat. “You won’t even try for the last of your family?” She gripped her stomach. “Help me!” she screamed.
I hesitated. “I don’t owe you this,” I said finally. “I don’t owe you all of me. Not after what you did. Perhaps not ever. And if you loved me, you would never ask it.”
She gave a gut-wrenching cough. “I thought you weren’t devoted to vengeance anymore? You are punishing me for your father’s death.”
I knelt down beside her, bringing my voice low, almost indiscernible. “This isn’t revenge. This is cause and effect.”
“Dania.” Her voice was pleading, a high whine that sliced through my heart. But there was someone else in my heart too, and Baba would be here with me now if it wasn’t for her. Noor and Mazin were still here. I was still here. In the end, my loyalty was with them and myself.
“I can’t help you, Nanu. Not at the cost of myself.”
She doubled over, crying out again as her nails began to turn black. Pain and guilt and misery lanced through me, but I turned away from her.
I walked away from the room, my grandmother’s screams the last thing I heard before I finally shut the door to my baba’s house.
