jinni-aladdin

For five hundred years my sisterhood has passed down a sacred vow,_ says Caspida coldly, __o destroy the one who destroyed our queen. You know this, and you speak these words only to deceive me as you deceived her. You would have me believe that you are capable of love.___elieve me when I say I wish that I were not!_ Angrily I round on her. __ do not tell you this for myself! Aladdin will die any moment, and the only way to save him is if you make a wish! Please, Caspida__hey will kill him at dawn!_ I point at the horizon, where the sun is minutes away from rising. __et me save him, I beg you!__ drop to my knees before her, doing what I never thought I could: grovel before a human. My pride unravels into smoke, carried away on the wind. Always I have thought myself above these mortals__, immortal, powerful, able to shift from this form to that. But I let all of that go now, and I beg as I have never begged before. __o what you like with me after that, but just let me save him!_ I dig my fingers into the earth, my eyes damp with tears. My voice falls to a cracked whisper. __lease.___hy?__ raise my face, finding her gaze unyielding. __ecause it was my idea. Him wishing to be made a prince. Courting you. Lying all these weeks. I manipulated him and used him, and now they will kill him for it.___hy would you lead him into the palace knowing that eventually the truth would come out and he would have to pay the price?___ecause . . ._ I grind my teeth together, wishing the earth would swallow me up. __ecause I was trying to win my freedom. Your people had captured the prince of the jinn__ardukha__ own son. The Shaitan sent me to free him, and in turn, he would free me from my lamp. If I failed, he planned to sink your city into the sea. I had to get into the palace. Aladdin was my only way in.___o you don__ deny that you__e a monster. You used him for your own ends.__ drop my head. __ know what I am. I know nothing can excuse what I did to Roshana, or to Aladdin, or to you. I__e wronged so many, and there is so much I wish I could take back. I can__ save Roshana. But please__ beg of you__et me save him.__aspida lowers to her knees and studies me. I meet her gaze, humbled utterly.__ou want me to believe that you love him,_ she whispers.__es._ The word is but a breath, a stir of air in my treacherous lungs. __e__e running out of time. I cannot reverse death or the hours. Time is the strongest magic, and no jinni__ot even the Shaitan__an rewrite the past. Once Aladdin is gone, he is gone. Let me save him, and I can help you win your city.