The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

I glared at the guards through the eye their Commander hadn’t blackened.

The bruising looked far worse than it felt, but I took satisfaction in Jeru’s guilty frown each time he glanced at me.

The rest of the guards ignored me. Wes, who I had woken this morning to find hovering over me with a cold cloth (to which I had garbled, “Did I swallow any insects?” and promptly earned his departing back), spooned a mealy, pale gruel into his mouth. Vaun and Ren were talking in low tones on the other side of the kitchen.

I poked at the gruel. It sprang back into place. Dania’s war-hungry axe, I had eaten some truly gruesome fare while living with Hanim, but this? If this was what Nizahlans regularly ate, it was no wonder they were such an angry people. They were hungry.

“You should eat,” Jeru said, breaking the seal of silence.

“Then give me food.” I pushed the bowl away. The spoon dropped with a clatter, spattering gruel over the table. “This is cow vomit.”

Tension wired the thick cords of Vaun’s neck. He did not look in my direction, and I wondered if it was to keep himself from dismembering me.

“It helps if you add salt.” Jeru nudged a small platter toward me.

“I would truly rather eat the salt.”

Vaun turned around. Ren put a hand on his chest.

“Is there a problem?” Arin materialized from the shadows, leaning against the kitchen’s arched entrance. The guards snapped to their feet.

He wore the black coat from the first day I met him. The violet ravens stitched along his sleeves made me faintly ill. Not a single lace in his vest missed its loop. The only imperfection to the Nizahl Heir’s refined appearance was the purple bruise on his cheekbone.

I might have supposed the marks of our voyage into Essam ended there, on an insignificant bruise, were it not for him leaning against the wall. For anyone else, leaning would be casual, not worth a second glance. But I

could not fathom the tightly wound Nizahl Heir slouching, never mind leaning. He had borne my deadweight as we slid down the riverbank. The rocks might have flayed his back raw.

I palpated the corner of my black eye and tried not to feel smug.

The specter of last night rose in the kitchen, thickening the air. My escape attempt hadn’t helped my relationship with the guards.

“I cannot be expected to live like this,” I said, a hair too loudly. “This food is barely suitable for vermin.”

Ignoring Vaun’s murderous glare, I listed my grievances. They had stewed over the hours. “The lavatory was clearly intended to function with magic. Have you seen it? Abominable. My current stench alone could be used as a weapon. I have no garments, and the sole company I am permitted to keep is a handful of soldiers whose conversational skills peaked in the womb.”

Arin unbuttoned his coat. “Good morning to you, too.”

I scowled, gesturing to the windowless walls. “I have seen no evidence of either.”

Jeru released a sound between a laugh and a strangled hiccup. He covered his mouth.

Arin tipped his head to Jeru and Wes. “There are parcels near the stairs.

Take them to her room.”

Parcels?

“Are they for me?”

“They’re for the vermin.” He glanced at my bowl. “Are you finished?”

I pushed away from the table. “Evidently.”

We walked to the training center. I fidgeted with the sleeves of my borrowed tunic, still too tight around my biceps. I avoided the walls alive

with birds and my dead family.

“How long has your magic been blocked?”

My head whipped toward him. Arin uttered it as he had “You have magic” or “I choose her.” Absolute. With the conviction of one who never speaks in vain.

“Do you find these bold, sweeping inquiries satisfying? Catching the recipient off guard and startling the truth from them? Is that your strategy?”

He didn’t blink. “Generally, yes.”

“Might I ask how you’ve reached this conclusion?”

“The power I felt when I touched you in the Relic Room should have torn me to pieces,” he said calmly. I stilled. We had yet to openly discuss the details of what had occurred in the war room. “Instead, it barely stopped

me from killing you.”

Niphran was right, I marveled.

“Are you typically so overcome when you sense magic?”

“Nothing was typical of my behavior.” Disturbingly pale blue eyes studied me. “Yours is not a simple magic.”

Another diversion. I imagined the Nizahl Heir’s tutors must have been driven mad at his expert evasions of any clear reply.

He went on. “Jasadi magic cannot be hidden from me. I should have detected it at the river, when you placed your hand in mine. At the very least, it should have reacted last night. Pain and peril are two of the surest ways to ignite magic. Yours reacts to mine in unusual ways. I can sense it, I can draw it close, but it will not leave the limits of your body.”

He frowned at a cobweb on top of the weapons chest before redirecting his attention to me. “That is how I’ve reached my conclusion.”

“Your touch boiled my magic. It nearly killed me,” I said flatly.

“It saved you. Twice.”

Aha. “And how can a nonmagical touch do such a thing, Your Highness?”

A glimmer of approval passed over his features. I had neatly walked him into my own trap.

“Under normal circumstances, it can’t. I sense magic because I am immune to it, and I can drain the magic from a Jasadi with the same touch that seems to ignite yours.”

I did not try to hide the horror written on my face. He could drain magic with a touch?

My cuffs tightened around the sudden force of my magic. How many Jasadis had he robbed of the very advantage for which they were hunted?

How many had felt their magic stripped from them in the moment they

needed it most?

“I don’t understand.”

He watched me coolly. “You don’t need to.”

“Explain what you mean by ‘draining magic,’ and I will answer your query.”

Surprise darted in the Heir’s eyes, gone before I could chase it. He had expected me to ask how his touch came to be its own weapon. And indeed, I should have asked that. The mechanics of how he drained magic did not affect me; my cuffs prevented him from doing more than pulling my magic to the surface. Damn it to the tombs. The stupid moving wall had thrown me off-balance. Affected my judgment.

“Jasadi magic is not a bottomless well. Every Jasadi has a finite supply from which to draw. Imagine one uses their magic sparingly, easing the drudgeries of daily chores. Another spends their allotment on some spectacular display. For the first Jasadi, replenishing their magic is not an issue, because they never reached the bottom of the well. The one who drained their magic by commanding a horse to fly or rain to fall must wait, helpless, until time renews their supply.” He raised his gloved hand to his temple, brushing it with a featherlight touch. “I possess the ability to drain the well temporarily. Time will still replenish their magic, but by then—”

“You will have already caught or killed them.” My cuffs throttled my wrists, so urgently did my magic beat against my veins. Was it reacting to Arin or to Arin’s words?

“Yes.” He remained composed in the face of my loathing. Had I not heard the hatred in his voice last night, I might have believed his indifference. But at least now I had an answer for why my magic reacted so strongly to his touch. He couldn’t drain my magic, but he could bring it surging to my cuffs.

He removed a handkerchief from his coat and brushed it over the spiderweb. “Your turn.”

I wanted him to choke on his intestines as I fed them to him in pieces.

He did not deserve my secrets.

Then do not give them to him, Hanim urged. She seemed buoyed I had chosen to ask a question on the Jasadis’ behalf instead of my own. Escape again and join the Jasadis he is hunting.

Cold water splashed over my rage at the very notion. No, I had made my decision. My best route to freedom was through the Nizahl Heir. I hadn’t forgotten what Arin said yesterday. The Mufsids and Urabi chased the same Jasadi only if they had held an important post in Jasad. They either suspected who I was… or they somehow already knew.

“I do not remember a time when my magic flowed free.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “Can it be fixed?”

I shook my head. If he pressed, I did not know if I could devise a lie capable of withstanding his scrutiny.

“It is an unusual cruelty. Your magic feels strong.”

I almost laughed. If only he knew. My grandparents would not have cuffed an average magic, nor would Hanim have been so desperate to unleash it. Abnormal magic defined my life. “You would know. Unusual cruelty is your specialty.”

Arin moved on without comment, though I was sure the matter of what suppressed my magic would be revisited. He seemed to tuck new information into the frightful web of his mind until he had collected all its threads. “The Champions’ Banquet will be held in Lukub in six weeks’ time. From there, we will depart for the first trial in Orban. We have until then to make you fit for this role.”

He walked to the corner of the room, crouching in front of the weapons chest I’d pilfered yesterday.

Clouds moved leisurely in the facsimile sky above us. “I still don’t understand why I must compete as Champion to lure the groups you seek. If they are the same ones who attacked me in the woods, they already know where I am.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, resisting the urge to shudder. The rotted corpse howling with Hanim’s voice would haunt me forever.

Arin froze. He straightened, turning toward me, and only bewilderment prevented me from stumbling back. “What attack?”

The severity of his tone surprised me. I recounted the confrontation with the mirage of Hanim’s corpse. Arin paced, and I could almost see him weaving this latest revelation into his web. “You did not recognize the corpse or see its summoner?”

“Correct.” A half lie. “It disappeared at the sound of your horse. Do you think the attacker belonged to the Mufsids?”

Arin shook his head. “They would not kill you unless you had already refused their offer to join. Have you spoken to anyone unfamiliar?”

“Only the Nizahl Heir and four of his unfriendliest guardsmen.”

Arin tipped his head back, gazing at the ceiling. Reminding himself of all the reasons he needed to keep me alive?

He pivoted on his heel, striding to the weapons chest again. I followed,

pretending to view the weapons for the first time. I lifted a shield clearly crafted for someone born from giants and staggered under its weight.

Painted on the front, the kitmer’s wings stretched high as it soared into a mighty blaze. Its beak opened in a bellow. The pride of Jasad. Rovial’s first companion.

Arin chose a curved dagger from the chest, weighing it in his palm. I lowered the shield to rest against my leg. Arin and knives were not— With an almost unnatural swiftness, Arin lifted his arm and threw. I had enough time to glimpse the blurred form of the dagger cutting through the air, straight for my chest.

I didn’t think. In a burst of motion, I clapped my palms together, catching the hilt before the dagger could bury itself in my heart.

I raised the knife to my eyes, checking to make sure I hadn’t hallucinated the Nizahl Heir once again using me for target practice. I snarled, “Was yesterday’s stabbing session insufficient for you?”

“Fascinating,” he said. “That was a learned instinct. Who would teach an orphan girl to catch knives?”

“You aimed at my heart! What if it had met its mark?” I demanded.

“Were you prepared to kill me on a guess?”

“Can you feel your magic?”

Unbelievable!

I flipped the dagger and hurled it. He caught it single-handed.

I beamed. “Now you’ve learned an orphan can throw knives, too. Isn’t it fascinating?”

Arin tossed the twice-foiled dagger into the weapons chest. To his credit, he didn’t seem bothered I’d thrown a knife at him. Arin lifted his chin, studying me with singular concentration. “What is your real name?”

I caged my breath, pinned in place by a thousand pinpricks of foreboding. I crushed the instinct screaming for me to swing the shield at his head and run. Half a decade of hiding ruined by the scheming of strangers. Not only had these groups implicated me as a Jasadi, they had also assured the Heir there was more to me than met the eye.

“I am not rich in names, Your Highness. I have only the one.”

Arin lifted a brow. I fell quiet, donning an expression appropriate for the occasion: a little flummoxed, a little anxious. Deception was an art form I thought I’d perfected. It was easy to mold myself into what others wanted

to see, but Arin had exposed the flaws in this particular skill set. Apparently my rage, when roused well enough, was the last truly honest thing I had left.

The Nizahl Heir tipped his lips up. I had seen more expressiveness from him in the last ten minutes than in the last three days combined. “Have your pleasure, suraira. Every truth has its time.”

Foreboding trailed its finger along my neck. If he meant to rattle me, he’d succeeded.

Arin tapped the opened chest, moving on. “These tools will become your dearest companions in the months to come.”

“Do you truly believe six weeks and a few weapons will help me become Victor? The other Champions have been training since the last Alcalah. They have a three-year head start.”

“You have one advantage the other Champions lack.”

“You must mean my irresistible charm, since we have established my magic does not function.”

“Yet it was your magic that stabbed Felix and twice saved your life.”

He picked up a rusted cutlass, extending the hilt in my direction. I took the curved sword, slashing it through the air experimentally. I had dozens upon dozens of questions, all momentarily replaced by the childish glee of swinging a sword. I passed my finger along the kitmer carved into the side, its falcon head held high.

“You would allow me to wield Jasadi weapons, even in private?” Was it his way of rubbing my cowardice in my face? If so, it was a wasted effort.

Looking at the kitmer, imagining the Jasadis who’d held these weapons before me, I felt… nothing. I knew what I should feel. Hanim hadn’t been shy about reminding me of how I failed Jasad, how Jasadis suffered at my incompetence. Shame is a dangerous feeling to manipulate. Pull at the string too many times, and it will eventually snap into apathy.

Arin slid his handkerchief over the dusty handle of another cutlass. “I would prefer my time wasn’t drained in the sieve of your animosity for Nizahl,” he said. “We will both be better served without the intrusion of divided loyalty.”

The sword leaned heavily against my legs.

“Nizahl will never have any share of my loyalty.”

Again, Arin did not rise to the insult. I wondered at it, sometimes, this

imitation of patience. The coiled quiet of him.

“I did not mean Nizahl,” he said. “Pick up the cutlass.”

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