The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

History has a twisted sense of humor.

The day Jasad’s fortress rose was remembered for all the wrong reasons.

The newly appointed Qayida Hend had stood shoulder to shoulder with Malika Safa and Malik Mustafa. Behind them, a sea of Jasadis gathered on the hill that would become the courtyard of Usr Jasad. As one, they lifted their hands and poured their magic forth. Back then, magic was still as powerful in their veins as it was rich in the land. A conductor stood centered in the masses, guiding the flow of magic to the Qayida. They say on the day of the fortress’s rise, the Qayida’s entire body had burned silver and gold as she read the enchantment the Malik and Malika had toiled for years to produce.

The fortress had been a dream for Jasad since shortly after the age of the Awaleen. Protection. Peace. The monsters in Essam stalked their borders.

Visitors came to stand at the edge of Sirauk, gazing upon the misty bridge and leaving bizarre offerings littered in Janub Aya. Trade had become unreliable, and the skirmishes with Omal were escalating. A fortress tuned to the unique magical marker of each of Jasad’s citizens would allow us to move freely, but keep our kingdom secure from anyone—or anything— else.

The ground had quaked, knocking everyone but the Qayida to the ground. She had the magic of thousands flowing through her, and if she stopped, if she let it settle, it would incinerate her. With a roar heard all the way in the farthest corners of Lukub and Orban, the ground split. A wall the color of thick resin had surged from the earth, traveling past the hill, curving around Jasad’s borders. The Qayida’s scream was said to have filled the Malik and Malika’s ears with blood. Gold and silver orbs burst from her chest, streaking inside the wall. The colors moving within the fortress would be known as Zeenat Hend, named after the Qayida who burned from the inside out to erect Jasad’s impenetrable fortress.

I hadn’t thought of Qayida Hend in years. Her bravery had guaranteed that each subsequent Qayida would be trusted with annually renewing the enchantment keeping the fortress intact.

I washed my face in the basin by the door. The water rippled with my reflection. I tried not to linger, but the sight of my face still stung. The hollows beneath my eyes were darker than date pits. My hair hung in a lusterless braid down my back. The face of someone who had failed to fulfill a legacy of sacrifice.

I shoved the basin away. Qayida Hend burned for her bravery. One of Jasad’s foremost heroes. But if you asked me, Qayida Hend’s death was an amusement of fate. She burned to raise magic, and centuries later, Jasad

would burn so they could tear it down.

We mourn what history mocks.

In the training center, the Nizahl Heir did not bother with a greeting. He pointed at my legs and turned around, devoting his focus to the weapons chest. I should have been thankful for his silence. A serpent’s tongue slithered only when it had poison to spread.

“Aren’t Heirs supposed to travel with their personal chefs?” I asked, jogging past the wall with my grandparents. As usual, I averted my gaze.

Guilt tightened my throat every time I looked at them, so I did my best not to.

Arin diligently arranged the day’s tools on top of the chest. All I’d heard about the mysterious Heir prior to that fateful day in Essam had to do with his looks and his prowess in combat. It is significantly more enjoyable, I supposed, to wax poetic about the Heir’s heart-wrenching beauty or his lethal grace than it is to dwell on this intense perfectionism.

A javelin wobbled on the chest. Arin scowled, moving it to the second row. After a moment of reflection, he nudged everything else an inch to the right.

Perfectionism might be too generous a term.

“Yes, typically. Why?”

I finished my circuits, bracing myself on my knees. “The guards can’t cook,” I panted. “I want a royal’s chef.”

“You’re getting one.” He held out the rounded end of the spear. “I eat what you eat.”

“I am fully aware,” I groaned. Had Arin not been so gallingly Nizahlan,

I might have believed he was Orbanian, so uninterested was he in luxury and comfort.

The back of my neck prickled as he moved closer. “Spread your feet.”

He kicked my ankles apart in a succinct motion, momentarily catching me off guard.

I bounded forward, springing off my back leg to push my body’s momentum into the spear. It sailed true, cracking the wooden board in the center.

“Did you see that?” I exclaimed. If anything would impress the unimpressible Heir, it would be throwing a spear with enough force to cleave a man’s chest in two. “Half the Orbanian army cannot land a throw like that!”

He made me repeat it twenty-seven times before he was pleased. Our next task of the day required a trip to the surface. Arin refused to divulge details on what this particular training entailed or why we needed to complete it outside the tunnels.

Wes passed Arin a strip of fabric. “What do you know of the first trial?”

Arin asked.

I shifted to the other foot, casting a nervous glance at the three waiting guards. “The first trial is held within a cursed forest in Orban. No one is permitted to enter the forest outside the Alcalah.”

“Why can they not enter?” Jeru prompted. A blush rose high on his tanned cheeks when Arin glanced over.

“The forest is the site of a massacre from the age of the Awaleen. During the battle of Ayume, Awala Dania brought life to the forest. The trees, the lake, even the leaves—Dania enchanted everything in the forest to kill Kapastra’s marching soldiers. Though the centuries have weakened Ayume Forest’s curse, the poison of Dania’s magic lingers.”

Jeru looked suitably impressed.

“Correct,” Arin said, plucking the fuzzy fibers from the cloth. I watched the deft movements of his fingers, oddly engrossed, until Arin continued, “The trial will be held at midday. History has shown that the Champions who do not reach the other side of the forest by dusk do not reach it at all.

Our goal today is to have you navigate with magic as your only sense. You will follow me through the woods, and the guards will serve as decoys.”

Kapastra’s forked brow, it was a near replica of Hanim’s old training.

Except he wasn’t resurrecting three-headed creatures to give chase. “My magic will not aid me. I’ll be following on instinct alone.”

“We will see.” Arin raised the strip of cloth, preparing me for the coming contact. I was once again bemused at the strangeness of his personal code of ethics. “Close your eyes.”

Smooth leather pressed against the wings of my cheeks. He pulled the fabric tightly over my eyes. Brush rustled around us as the guards presumably scattered, setting up posts to disorient me.

“How close will Sefa and Marek be?” Addressing Arin in the dark sent a shiver of unease down my neck.

“They will shift around the woods throughout the session. We need to determine whether their physical distance matters for triggering your

magic.”

Arin stepped away. “Try to follow me.”

The woods went quiet as Arin vanished. The darkness didn’t throw me as much as I had anticipated, and I walked with relative comfort. I trailed my hands from tree to tree, straining to hear footsteps. My magic remained removed from this venture, leaving my cuffs docile and dull on my wrists.

The crunch of leaves alerted me seconds before a shoulder slammed into mine. I careened, barely catching myself from a disgraceful tumble.

Branches snapped to my left, and I ducked. Needles rained down on my head. How did Arin expect me to find him while buffeted in every direction by his guards? My magic didn’t care that Marek and Sefa were nearby.

The sound of my body became deafening the longer I stumbled along.

My breaths were harsh to my own ears, my footfalls clumsy and loud. The stammer of my heart matched the pounding in my head. They weren’t hunting me; they were toying with their conquered prize.

I shoved past the thought. I was not an eleven-year-old girl anymore, wandering Essam Woods in the night while monsters born of Hanim’s spells gave chase. Terror had not induced my magic then, and it would not help me now.

Something wet and tacky hit my forehead. I gasped, wiping frantically at my face.

“Filth for filth,” Vaun whispered, directly into my ear.

I lunged for him and met empty air. I failed to catch myself this time, landing hard on my knees.

A clicking hum preceded the scuttle of pointy legs over my hand. A munban. I thrashed, pushing to my feet too quickly and clipping my shoulder against a tree. I was surrounded by threats I couldn’t see, and they were winning.

The next feint came from the right. I dove to the left instead, colliding with a distinctly human body. These were my woods. I fed this soil my blood and broken tears, sharpened its teeth on the fine flesh of monsters. In Essam, I reigned supreme.

Breathy noises leaked from my open mouth as I tightened my fist and smashed it into the side of what was hopefully a head. Did Vaun think I wouldn’t kill him? I wasn’t held to the same code of ethics as his precious Heir. I would rip his head from his shoulders and spit on his skull. I would crush what was left of him into the dirt, because his remains weren’t fit to

feed animals.

“Sylvia!”

The bloodsong wailing through me paused. For a terrible moment, I could not locate my mouth in the swirling savagery. “Marek?” I patted at the chest beneath me, checking for a guardsman’s vest. It wasn’t there.

“Marek, I’m so sorry!”

I rolled away from him, but the urge to tear a living thing asunder and plant my fury into its quivering heart remained.

Approaching footsteps pushed me to my haunches. I crouched, ready to

spring.

“Remove the blindfold,” Arin said.

Awareness came too late, after I had already launched myself. A bone- crushing grip caught my arms before I could slam into the Heir.

“You,” Arin said. “Take off her blindfold.”

The cloth fell to the ground, and I blinked rapidly against the piercing light. Arin released me. His searching look resembled the one he’d worn when I dangled myself over Hirun. As though I’d failed some elusive test, but not in a way he had anticipated.

“Why did you wait?” he asked. “Why didn’t you remove the blindfold yourself?”

My vision settled. The drum beating its feral tune faded, taking Hanim and her fiends with it. The hazy words leaving my mouth belonged to a different girl, addressed to a dead woman. “You didn’t say I could. I have to

follow the instructions.”

Good girl, Hanim whispered.

In almost humorous unison, Marek and Arin’s brows furrowed. Arin’s smoothed again, but I knew his dangerous curiosity had been piqued.

“In the future, avoid touching the trees while you run,” Arin said lightly.

“Even the sap in Ayume can kill you.”

The next morning, I walked into the kitchen to find the scent of Mahair surrounding me. Fruit displayed in colorful arrays, fresh cutlets of lamb, ground spices heaped in wooden bowls. I sorted through the food, some of which had passed from season months ago, with wonder.

“This was your doing, wasn’t it?” Wes asked. I dropped into my seat, pulling a bowl of oats soaked in lavender and honey toward me.

“His Highness ordered a patrol to follow one of Raya’s wards around the market and bring back items typically found at an Omalian table,” Jeru added. “He’s never shown any extracurricular interest in food.”

“Maybe I should start complaining at the top of my lungs when I’m unhappy, too,” Jeru mused. I crossed my legs, balancing a plate on my risen knee. Sefa inhaled a bowl of bileela, the milky wheat topped with raisins and sugar.

“You’re not as attractive,” Marek said. He pounded Sefa’s back when she choked on her third bowl. I busied myself with food to hide my bewilderment. Why would Arin go through the trouble of bringing Omalian food to the tunnels when he couldn’t care less what he ate?

I didn’t voice my doubts aloud. Jeru and Wes had grown marginally more comfortable around me as the weeks passed. Marek and Sefa’s arrival had helped, too. Ren continued to pretend I didn’t exist, though, and Vaun… I wished Vaun would pretend I didn’t exist.

“Marek’s right,” Wes agreed.

Jeru clutched his chest, toppling to the floor. “Wes, catch me! I’m wounded!”

I finished chewing a bite of gibna areesh enough to garble, “Try

throwing knives at him, Jeru. He seems to like that.”

All three guards turned to look at me. Wes put his head down on the table.

I cracked a boiled egg against Marek’s forehead. Wes and Jeru balked. It was a time-honored tradition at the keep, cracking eggs on the nearest victim’s forehead. I picked at the bits of shell and asked, “Did the patrol happen to find sesame candies?”

In unison, both guards scowled. Ah, I’d forgotten their last encounter with sesame candies took place when they removed one from the body of the Nizahl soldier I’d killed.

Marek inspected the colored berries with a frown. He plucked one from the stem, rolling it between his fingers. “This berry does not grow in Mahair,” he said. “I cannot even name it.”

“Let me see.” Marek dropped the berry into Sefa’s open palm. She studied the white fruit and shook her head. “I can’t, either. Sylvia, do you know?”

I accepted the berry when she held it out. I split it in half and popped a piece into my mouth.

The dry, sour flavor bursting on my tongue brought with it an old interaction, too hazy to be properly called a memory. Hadn’t Niyar tried to feed me a bowl of these white berries? It must have been before Soraya became my attendant and took over arranging my meals. I remembered Niyar going on and on about how special they were, how they only grew in the east of Jasad, and the nobles had taken to treating them like a delicacy. I called them “moon-vomit berries” and clenched my teeth when Niyar pushed one against my lips. When he would not desist, I shrieked, and my unrestrained magic threw the table and chairs into the wall. Someone had stayed with me after my grandfather stormed out—Dawoud, wasn’t it?

He’d dried my tears and lifted me into his arms. “Even queens must bite sour fruit sometimes, Essiya. Now help the servants fix this mess.”

I hurled the fruit to the table, my pulse cacophonous in my ears. How could it be here? Nizahl had not left any portion of Jasad unscathed, and these berries’ existence was confined to the wilayahs in the east.

“I do not recognize it,” I whispered.

“Curious.”

I jolted in my seat. Arin and Vaun stood framed in the kitchen’s

entrance. The Nizahl Heir glanced at the hastily discarded berry, and icy realization washed over me.

I was still being hunted. Arin would not stop until he uncovered my identity, culling the list of potential nobles in his systematic, efficient fashion.

My heartbeat slowed with new resolve. It wasn’t enough to simply hope I’d hidden my tracks. He would keep walking this path, and my only option was to direct where it led him. If he wanted clues, then I’d leave ones that took him far away from Essiya, Heir of Jasad.

I already had a good start. He had seemed puzzled at my violent outburst when the guards chased me through the woods. Nobles did not descend into a feral state under such conditions: they rolled into a ball and wept.

Vaun grimaced at the berries as though they had personally insulted his mother. Arin moved on smoothly, the moment locked in his web. “Wear tighter-fitting clothes,” he instructed. “You’ll be going into Hirun.”

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