The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Two weeks before the Champions’ Banquet, my magic continued to pose an intractable obstacle.

Arin wanted it to work. He had assured me on numerous occasions how efficiently death would find me if I competed against the other Champions without my magic’s help. To this end, our trainings escalated. In intensity and quantity.

On the sixth day until we were to leave for Lukub, I entered the training center, winding my braid into a knot atop my head. I sensed the wrongness in the air immediately. My apprehension rose at the sight of the day’s tools scattered carelessly in front of the trunk.

Arin threw a familiar dagger—Dania’s dagger, from the war room— upward and caught it. He did it again, catching the hilt at each descent.

“What’s wrong?”

He kept tossing up the dagger. I picked up the tools, trying to remember how he liked to sort them. Did the three-pronged lance go after the spear or hammer?

When Arin’s silence lengthened, I rubbed the furrow above my nose and said, “Why do you insist on torturing yourself?”

That caught his attention. He closed his hand around the dagger’s handle. “Torturing myself.” The tone itself, thin as a thread and dripping in condescension, should have warned me away.

“I know what you do when you disappear to the surface. The Mufsids and Urabi have claimed lives all over the kingdoms. Evaded your most capable soldiers. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? I’m your bait. Let them be lured instead of constantly giving chase.”

Arin’s humorless laugh echoed. “My bait whose magic could not induce

a bird to flight.”

I clenched my teeth. “I’m trying.”

His dark mood was a tangible thing, whipping through the training

center and leaving tattered trails in its wake. “No one can say you haven’t given it all you have. It is only a shame all you have amounts to nothing.”

Engaging him in this state wouldn’t help anything. Arin could so easily chisel his ice into unbearable cruelty, cutting those in his way open from stem to stern. I couldn’t predict it. Hanim’s cruelty was artless, blunt, fashioned for hard and fast impact. I liked to think I was made of a hardier fiber, but it wasn’t a theory I wanted to test.

Before I could leave, the door on the other side of the training center opened. Sefa and Marek spilled inside, in the middle of a heated argument.

Sefa picked up on the tension and fell quiet. Her gaze darted between Arin and me. “Apologies. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Marek, however, had the instincts of a goat flea. He raised a blond brow in our direction and drawled, “Lovers’ spat?”

Later, I would recall how Arin blanched. How those two words seemed to deal him a debilitating blow. I would consider whether Marek’s foolishness wasn’t its own kind of intuition. In the moment, all I saw was Arin flipping his wrist and throwing the dagger.

It would have cut straight through Sefa’s heart. Clean and efficient.

She’d be dead before her body hit the mat.

Before the blade could find its mark, a powerful wave of nausea knocked me to my knees, and the world froze.

I pressed the back of my shaking hand to my mouth, struggling to keep my breakfast. All of them were unnaturally still. The dagger’s tip had frozen two inches from Sefa’s chest.

Supporting myself against the wall, I staggered to my feet. There was no predicting how long my magic would hold. Marek’s features had frozen with the dawning of horror, Sefa’s with irritation. Still stuck on Marek’s asinine comment, completely unaware that two inches of empty air was all that stood between her and death’s door.

I wrapped my hand around the dagger and tugged. To my relief, it came away in my grip. With the immediate threat eliminated, my rage seethed forth.

I swung around. Arin was pinned in place, arm still poised in midair.

“I should kill you where you stand,” I snarled. I balanced the tip of the dagger at the underside of his chin. “Bleed you dry right here.”

Arin and I had reached an impasse. I didn’t dream of running him

through with my sword nearly as often. On occasion, when he was contemplative or pretended to ignore me, I even tolerated his company.

Killing my friend on a whim? What was the sense in it?

The tip of the dagger pushed deeper into his skin. “You aimed at Sefa,” I murmured. “Not Marek.”

Four weeks ago, my will might not have overpowered the urge to drive this dagger through the back of his head. Today, it was a narrow victory.

“Another test.” The raw quality of my laugh scraped my ears. “Safer to wager my magic would intervene for Sefa than Marek.”

Arin’s gaze slid to mine. Had my magic even affected him? His dangerous mood hadn’t changed, and I steeled my nerves against the urge to retreat.

“What if you were wrong? What if you had miscalculated?”

“Pointless questions are best left to the poets,” Arin said. He forced me a step backward. I locked my jaw, glaring up at him.

Motion in my periphery signaled a newly animated Marek and Sefa.

Arin struck in a burst of movement, slamming the heel of his hand against the inside of my wrist and sending the dagger flying.

The Nizahl Heir’s eyes were shards of lethal promise. “Point a dagger at me again, and it will be your last.”

The fragile peace Arin and I had fostered disappeared.

To my consternation, his gamble paid off. Now that he knew my magic reacted to threats against Sefa or Marek, he found creative ways to ensure I felt genuine fear for them every session. He had Vaun take them for a walk to Essam, and my magic hurled a spade into the board. Another session, he described exactly how a tribunal would condemn Sefa for assaulting the High Counselor, and the methods they might choose to put her to death. I managed to levitate one of the war chests. Only for a second, while magic burned my cuffs and fear for Sefa tightened my gut.

Today, the war chest flew across the room, cracking against the image of Niyar. It flickered, revealing the white wall behind the animated painting,

before re-forming.

Instead of rejoicing in this development, Arin seemed to grow grimmer.

“Are you eating?”

I was thrown. “Yes?” Though the quality of food had improved from the milky wheat nonsense of the first week, the guards’ talent for cooking had not improved with it. I had used Wes’s bread as a weapon the other day.

“Jasadi magic is a well that replenishes at unpredictable speeds. If you reach the bottom of your well too quickly, you might be left powerless until it refills. You are scraping stone.”

“I’m moving the chests.” The rest was irrelevant. I had been weak and weary before. I could work through it.

I thought of Marek’s body strung across the Citadel’s gates. The pulse at my wrists didn’t sting this time. The weapons Arin arranged on top of the chest hovered in the air for a millisecond, then flew into the wall on the far side of the center with deadly accuracy.

The perimeters of my vision blurred. When I opened my eyes, the fake sky greeted me.

Arin’s head moved over the sun. He glowered at me.

“I’ll need a moment,” I said casually.

“You need more than a moment.” He reached down, and the room spun again as I was hauled upright. My traitorous legs buckled. Arin caught me with an arm around my waist, his frown deepening.

Plastered to his side and weightless, I opened my mouth to shriek obscenities directly into his ear, then reconsidered. Why bother? I didn’t have the energy for a respectable tantrum.

His body was a solid line against my own. This was the closest I’d been to a man I wasn’t trying to stab. The closest I had been to anyone not actively trying to kill me, actually. How depressing.

I waited for the swell of panic to hit at his touch. I had chalked up its absence the last time he touched me as a fluke. I was too distracted wondering if he would snap my neck to consider panicking. But he was touching me now and—nothing. No panic.

Still plenty of discomfort, though. The moment we were near enough, I wriggled away, stumbling toward my bed.

Arin did not prevaricate. “Wes and Jeru will accompany you to Mahair.

They will be nearby throughout the day, but I will instruct them to give you

your privacy.”

“Mahair? I’ve been asking you to let me visit for weeks, and you choose now? We cannot afford the time.”

“It is less than half a day’s ride away. I had them prepare the horses.”

My jaw dropped. I had been less than half a day’s ride away from Mahair this entire time?

I stared at Arin until it hit me. “You feel guilty.” I burst into laughter, which promptly devolved into hacking coughs. “The famed Commander feels guilty for nearly killing a village girl. Don’t worry, I don’t think Sefa

is upset with you.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“Are you?” I countered. “My magic is weak and uncertain. We finally have an advantage, and the Champions’ Banquet is in two weeks. We should be capitalizing on this.” I formed a circle around my wrists, kneading my cuffs.

A vein in Arin’s forehead jumped. “Don’t misunderstand me. I wasn’t offering. You will be going to Mahair tomorrow. If I discover you attempted

to practice on your own—”

“If this is about Sefa—”

“I don’t give a damn about the girl!” Arin shouted, shocking me into silence. The outburst clearly took him by surprise as well. He locked his jaw. I had never seen the Nizahl Heir struggle to express himself—I’d venture few had.

The tips of his gloved fingers formed a steeple on the table’s surface.

“Martyrs don’t survive the Alcalah.”

“Can’t you tell the difference between a martyr and a mercenary?”

“I thought I had employed the latter. You have proven me wrong.”

I rubbed my temples, blocking out the incoming migraine and the tantalizing pillows in my periphery. “How? By doing everything possible to uphold my end of the bargain?”

When he didn’t respond, I continued, compelled to defend myself.

“There is much you don’t know about me, but understand this: I will fight for my freedom until my last breath. You took it away, and you cannot fault how ardently I choose to take it back. Until you have felt hunted, less than human, rejected from the moment you were born for something you did not ask for and cannot control—until then, do not speak to me of martyrs and

mercenaries.”

I braced myself for the spiel I’d heard on countless occasions. Everyone was so fond of remembering how magic forced the Awaleen into their tombs after Rovial devastated the kingdoms. They didn’t mention how it breathed life into the barren lands to begin with. They spoke of Jasad in hushed whispers, of the hoarded magic that corrupted the very leaves on the fig trees. Of magic-madness building in Jasadi veins like a disease, threatening our grasp on sanity. Forgetting that before Jasad, Nizahl’s powers were curbed, its function as an arbiter of peace strictly upheld. They had not enjoyed the unchecked powers Jasad’s destruction had allowed them.

The Nizahl Heir repeated none of it. He looked at me steadily and said, “Understood.”

Rory reacted to my visit with his flavor of effervescent glee. “You’re late.”

He chucked me under the chin, a wide smile winding over his face.

“There are lavender bowls in need of sifting.”

I grinned at him like a fool. “When aren’t there?” I fetched an empty bowl and dropped onto the bench he’d had Marek carve into the wall for the elderly and expectant mothers, both of whom tended to frequent his shop.

“How are you?”

The spectacles few knew he secretly wore slipped down the bridge of his nose. He flipped the page he was pretending to read. “Busy. I seem to have misplaced an apprentice.”

“Dozens would gladly take my place if invited, old man. I’m not sure if you have heard, but people are under the impression you’re an accomplished chemist.”

“I have an apprentice,” Rory said, finally meeting my eyes. “A loud, unpleasant, utterly deranged apprentice who I expected to run this shop after my death.”

After his death? I raked over him critically, searching for any signs of failing health. He was fine, aside from a weakness for dramatics. “When I

finish the Alcalah, I’ll be able to buy the shop from you. You can sit on a chair outside and shout at people to your shriveled heart’s content.”

Rory put his book aside. “Do you truly believe you will live past the Alcalah? Past encountering the Supreme?” He glanced at the door. Wes and Jeru were patrolling outside the village, allowing me the privacy Arin promised.

I plucked out a sheaf of sage and shook it into the open bowl. “The Supreme will not recognize me.”

“The Supreme is a more dangerous man than you can conceive. Nothing is certain.”

The entire reason I’d originally wanted to visit Mahair was to escape these incessant doubts, not have them reinforced. “Even if he discovers my identity, he would not apprehend his own Champion. I will leave quickly and quietly, and the rest is on the Heir’s head.”

“The Commander would just let the Jasad Heir vanish into the wild?

Think, Sylvia! If your existence is discovered, every Jasadi in hiding will rally behind your crown. You will give them a reason to rise and reunite.

You are the greatest threat to his power. The Supreme wouldn’t hesitate to slay you before the convened courts, Champion or not.”

My hands shook. Rally behind me?

“What crown, Rory? Virtue of blood does not make me suitable to lead anyone.”

“Blood cannot lead a kingdom,” Rory said. His voice gentled. “Sacrifice can. A true ruler is one who puts their people before themselves. No matter the cost.”

“That isn’t me. It is not in my nature—”

“Of course it isn’t. Altruism is no one’s nature. It wouldn’t be half as remarkable otherwise.”

He took the sifted lavender. The sound of the pestle clacking against stone grounded me. I sorted the stalks into bundles, losing myself in the

repetition.

“You look horrible,” Rory said.

The next person to comment on my appearance would earn a swift punch to the throat. “That seems to be the general sentiment, yes.”

“He cannot expect you to train as a Nizahl soldier would,” Rory started, working himself up for a grand fit. “A village apprentice does not have the

skills—”

“I am not only a village apprentice,” I interjected. “The training isn’t a problem.”

“I cannot imagine the methods the Commander employs to train a Champion.” He scraped the pestle with force.

“His methods don’t leave me delirious or at death’s door. That is more than I can say for others.”

Rory halted. In all our revelations, I had never discussed the missing years between the Blood Summit and appearing at his doorstep. Perhaps living underground in the company of people who would dance on my grave had softened me to a kind face. I wanted him to know.

I picked up the next bundle of sage, keeping my gaze trained on it. “A former Jasadi, thrown from the kingdom in disgrace, found me in the woods after the Blood Summit. She knew who I was. Breaking open my magic

became her singular obsession.”

“Breaking open your magic?”

Oh. I had forgotten Rory didn’t know about my cuffs. “My magic is… complicated. The waleema was the first time it expressed itself in over a decade.”

For once, Rory did not interrupt my tale. He folded his hands over the curved top of his cane. After weeks of guarding my every word, it felt freeing to talk without reservation.

“We lived in the woods, somewhere warded to keep away other Jasadis.

She would acquire horrible spells to teach me how to fight. Enchant the water to boil and test how long I could touch the surface. Compel monsters to chase me through the woods. My magic didn’t budge, not once, in all the years I spent with her. She would be livid to have failed where the Nizahl Heir succeeded.”

Rory pushed himself to his feet. The sheer sorrow in his tone pierced through me. “She gave you those scars, didn’t she? On your back?”

I briefly wondered when Rory would have seen my back until I remembered the night he found me at his shop. I’d been drenched in Hanim’s blood, and he had given me a tunic to change into. He must have caught sight of my scars before he turned around.

I chuckled softly. “Hanim wanted her lessons to last.”

Rory’s head snapped to attention. “What did you say?”

“Am I speaking too quickly for you?” My smirk fled at Rory’s mounting horror. “What?”

“Tell me you don’t mean Hanim, Qayida of the Jasadi forces.”

“One and the same. Rory, what’s wrong?”

I eased a wobbling Rory into his chair. He didn’t answer, clutching his cane in a white-knuckled grip. My concern grew. I fetched him a glass of water. Hanim’s reputation clearly preceded her.

After he drained the glass, he cleared his throat. “That woman loathed

your family.”

I snorted. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“No, no, she—” He coughed hard, shoulders curving inward. I thumped his back until the rattling stopped. Rory’s poor heart must’ve been twice as strong before he met me.

He swatted my arm off. “Did she tell you why Niyar and Palia exiled her from Jasad?”

“She violated the tenets of war.” My voice rose at the end, pitching the statement into a question.

“Yes, most certainly, and she committed treason.”

I lifted my shoulder. Rory seemed to think this information should shatter my mind. I committed treason every day, merely by existing. The word had lost its sting. “How? The war crimes?”

“She was found guilty of conspiracy against the crown with an enemy party.”

I took the empty glass, setting it on the counter. My voice was flat.

“Enemy party.”

“Supreme Rawain,” Rory confirmed. “When he was only an Heir, they found records indicating he and Hanim had plotted to overthrow your grandparents and seize Jasad.”

He must have been speaking in jest. If there was anyone Hanim hated more than my grandparents, it was Supreme Rawain. Why would she ever stoop to working with him against Jasad?

“I thought she hated Nizahl.”

“Not at first.” Rory grimaced. “Once she was discovered, Rawain and his father, Supreme Munqual, denounced her deceit. Your grandparents weren’t interested in war, so they accepted Rawain’s attempts at reconciliation. I imagine Qayida Hanim did not take kindly to losing her

position and her home for naught.”

“How long did she conspire with him?”

“They had been in communication for years. Her betrayal was not a revelation for your grandparents. They had long known of Qayida Hanim’s disdain for the crown.”

I scrubbed at my hair, pulling curls from my braid. None of it made sense. I hadn’t thought twice about Arin calling Jasad the architect of its own ruin—he genuinely believed magic destroyed everything it touched.

But the Mufsid woman describing the walls of Usr Jasad as corrupt?

Keeping on an untrustworthy Qayida was placing the entire kingdom at the knife’s point and hoping it did not tip over. For all their faults, I had always believed in my grandparents’ love for Jasad above all else. It had soothed the anguish of losing my magic as a child, knowing Niyar and Palia had cuffed my powers to protect our kingdom.

Rory read the confusion on my face. “I believe they were under the impression her role was superfluous. They were overly reliant on their magic and the fortress.”

“It’s the Qayida’s duty to reinforce the fortress!”

Nausea rolled in my stomach as my cuffs tightened. Grief. Rage. Fear.

“The fortress. Do you think she—could she have?”

The jars behind Rory rattled, and the bell over the door swung wildly. If Hanim had collaborated with the Supreme to bring down Niyar and Palia, it was entirely possible she had schemed with others inside the kingdom.

They had all lied to me. My grandparents, Hanim, my mother. What else had they hidden about Jasad?

“Hanim is not why the fortress fell,” Rory said, prodding a jar of floating herbs with his cane. “Hanim was expelled from Jasad two years before the Blood Summit. The fortress was renewed annually. Renewing the fortress was always meant to be Niphran’s duty. Your grandparents decided as soon as their daughter was born to appoint their Heir as Qayida in the Nizahlan tradition. Hoping it would show the might of the royal blood.

Many wilayahs disapproved of breaking from custom, believing it dishonored the memory of Qayida Hend. The problem resolved itself after —” Rory cleared his throat.

After an arrow tore open Emre’s throat and rendered Niphran incapable of leaving her bed, let alone serving as Jasad’s Qayida.

“The wilayahs disapproved.” I paced his shop, the pressure in my cuffs throbbing. “What else did they disapprove of?”

“I was not especially involved in Jasadi politics at the time, but your grandparents had a long history of causing uproars.”

What if the Mufsids had existed before the siege on Jasad? The Urabi?

What if one or both had conspired against the Jasad crown long before the Blood Summit?

But why would they want the fortress to fall? They could not control a kingdom that did not exist, and there was no chance of victory against Nizahl’s armies without a fortress, a Qayida, or a single royal.

“Sylvia… why are you laughing?”

The irony, oh, delicious irony! All along, Hanim’s hatred for Nizahl was personal. She wanted a pawn in her fight to reclaim a land she considered rightfully hers. How it must have burned to watch Rawain rise over Jasad while she rotted in the woods! What had he promised her for her betrayal?

What had he offered?

Rory prodded his cane into my side, looking as though he wasn’t sure whether to scold or soothe me.

“This is hardly a laughing matter. Hanim is not a forgiving woman.

She’ll be searching for you,” he said. Adorable.

“She won’t be searching for me.” I wiped away the last of my tears. I

needed a good laugh.

“You cannot know—”

“Hanim’s dead,” I said. “Although if anyone can exact earthly vengeance from beyond, it’s her.”

I returned Rory’s wide-eyed gaze evenly. Whatever he saw in my eyes drained the color from his face.

“Essiya,” he breathed, “what did you do?”

It flashed through my mind in an instant. A dagger slicing across a throat that never spoke a kind word. The slowing of a heart as broken and ugly as mine. A body shoved into a hole—a grave—painstakingly dug into the

frozen ground.

How deep can you dig, Essiya?

Brushing crushed lavender from my cuffs, I smiled.

“I found you, Rory.”

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