The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The moment Marek introduced himself to me five years ago, all charm, lanky limbs, and sparkling teeth, I had instantly known him for what he was: trouble. Chaos with a pretty face. The impression was solidified within the first few weeks of his incessant flirting. Scowling and stalking away had failed to deter him. Knocking his eyeballs from his skull wasn’t an option if I wanted to maintain my pretense of fragility. So I seized the next best option. I tattled to Sefa.

Now that hitting Marek was an option, I found it quite hard to resist smashing his head into the bedside table. I had been studiously avoiding him since the incident in the training center. Knowing how deeply he regretted his behavior didn’t ease my own frustration. Lovers’ spat. Two careless words could have ended Sefa’s life.

The day after the Ruby Hound’s attack, Marek cornered me in my chambers. “If we were in Mahair, I could earn your forgiveness with a stack of prickly pears or sesame-seed candies. I am at a loss here, Sylvia.” He spread his arms.

I regarded Marek, once again wishing for Arin’s talent for seeing through people. Cutting past the noise and into the heart of the beast.

Whatever caused his outburst was linked to the same impulse that drove Marek to accept his back-breaking position with Yuli and his bristling hatred for Nizahl. In many ways, I understood Marek better than Sefa.

Sefa’s heart was the governing force behind her actions. She categorized every decision into uncomprosining columns of right and wrong. To properly burn, rage must be given room to grow, and Sefa had long decided she would never open herself up to becoming its kindling.

Not Marek and me. Whatever we felt, we felt in its full violence. But where I kept my feelings in a stranglehold, Marek felt—and expressed—his emotions to their fullest extent.

I needed to understand what was happening in his head. Another glib

remark like that outside these tunnels could end in disaster. “Let us make truth our currency this time. What did you leave behind in Nizahl, Caleb?”

His contrition wavered into a grimace. Marek raised his knuckles to his temples, kneading his forehead. “Nothing good.”

I crossed my arms. “If you want my forgiveness, earn it.”

Marek dropped onto the bed. Resistance drained from him in a great sweep. “What do you want to hear? People like you and me keep our secrets for a reason.”

“ ‘People like you and me’?” I repeated with a disgust reserved for stepping in a bucket of fish heads. Did he want me to pat his hand and whine over our shared suffering? “Are you a Jasadi, too, Marek?”

“I did not mean—”

“I don’t care.”

He sighed.

“You want a story, Sylvia? I was born the youngest of five children to a family with an infamous military legacy. My father and mother had served in Supreme Munqal’s army. My grandparents, Supreme Tairal. On and on it went. The Lazur family was synonymous with Nizahlan military excellence. We were expected to join as soon as we were old enough. My sister, Amira, died at twenty-one in a clash between Nizahl’s lower villages.

The grain stores had run low, and Nizahl’s soil is hostile to all but a few crops. Supreme Rawain was Commander at the time, and he sent soldiers to quell the violence with more violence.”

Marek raised his head to check that I was listening, then dropped it back on the bed. Golden hair fanned around his face. I perched at his side, keeping my expression carefully neutral. I considered this revelation of Marek’s lineage with the scrutiny I would afford a cut on my palm.

Prodding the edges, testing the sting.

“Darin died in the border battles with Orban. The khawaga cut him open and poured cheap ale onto his insides for the animals to smell. They left him in the sun for six days. My last brother, Binyar, rose in the ranks quickly under Supreme Rawain. He was among those chosen to lead the siege on Jasad’s fortress after the Blood Summit. He never returned.”

A tear trickled toward Marek’s hair. He dashed it away.

Marek threw an arm over his face. “Hani was two years older than me.

He wanted to enter Supreme Rawain’s confidence, forge a place for our

family at the highest tables in the kingdom. He spent years trying to earn invitations to the most exclusive parties and bend the ears of the kingdom’s rich and powerful. What Hani did not grasp was that the inside of the Citadel was a thousand times more lethal than anything he might encounter on the battlefield. When I was thirteen, a prisoner was thrown into Nizahl’s most heavily fortified dungeon. A high-risk Jasadi prisoner who had nearly killed the Heir. Hani and a dozen soldiers guarding the cells were slaughtered by a group of Jasadis later that night. The prisoner vanished, and we laid Hani to rest next to Binyar and Amira. When my turn for conscription arrived, I fled.”

I sat up. “A Jasadi group killed your brother?”

Marek pushed himself upright. He tossed a half-formed smile in my direction. “I have no animosity toward Jasadis as a whole, if that is what you fear. The group that rescued the prisoner and killed my brother were skilled criminals.”

A group of Jasadis breaking into a highly fortified Nizahlan prison should have been the news on everyone’s tongue. Hanim, who regularly traveled into the kingdoms for supplies, would surely have heard about it.

Not to mention a Jasadi almost killing the Nizahl Heir. Arin would have been… sixteen? Supreme Rawain must have expended great effort to bury the news.

An old conversation between Wes and Jeru surfaced.

I was appointed to his guard when he was sixteen.

I thought only Vaun was present for that.

How bad must the attack on Arin have been to still haunt his guards a decade later?

I tried to swallow past my dry throat. “Marek, do you remember what the group was called?”

Marek glanced at the door, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Yes, but you cannot speak of it to anyone. I only know because Hani mentioned them a few days before his murder, and he swore me to secrecy.”

Foreboding tiptoed down the rungs of my spine. “I promise.”

“I believe they called themselves the Mufsids.”

As predicted, Arin came to the tunnels only to sleep and swap guards. We had mere days before we were due to leave for Lukub, but he had opted to spend at least one of them hunting the Urabi who sent the Hound. He left detailed instructions on what each training session needed to accomplish, but the guards could be creative about the methods.

Heavy footsteps approached the training mast while I stretched. Please let it be Jeru substituting today. Wes focused more on defensive strategies and avoided my magic altogether. Ren preferred having me run in the muddiest portion of the woods and throw spears at moving targets until I could scarcely move.

The person who entered the training mast wasn’t any of them. It was Vaun.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, covering my unease with indignation. Loose training garments had replaced his uniform. “I don’t train with you.”

“Wrong. His Highness said you shouldn’t train with me if there were any available alternatives,” Vaun replied. “The others aren’t here.”

Alarm flared through me. Vaun and I hadn’t ever been truly alone. His loathing for me had only increased with time, and I was hardly penning prose about him.

Vaun grew up with the Heir. Of all the guards, he was the best. Fast, strong, and brutally efficient. I wouldn’t walk away undamaged.

If I objected, he’d back down. He had to.

“Afraid? I can always leave,” Vaun taunted. He’d been waiting for this.

Possibly orchestrated the errands keeping everyone occupied.

Our reckoning had dawned, and I wasn’t turning away.

“Pick your weapon,” I said. “Let’s finish this.”

Malice shone behind Vaun’s wide grin. “Ah, there it is. So much pride for such a raggedy little orphan girl.” He didn’t spare the weapons lined on the chest a look. “Bare-fisted combat. There won’t always be a weapon to save you, will there?”

“You talk too much for someone who’s meant to be seen and not heard.”

We circled each other. I bounced on the springy mats, glancing at Palia’s and Niyar’s shapes on the wall. The bird soared overhead, wings catching on the breeze as the magic reset, and the scene played anew.

“Conditions?”

“Try not to die.” Vaun rolled his shoulders. “His Highness has plans hinging on your continued existence.”

The people moving in the walls around us meant less than nothing to him. He had threatened my friends, terrorized me every spare moment he could. Countless Jasadis had died at his hateful sword.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” I said.

I sprang first, aiming for his stomach. Getting him on the floor and disoriented was all I needed to end this victoriously. From there, it would be a simple matter of gouging out his eyes. Arin’s training was for a Champion; Hanim’s, for a survivor.

Vaun twisted out of reach, slamming his fist into the side of my head. I staggered, blinking back white sparks, and laughed.

“Is that it? Come now, Vaun. Where’s your passion?” I attacked again.

My blow met its mark, and he grimaced.

Vaun fought well. Almost too well. By the time I was wiping blood from my chin, I knew he’d been paying attention. Listening to the guards’ conversations about my progress, memorizing my weaknesses. We fell into a violent pattern; I lunge, he swings, I either reel back or land my own blow. He was counting on my impatience swelling and causing a slip.

His strategy might have worked if my opponent had been anyone else.

Vaun’s patience rivaled mine in fragility. It was a matter of who broke first.

“All this for your precious Heir? I’ll admit, he’s not the sharpest spade in the armory, but he’s not utterly useless. He can fight his own battles.”

The gibe came out garbled. He’d split my lip with his elbow a few rounds ago.

Vaun’s nostrils flared. An insult to Arin always affected him in disproportionate amounts. I leapt forward. His nose cracked against my fist.

He snapped my arm back hard enough to pop and kicked me in the chest, sending me sprawling.

I scrambled up. Gritting my teeth, I wrenched my arm back into its socket.

“Honestly, I find his incompetence thrilling. I’m here because he cannot manage to do his sole duty as Commander and capture Jasadis.” This was too easy. Surely Vaun would see through these adolescent tricks.

He reddened. “Keep his name out of your filthy mouth.”

I saw it, then. The fastest route to the finish. “But he likes my mouth,” I

purred.

The way Vaun reacted, one would think he’d swallowed a dozen vials of rochelya venom. A disturbing blankness washed over him. “I’m warning you—”

I spoke faster. “Your grand leader, debasing himself with an abomination. I tolerate his clumsy affections. What choice do I have? He’s as incompetent in be—”

I never finished the sentence. Vaun tackled me. Rage hadn’t made him ungainly. It simply removed his reservations. We grappled, but he held the superior position. In the grips of his frenzy, he hit me, over and over again. I grew slack beneath him. A piercing hum rang in my ears.

“Never again,” he growled. He took a fistful of my hair, jerking my head back. “Lying whore. He wouldn’t—no. Never again.”

His forearm pressed down on my windpipe. I didn’t need Niphran’s specter to know he meant to kill me. I clawed at him, raking bloody lines

down his cheek.

This would not be how my family ended.

“I should have run you through the first day,” he spat. “Filth like you should never survive this long.”

Behind him, the rabbit bounded in the air, out of the children’s reach.

The tree ruffled over Niyar’s head, and from his seat at its base, he flipped the page of the book eternally open across his lap. Palia squinted on the palace steps, searching for Niyar. I’d seen this scene a million times since I arrived.

“You’re right,” I gasped. Black spots burst across my vision. My cuffs tightened. I should have died at the Blood Summit alongside everyone I loved. An honorable death, a worthy one. Never knowing the iron tang of blood filling my mouth, the crack of a whip as it sliced into my flesh. All my potential for greatness wouldn’t have been tested. I wouldn’t have failed Jasad so catastrophically.

But like a rat scrabbling in the dark, I’d lived.

On the wall, Palia put her hands on her hips, as though in wait.

Calling on every last vestige of strength, I unfurled my fingers.

We burst into flames.

They flared around me harmlessly, but Vaun bellowed and hurtled back.

Tiny flames wound around my body, slithered in my braid.

I dragged myself to a stand, ignoring my shrieking body. Vaun retreated.

I relished his fear, drank it in. I curled my fingers, and the curved sword on the chest flew, the pointed tip coming to a stop at his heart. I squeezed my fist, and it cut through his clothes. Vaun flung himself into the wall. The sword followed, pinning him in place.

Killing Vaun would solve so many problems. Letting him live would be

letting more Jasadis die.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

“Drop the sword, Sylvia,” Arin said, low and soothing. I had not heard him enter, but it didn’t matter. I would sense him from miles away.

The words were hoarse from my mangled throat. “Why should I?”

Arin entered my line of sight, obscuring Vaun. Dust covered him from shoulder to waist, and a bruise bloomed high on his cheekbone.

“You are not a murderer.”

“I am, actually,” I chuckled. The fire jumped, preventing him from getting closer. “You don’t make that distinction when killing Jasadis. Why shouldn’t I behave as a killer if I’m to suffer the same fate regardless?”

Arin assessed my appearance, my wrecked face and the awkward angle of my broken bones. Comprehension washed over him, leaving grim

resolution in its place.

He stepped aside.

The strangled noise Vaun made was almost enough to satisfy me.

Almost.

I didn’t care if this was another test. Vaun was a menace to me, to everyone I cared about. My cuffs pulsed. Blood beaded around the sword’s tip.

I wanted to. So badly. My magic shook with it.

Again, my gaze found Niyar and Palia. The children ran past Niyar on the grass, chasing the bunny fleeing in midair. Just as the scene hitched, a leaf fluttered over Niyar’s head. I had seen the leaf and the tree he sat against on countless occasions.

I followed the leaf up. At the top of the tree, a child’s leg dangled. Her sandal was poorly fastened, hanging precariously off her toes. A few moments more and it would fall squarely onto Niyar’s book.

Palia had those sandals made for my seventh birthday. She wasn’t looking for Niyar—she was looking for me.

Hanim’s prodigy would cut him through without hesitation. No one would fault me. No one living, anyhow.

The leaf drifted as the child’s leg swung.

I snapped my fingers. Vaun’s scream shook the room as the sword sliced neatly through his thigh and pinned him to the wall.

He was not worth what was left of my soul.

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