The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

In the five years I spent in Omal, I never once ventured into the palace town. Omal’s palace was built in the center of the kingdom, a solid presence around which the coursing life in Omal flowed. Sefa and I craned our necks from the carriage window, ignoring Marek’s teasing. Painted in the light blue of a spring sky, the palace dazzled at the heart of the upper town. Gates constructed from white agate circled the palace, opaque in the sunlight. The gates swung open for our procession. Compared to the khawaga and their mutts, the Omalian patrol was a welcome sight.

Four long pillars rose in the corners of the palace, capped with a sparkling sapphire cone. Glimmering domes separated each story of the palace. Seven rounded archways composed of alternating blue and white glossy tiles led past a gushing fountain to the front steps. The limestone above the arches was decorated with interlocking geometric patterns.

“No wonder the villages are starving,” Marek muttered.

“I just want to sit somewhere and stare at it,” Sefa said dreamily.

Stunning ceramic tiles composed the path to the entrance. I momentarily forgot we were entering the home of a man who had expressed interest in mounting my head in his garden.

The entrance to the palace nearly sent Sefa to the floor. Stretching higher than the archway, a rochelya composed of shimmering blue and white glass peered down at us. Kapastra’s prized pet and Omal’s symbol. The lizard- like creature’s scaled tail curled around clawed feet. Sefa tapped the flat curve of its ear. “For good luck,” she explained.

The doors were already open, a set of servants in Omalian livery waiting to receive us. We had arrived later than anticipated, and neither Felix nor the Queen was present to welcome us.

“Queen Hanan and her Heir look forward to your presence at dinner tonight,” the head servant said, bowing. Arin’s soldiers streamed around us, taking our belongings before the servants could.

Our footsteps echoed in the entrance hall. Sefa’s elbow dug into my side, and she pointed above our heads.

Winding circles and diagonal lines rippled in tapering tiers from the peak of the palace over the decorated banisters and ornate walls below. The light refracted from each triangle was an opulence rivaling the open skies.

“It looks like a honeycomb,” Sefa said.

“They are called muqarnas,” Arin said. “Omal is not their original place of conception.”

“Jasad is,” I said. Half the Omal palace possessed aspects of Jasad’s architecture. “The only part that originates from Omal is the audacity.

Muqarnas date back to Jasad’s Awal. Rovial designed them for his kingdom. Each muqarna is meant to hold a small focal point of magic shining down on Jasad’s vulnerable. The dying came to heal under muqarnas, and the heartsick found peace.”

At Arin’s narrowed gaze, I innocently added, “There was one in my villa at Ahr il Uboor.” Mervat Rayan’s villa could have been full of them, for all I knew. I still wasn’t sure if Arin believed the Mervat story, but his attention seemed to have been temporarily rerouted thanks to Soraya and Vaun.

The sprawling halls were reminiscent of the twisting tapestries weaving through Lukub’s Ivory Palace. Personally, I found Orban’s economy of space more suited for safety, but at least here the Nizahl assembly had an entire floor to themselves. Chairs were placed next to doors, a thoughtful nod to the guards stationed outside our quarters. Sefa and Marek had shared a room in each kingdom we visited, and Omal was no exception. The head servant motioned at a door to the right, and Sefa bounded inside with glee, Marek following with their luggage. Jeru drew their door shut and set himself in front of it, ignoring the chair.

Arin’s chambers opened in the very center of the hall, where an assailant would have to pass a sea of guards, but not so far that a shout couldn’t be heard from the stairwell. Arin did not enter, but walked with me to the very last room.

“These will be the quarters for the Nizahl Champion,” the head servant said. His stern civility reminded me of Dawoud. “There are attendants available to assist with preparations for tonight’s meal or guide you through the palace. Please do not hesitate to call upon Omal’s servants, and I thank you again for the honor of your stay.”

Arin gestured at Wes. “Her door needs supervision every minute she is inside. Two soldiers may serve as a replacement for you or Jeru, but I prefer one of you be present at all times.”

Wes moved in front of my door. He did not mention that this setup left Arin without a single guardsman at his own door. Apparently, it was more likely Felix had designs against me or my companions than the Nizahl Heir.

“We cannot leave any window for her or the others to move on you, not without losing the opportunity to capture them,” Arin had said.

One benefit of having innumerable people trying to trap or murder me?

No more attendants.

Arin strode down the hall, a retinue of soldiers falling into step behind him. He went past his quarters, and several soldiers broke off to stand outside the door. They shooed away attendants offering to unpack the Heir’s belongings.

“I guess Felix is not as familiar with Arin’s ‘eccentricities’ as Vaida is.”

At Wes’s frown, I raised my hands in surrender. “His phrase. If you want to come inside and rest your feet, you are welcome. I do not see how Felix could attack me in a hall teeming with Nizahl soldiers.”

“You do not see it,” Wes said. “I don’t. But the Commander does, and we will minimize the risk accordingly.”

I rolled my eyes, kicking the door shut behind me. After the sparseness of the Champion’s Pavilion in Orban, these rooms dripped with extravagance. Light streamed in from open windows shaped like crescents and triangles. A tiered chandelier held dozens of candles above a round table. A sculpted rochelya’s long neck wrapped around the table, its stone tail winding up the table’s leg. The bed could fit every girl in the keep, piled with frilled pillows and fitted with a patterned white headboard. I stood on the plush blue divan and peered out the window, leaning my elbows on the vaulted pane. The sky opened in a light rain.

We were in my father’s home. Had he read his books by the fountain?

Charmed a girl to round the gardens with him under the stars?

Queen Hanan was my grandmother, Felix her nephew. Rumor said Queen Hanan rarely left her wing of the palace anymore, not since losing her son in Jasad and her husband at the Blood Summit. Felix controlled Omal in all but name, and the evidence of his incompetence was everywhere.

The Omal palace had leeched its kingdom’s wealth for its own. Lukub was the wealthiest kingdom because every citizen had a home to call their own, food in their bellies, and a trade to practice. Orban rejected the concept of hierarchical villages and towns, and one could only gain a title or a noble status from earning distinction in Orban’s army. Their southern villages still fared worse than the rest, and I wondered if Orban’s determination to claim equality in their kingdom kept them from seeing all the places where it crumbled. Meanwhile, Omal had the largest population, the wealthiest nobles, the most profitable markets, and yet its lower villages slipped closer to starvation each winter.

I flopped onto the bed, pitching the unnecessary pillows to the side. One of them sailed past the bedside table, sending an object clattering to the ground.

Kicking aside the overstuffed pillow, I picked up a gray clay doll. The toy spanned the length from my wrist to the tip of my tallest finger. Stiff black twine wrapped around it from head to foot.

The twine. The twine should have been unwrapped. Why was it there?

The doll needed to breathe. It couldn’t breathe with the twine around it.

Dreamily, I slid my nail under a strand of the twine and plucked. The doll slid from my grasp, slipping across my wrists before I caught it.

In a blink, my mind cleared. As soon as I separated the doll from my cuffs, the haze settled over me again, and I frowned at the twine. It should not have been there. The doll couldn’t breathe. I had to give it back its air.

I dropped the doll and scrambled away. “Ghaiba,” I gasped.

There weren’t many people who would leave such a thing in my quarters. I used a discarded tunic to pick up the doll. Hesitantly, I pressed its head against my left cuff and braced myself.

Nothing.

Soraya had said my cuffs resisted the strongest tracking spells. I assumed the spells simply couldn’t find any of my magic to track. What if my cuffs deflected some types of spells? If the runes kept my magic in, it was possible they also kept magic out.

Felix must have hoped I wouldn’t recognize this terrible doll. Said to come from Lukub during Baira’s rule, the ghaiba was an ancient entity that manifested as a shapeless, vicious cloud. Once inside a victim, it tore into their minds, distorting reality and showing them visions of every regret,

agony, or secret doubt they kept hidden. If left inside too long, the ghaiba could leave its host catatonic or dead. After the entombment, Lukubis found a way to trap the ghaiba in these dolls and seal it with black twine. Hanim spent months trying to find one and test whether my magic could expel the ghaiba once it sank into me.

Why would he leave one in my quarters? If he was trying to intimidate me without alerting Arin, the easiest targets were— I hurried from my room and shoved past Wes, breaking into a run. The hall stretched endlessly, and I nearly wept with relief at the sight of Jeru. A symphony of terror exploded in my chest when I threw open their door.

Jeru and Wes crashed into me from behind. Wes uttered a low oath.

“Get the Commander,” Jeru croaked. “Now!”

Jeru tried to enter after me, but I shoved him back. “The ghaiba can split itself among multiple people. Do not enter.”

I slammed the door shut.

Sefa and Marek floated in the middle of the room, their dilated eyes roving wildly, chasing the nightmares in their own heads. Their limbs dangled forward, twitching. The scent of spoiled eggs assaulted my nose.

On the floor below them lay a doll identical to mine. Black twine hung limply from Marek’s fingers.

Sefa’s eyes rolled back in her head. She jerked violently. Marek’s arm twisted to an unnatural position, and a guttural moan leaked from his open mouth.

The door burst open. Arin blew in, rain clinging to his coat and darkening his hair. He took in the gruesome sight and shoved the door shut

when his guards attempted to follow.

He picked up the doll. “How long?”

“I don’t know, I found mine five minutes ago.” Marek’s shoulder snapped back, and I shrieked. “How do we get it out?!”

He snatched the twine from Marek’s grip. “Tie this around the doll.”

Tying the cursed twine around the doll would flip the doll’s compulsion, drawing the ghaiba out of its host. I wrapped the twine from the top to bottom of the doll. “Each of them has absorbed half the ghaiba. It’ll take hours for the doll to pull it out of them!”

“I am aware,” Arin said. He pulled off his gloves and shed his coat. “It might be to your benefit to wait outside.” At my scowl, he clenched his

teeth. “Then be prepared to catch them.”

“What are you going to do?” I had an inkling, but it couldn’t be right.

He could not possibly be considering— The Commander moved with the swiftness of a serpent’s strike, grabbing Marek’s exposed wrist in one hand, Sefa’s in the other. Marek’s deadweight fell onto the bed, and I rushed forward as Sefa tumbled. We collided in a heap next to Marek. I checked their breathing; shallow, but steady.

A loud crash spurred me to my feet. The doors of the wardrobe smashed to the floor, and the muscles in Arin’s back went rigid as the ghaiba attacked the Heir. He doubled over, gripping a shelf in the wardrobe as his face contorted with agony.

A great shudder went through him. His knuckles whitened around the shelf. What doubts did Arin have that the ghaiba could feed on? What regrets?

I gripped his forearm, squeezing the stiff tendons. Touching him in this state was foolish, but I couldn’t stand how helpless I felt. Another endless moment crawled past, and Arin exhaled, eyes flying open.

He tore his arm from me, the white sheen on his face dissolving with anger. “Have your limited senses forsaken you? I can scarcely bear your touch under the best circumstances. It only takes seconds to lose control, seconds to snap your neck.”

“My limited senses? I am not the one absorbing ghaibas into myself!

How did you even know your maneuver would succeed?”

Arin swept his hair from his forehead, pointedly ignoring my question.

I threw my arms up. “It was a theory, wasn’t it? You calculated the likelihood your ability to sense magic would attract the ghaiba enough to leave Marek and Sefa.”

“Close,” Arin said, and offered no clarification. He sat with his back to the wardrobe. “The stronger the mind, the greater the ghaiba’s challenge. I suppose it found me tempting.”

“Do not do it again.” The harshness of my tone took us both by surprise.

I was still kneeling next to him, a persistent tremble working through me.

The sight of Arin bowed in pain was not one I wanted to witness twice.

“One day, you will miscalculate. You can’t test a theory using yourself, do you understand? You are an Heir, there are risks you simply cannot take! It

is sheer madness, irresponsible—”

“Breathe.” With a wince, he reached for his abandoned gloves and put them on. His gloved hand covered the one latched to my knee.

“No.”

Birds had practiced their sweet songs for generations, but even their music did not compare to the sound of Arin’s laugh.

We stared at each other until the shadows in the room lengthened.

“Why do you keep trying to save me?” he said, and if I hadn’t been inches from him, I wouldn’t have heard it.

“Why do you keep needing to be saved?”

Oh, you foolish, foolish girl, Hanim groaned.

Arin seemed to realize his hand was still on top of mine. He straightened, clearing his throat. “You said there was a doll in your room?”

Arin asked.

I shook myself, fumbling to withdraw the wrapped monstrosity from my cloak’s pocket. I passed it over, avoiding Arin’s eyes. He eased himself to his feet. I followed at a distance, moving to hover over Sefa and Marek.

“They haven’t stirred,” I said.

“They likely won’t wake until morning.” He nodded to their discarded bags. “The boy unwrapped the doll soon after entering the room.”

“He hates it when you call him the boy,” I said.

“Yes, he does,” Arin agreed. I rolled my eyes, tugging a quilt over the sleeping pair. Let it never be said the Commander was beyond pettiness.

“Felix will try again,” I said. “We cannot accuse him of sabotage outright, and he is a conniving little rat.”

Arin’s smile was a figment sprung from nightmares. “Leave that to me.”

The Omalian dining hall stole my breath as much as the rest of the opulent palace. A row of chandeliers twinkled along the middle of the ceiling, illuminating the long, luxurious dining table heaped with food. My mouth watered at the roasted ducks, the stuffed squash, the steaming bissara. Food meant to feed twenty here would have nourished the whole of Mahair.

Servants lined the walls around the lengthy table. I sat between Diya and Mehti in the middle. Queen Hanan dined at the head of the table, Felix to her left and Arin to her right.

She did not glance up from her food, and I took the opportunity to study my paternal grandmother. Though she and Palia were both queens, they differed in every respect. Long brown hair framed Queen Hanan’s thin face, curtaining her darting eyes. She did not command the room with a word like Palia had. Quite the opposite. The Omal ruler seemed determined to fold herself into the smallest pocket of space, unobtrusive and unnoticed.

What might she say if she knew she shared a table with Emre’s daughter?

Diya elbowed me, nodding at Mehti when I glanced over. The Omal Champion chomped on yet another ring of golden mumbar. The fried intestine stuffed with rice, onion, and chickpeas was an Omalian favorite.

“How many of those have you had?” I asked.

Mehti paused, regarding me with the uncertainty of one whose household cat begins to bark. “Do you want one?”

I made a face. “I helped prepare mumbar at my keep once. Cutting a hole in thin bags of flesh and stuffing them to bursting tends to ruin an appetite.”

The Omal Champion shrugged, unaffected by the description. “I have cut holes in humans without losing my appetite for battle.”

While no one understood why Diya was chosen as Orban’s Champion, the same could not be said for Mehti. Though born to wealth, Mehti lacked noble status, and his parents had rejected the crown’s offers to draw them into the fold. Arin had explained that choosing Mehti was a way to force the title of noble onto the recalcitrant family through a mask of a Champion’s honor. Should Mehti become Victor, he would be elevated to nobility, and his family with him.

“Have you had much practice cutting holes into humans?” Diya drawled.

Mehti snorted, lifting a bowl of soup to his lips and glugging. Omalian nobles at the end of the table watched him with bewilderment. “Not as much as you,” he said when he came up for breath. He wiped his greasy mouth.

Diya shrugged modestly. “I cut many holes into two people. Is it the quantity of holes or quantity of people we measure?”

“All right,” I interrupted loudly. “I would like to enjoy my meal,

please.”

“No one is stopping you,” Diya said.

“I have been meaning to ask.” Mehti rested his elbow on the table and angled toward me. “Why did it take you so long to escape Ayume? I was at the far end of the lake from you. You did not see me, but we crossed at the same time.”

I clipped the bud of alarm before it could bloom. No one was near when I killed Timur. Mehti moved like a boar; I would have heard him miles away.

“A bush snagged my ankle,” I said. “It knocked my dagger out of reach.”

I blew on my chicken-and-orzo soup. They called it bird’s tongue soup in Mahair, which had alarmed me until Raya explained that it referred to the shape of the orzo, not the content of the soup. Marek, in his infinite maturity, spent months pointing at every bird we passed and asking if I was hungry.

The two Champions winced sympathetically at the lie. “One of the trees tried to sweep me up while I ran,” Diya offered. She rolled up her sleeve, exposing a thin, red scratch from wrist to elbow.

“I dodged one of those branches and slipped into an eddy of the lake.

Took everything I had to pull myself out,” Mehti said. “Do you think the Awaleen appreciate what we do for them?”

“The Awaleen are asleep in their tombs, and they hear no prayers and care for no honors,” Diya said. “The Alcalah is a boasting contest for the royals, with our lives as the trading cards.”

A low hum pulled my attention from Mehti’s reply. No one else seemed to hear it. I followed the source to a servant leaning against the wall behind Sorn. She halted her conversation with another servant abruptly, gaze dulling. She reached into her pocket with the same dreamy expression I had worn a few hours ago. Sorn’s head blocked my view of her hand, but the mystery of what she held disappeared when black twine fell from her fingers.

Screams erupted around us as a white, writhing cloud surged over the table. Some, including Mehti, tried to hide under the table, but slivers of white broke off from the ghaiba and slipped into their noses. The ghaiba

split into small masses, each attacking a different person at the table. The screams vanished as the ghaiba took root inside them. Diya slumped back in her chair; Mehti’s head landed in the mumbar.

A shot of white raced toward me, and a pure burning sensation filled my nose. I coughed, and the ghaiba spilled from my open mouth in gray wafts, dissipating mournfully. Foiled by my cuffs.

At the end of the table, the royals lay facedown, whimpering into the linen. Except Arin, who closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though the ghaiba were nothing more than a pesky migraine. While it would not render him unconscious, even he could not avoid the ghaiba’s effects entirely.

I glanced at the unresponsive table and pushed my chair back. This was the opportunity I had been hoping for. During the journey to Omal, I had conspired with Sefa and Marek to break into Vaida’s room before the second trial and take her seal. We needed assurance in the event she came after Mahair for the loss of Timur.

If she wore the ring now, I could pry it from her unresisting finger and return to my seat in seconds. And it could only be seconds, because Arin would push through the sliver of ghaiba inside him and reclaim awareness faster than the others. I hadn’t shared our plan to steal the ring with him, though Sefa wanted to. There were instances where my friend forgot the strategic Commander was also the ever-maneuvering Nizahl Heir. While the seal would be a useful piece of leverage in my hands, it would be a lethal weapon in Arin’s.

None of the many rings on Vaida’s fingers were the one she had pressed to the wall in Lukub. I searched her pockets, checked her jangling necklace, but the ring wasn’t on her person.

Vaida lurched to the side, knocking a bowl of bissara into Felix’s lap.

They were fighting past the minuscule amount of ghaiba inside them.

Waking up, which meant Arin would open his eyes at any second.

I launched myself into my seat as Arin’s gaze flickered toward me, questioning. He had seen me return to my seat, but not from where.

Arin retrieved the doll from the moaning servant, winding the black twine around it once more. Without a concentration of the ghaiba in one place, the doll’s compulsion worked quickly on the individual pieces, and white plumes shot from limp mouths and noses. Arin wrapped the doll in a

white cloth and placed it in the servant’s hand, reclaiming his chair as the table roused to life.

Murmurs broke out. Guards carried a sobbing Queen Hanan from the room. A few prodded the weeping servant toward Vaida. She deposited the doll on the table.

“Sultana, it was in my pocket, I do not know how it came to be there, please, I am so sorry.” Disconsolate, she covered her face.

My lips parted. I had taken the girl for an Omalian servant, but she was Lukubi. Arin had slipped Felix’s doll into the pocket of one of the servants traveling with Vaida.

At the sight of the doll, Felix purpled. Rage blossomed on Vaida’s face, and both royals shot to their feet. The aftereffects of the ghaiba had left them scattered, less vigilant of their audience.

“You idiot,” Vaida snarled. “I delivered them to you in a fortified stone box, and you tossed them for a servant to find?”

“I left them exactly where I said I would! My servants are competent enough to avoid objects they do not recognize!”

“If she had untwined that doll anywhere else, we would both be dead!”

Vaida snapped.

A voice cut through their squabble, smooth and measured. “I did not realize magic had become such a problem in your kingdoms,” Arin said.

His gloved hand closed around the doll. A deathlike pallor whitened Felix’s face as the reality of their mistake hit. Vaida’s white-lined eyes widened. The table caged its breath. He had spoken the word few dared utter. Magic. He tossed the doll in front of Vaida. Those of us outside the eye of the storm stayed still and silent.

“Nizahl will gladly assist Omal and Lukub in sweeping out the scourge of magic. My armies are ready at a moment’s notice.”

Arin rose. The silver-tongued Nizahl Heir transformed before us. Ice encased his hardened features, and danger whispered in every movement of his poised body. The Commander’s stare was death’s cold caress, robbing Vaida and Felix of their breath.

I imagined what scene unfolded in the royals’ minds. Soldiers in black and violet swarming their kingdoms like locusts, sundering villages and raiding towns in search of magic. Troublesome youth would be labeled potential magic users and detained. Any trapped Jasadis would use

offensive magic to avoid capture, sending towns crashing down around them. The Commander would glide through the destruction, the conductor of chaos.

Nizahl did not enter a kingdom it intended to leave whole.

Arin’s bone-chilling smile would unnerve even Sirauk’s deadly depths.

The message was clear: an attack on his Champion would not go

unanswered a second time.

“Will that be necessary?”

“No, no,” Felix said, tripping over his words in the rush. “There is a misunderstanding at play here. We did not—Vaida brought the dolls to—”

Vaida spoke over the bumbling Omal Heir, clear and firm. “It will not be necessary.”

She lowered her chin, tumbling her flower-woven braids over her shoulders. The specter of unspeakable horror retreated, leaving the Nizahl Heir to incline his head in acceptance. The room drew its first full breath.

In the following havoc of guards and servants, Arin slipped away. I followed, hesitating at the door. Vaida spoke quietly to her guardswoman.

Felix aimed a crooked sneer in my direction. I waved, luxuriating in his loathing.

He’d swiped his paw at the wrong beast. I would suffer the consequences done to his pride if I failed at the Alcalah, but it did not matter. Watching the Sultana and Omal Heir experience for a moment what my people endured every day under the graveyard of Nizahl’s shadow was worth whatever Felix might do.

I chased Arin, speeding up two flights of stairs. I skidded to a halt in front of him before he could turn into our hall. He raised a brow when I stood there mutely. “Yes?”

How easy was it for him to slip the doll into Vaida’s servant’s pocket?

She would have been flustered, overwhelmed at his proximity. The doll’s weight in her pocket wouldn’t even register. Vaida’s servant, not Felix’s, because blame needed to be thrown in both directions. He knew how many people would be in the dining hall. How many times the ghaiba would divide itself to attack everyone. How long it would take for him to fight off his allotment, how long it would take for the others. He knew the ghaiba’s influence would disorient Vaida and Felix into a children’s squabble, one he could use to condemn them.

“If I were a sensible woman, I would slit your throat while you slept.”

Pale blue eyes glinted in the gloom. “Is that a threat?”

The same vicious hunger I had struggled against at the Ivory Palace bloomed in my veins. Baying for action. A hunger that demanded I take, forge a claim to him in flesh and blood and power. Etch my name into his bones for the world to see.

Arin’s gaze darkened. We were two swords meeting on a bloodied battlefield. Inevitable. Wreathed in violence.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I whispered.

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