The Jasad Heir — Chapter no 5

CHAPTER FIVE

The ground rocked beneath my feet. Instinct struck, and my dagger was in my grip before sense could follow. Tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t want to hurt Rory.

The last person to call me Essiya was Hanim. Jasad’s exiled Qayida found me bruised and matted in ash after the Blood Summit. How I had quaked in relief to hear my name in her mouth, anticipating a quick exit from the unforgiving woods back to Usr Jasad. Instead, she kept me in the woods for five years as Jasad burned.

The name Essiya brought darkness wherever it went.

“Put that down!” Rory snapped, swatting his cane against my leg.

My words emerged soaked in grief. “How did you find out?”

I was so careful. But it wasn’t enough. Hanim was right. It would never be enough. No matter where I went or how hard I tried, Essiya would follow.

“I knew you the moment I saw you, starved and bloody and shivering at this door. Niphran’s daughter, Heir of Jasad. Essiya.”

“Don’t call me that!” I shouted. My blood pounded in my ears. “How?”

Concern colored Rory’s voice. For himself or for me? “I have a history with Jasad, one that existed long before you. Be at peace. Only I could have known you by sight. Fate’s hand drew you to my door that night.”

I had not realized how heavily I leaned against the wall until my legs ceased their support and sent me sliding to the floor. Dizzy, I said, “You told me fate is comfort for the content and a misfortune for fools.”

My knuckles were white around the dagger. It belonged lodged in Rory’s throat, stemming the poisonous truth. I needed a minute. Just a minute, to collect my thoughts.

“The Commander will sense your magic. He’ll execute you.” I finally deciphered the strange note in Rory’s voice. He was frightened for me. I was contemplating slicing his throat, and he was stewing in worry. “If he

discovers who you really are—”

“My magic is hidden from him. He won’t know I am—I’m a Jasadi.” I swallowed hard. “The Heir of Jasad died with the rest of the royal family.

There is nothing to discover.”

Rory’s lips pursed. “You can’t be certain. He has an unnatural aptitude for—”

“He touched my hand and found nothing, Rory.” I pinched the skin between my brows. A torrential migraine brewed between my temples. “I am not a novice.”

Rory’s confusion soothed some of my frayed corners. He did not know about the cuffs. I still had some secrets. “I don’t understand.”

A more important question rose to the surface. One I should have asked five years ago, but Rory hadn’t pressed, and I hadn’t offered. “Why did you never ask me whose blood I wore the night I arrived in Mahair?”

“I knew it wasn’t yours,” he said evenly. “I cared little past that.”

Rory, who threw apocalyptic fits every time one of his experiments went slightly awry, who nitpicked over proper storage temperatures, who regularly turned his hands different colors digging around baskets of plants I’d scrounged from the dankest corners of Hirun—that Rory didn’t care?

I pushed aside a basket of wrapped vials and clambered to my feet. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you care where I had vanished for five years if you recognized me? Or how I survived the Blood Summit?”

Rory’s grip tightened on his cane, but his features remained languid.

“There is much we do not know about each other yet, Essiya.”

My jaw clenched. “I told you—”

“My apologies. Sylvia.” Disdain dripped from his voice.

The visceral reaction I experienced whenever I heard my birth name was absurd. She was not an entity separate from myself, a fiction in the tales of bards. But neither was she truly real. Not anymore.

“Answer my question,” I growled.

“Watch yourself. I owe you no answers.”

“Give them to me anyway.”

We scowled at each other. Finally, through gritted teeth, Rory said, “I

didn’t want to know.”

“Didn’t want to know what?”

“How you survived,” he burst. “Your grandparents killed so many at the

Blood Summit. I did not want to know what lengths they took to ensure you walked away.”

I stopped short, shock rippling through me. “You think—” I clamped my mouth shut. Of course he thought Malik Niyar and Malika Palia had arranged the events of the Blood Summit. Everyone else believed it.

“What exactly do you know of what happened at the Blood Summit?”

For a moment, Rory looked unsure. “The messenger entered the hall with news of Niphran’s murder in Bakir Tower. Stabbed to death. The Jasad crown used the chaos to attack the other royals, but their grief over their Heir caused their magic to go awry. They couldn’t control what they created. It cost many lives and led to the war.”

I pulled at the fringed ends of my braid, avoiding the insistent tug of my memories. After the Blood Summit, the scholars asked all the wrong questions. They wanted to know whether the messenger referred to my mother as “dead” or “slain.” Whether he’d arrived on horseback or by carriage. Not why the Malik and Malika of the most successful kingdom in the lands would bother trying to assassinate the other royals, especially in such a reckless outburst. Why they would risk bringing their granddaughter and second Heir to a summit they intended to destroy.

Hurt sharpened my tone. For all his genius, Rory was as susceptible to Supreme Rawain’s lies as everyone else.

“I see. Because my grandparents were apparently smart enough to orchestrate the most violent massacre on royals seen in a hundred years, but not smart enough to survive it. Go on, Rory. Finish the tale.”

“I do not think—”

“Continue your tale, Rory.” My cuffs pulsed in warning. “You will not like my version of it.”

Rory sighed, making nervous circles around the cane’s handle.

“Supreme Rawain rallied the other four kingdoms against Jasad. They found a way through the fortress. Left without a Qayida or any Heirs, Jasad fell to the invading forces.”

“I can finish for you.” I pushed off the counter, and the chemist’s expression tightened with unease. Good. “Nizahl’s armies reduced Jasad to rubble. They threw bodies into holes and burned the homes they left behind.

Every Jasadi who survived is in hiding, their magic made a capital offense.”

I trembled. My cuffs tightened around my wrists, warm with my vibrating

magic. “No one asked, Rory! No one wondered. How does an unassailable fortress fall?”

Once given voice, the question bloomed in my mind like blood in a clear pond. Hanim hadn’t cared about the deaths at the Blood Summit; she hadn’t really cared when the siege began, either. But when the tide of war turned in Nizahl’s favor, what reduced her to a frothing rage was Supreme Rawain’s victory. With my grandparents gone, she had truly believed Jasad would bring forth a new dawn of political freedom. She had imagined herself leaving Essam Woods when Jasad was at its weakest, welcomed with open arms to the kingdom that had exiled her with a convenient Heir to put on the empty throne and manipulate.

But my magic didn’t work. And when the fortress fell, Supreme Rawain’s forces were joined by Omal’s, Lukub’s, Orban’s. Envy over Jasad’s prosperity, its magic, had hardened into a hate no one could have anticipated. No one except Supreme Rawain.

And so Jasad’s Heir suffered in the woods while the throne of magic sat empty in the newly scorched kingdom. In her captured corner, the soft girl who had known a bird by its song and calmed at the touch of another was

burned away.

I am what remains.

“The Jasadis’ story deserves to be told in whole,” I said. “They are not something distasteful to be split up into pieces you can swallow.”

“I never said—” Rory stopped short, brows drawing together. “What do you mean, they?”

A light knock sounded at the door. We both went silent, our argument falling to the wayside in favor of trepidation. Had the Nizahl Heir returned?

Rory’s elbow caught my stomach, pushing me behind him. What did he think he would do against the Commander?

He could turn you in, Hanim whispered. The chemist works with dangerous substances every day. Think of how easy it would be for him to accidentally ingest a lethal dose. No one would suspect you.

Killing Rory would only cause more problems. Mahair might not second-guess the accidental death of a soldier, but two accidental deaths in the span of a week?

Rory went five years without speaking my true name. He would not betray me to the Heir now.

“Rory? Are you there? Oh, please be here, Mistress Nadia will have my hide if I return empty-handed.”

I tucked my dagger back into my boot while Rory opened the door.

Fairel drooped in relief, lifting her skirt to step into the shop. Loose curls bounced around her round face. “You gave me a fright. I have a list from Mistress Nadia.”

I tried to smile at Fairel. Rory grunted, “Talk to Sylvia. Damn this day,” and disappeared behind the curtains.

Nobody roused at my footsteps through the darkened keep. I kept my tread light. Tomorrow was the day before the waleema. This was probably the most sleep the girls would get for the next two days. The groans of the old, waterlogged walls would hopefully disguise any sound I made outside.

I carefully shut the rusted back door behind me and walked to the side of the keep. Kneeling on the damp ground, I dug my fingers into the soil and tore out the roots of the fig plant until my wrists ached and dirt crusted my fingertips. I shouldn’t have planted it to begin with. Even at full growth, these trees would never be like the fig trees in Jasad. The fig trees used to soar to more than thirty meters in Usr Jasad’s gardens. When the trees were saplings, the architects infused the branches with magic. Weaving them into complicated, mesmerizing patterns as they flourished.

What kind of idiot was I to think I could stay here forever? Long enough for a fig plant to sprout, for the blue house to become mine, for Rory to give me his shop. Mahair didn’t belong to me. Any roots I planted could only ever rot.

I stamped on what was left of the plant and scattered its mangled remains down the slope. Fig trees had no place here, and it had been cruel to let it hope.

This is what he wants, Hanim whispered. No matter how docile you pretend to be, a feral animal shows its true colors in captivity.

I pressed my palm over my heart and tried to focus on counting. I was not a captive.

One, two. I’m alive. Three, four. I’m— “Oh,” came a small voice. Fairel stuck her head out from behind the bushes, holding a watering pot. “I thought you might be Raya. Was that your plant you dug out?”

I squinted at the child, utterly thrown by her presence. My current mood should not be borne by anyone, let alone Fairel. I wrapped my arms around my middle. “Go inside, Fay. It’s past bedtime.”

She lowered the watering pot to the ground. Her chin jutted out, and I braced myself for the argument. “You’re upset. I can tell. Why don’t you talk to me like you talk to Sefa and Marek? Is it because you think I’m little? I will be twelve in two months and six days.”

I couldn’t help myself. “You think I talk to Sefa and Marek?”

“More than me. Twelve is big, you know.”

“I know.” When I turned twelve, Hanim enchanted lions to chase me through Essam so I could practice my climbing skills. I had her to thank for my ability to scale a tree in under a minute. I sighed. “Would you like to take a walk with me?”

Fairel glanced at the hushed streets beyond the hill. “Now? The patrol will yell at us.”

Then I would flay their skin from their bodies and feed it to them. On how many occasions had I allowed myself to be belittled and demeaned for the sake of safety? All for nothing. I could not budge an inch beyond the village. Not when the Nizahl Heir had placed me firmly in his crosshairs.

“I’ll protect you.”

Like you protected Adel? Hanim laughed. I gritted my teeth. She was so hungry for my guilt. When would she realize I had none? She had wrung every drop out of me long ago.

“Okay.” The trust on Fairel’s face disturbed me. More than age or maturity, the ability to trust remained the greatest relic of youth. I hoped to be long gone before I witnessed the world take it from her.

Of all the young wards in the keep, Fairel was my undisputed favorite.

So much so that when she reached for my hand, I let her hold it all the way to the bottom of the hill before gently pulling away.

“Why do you always pull away?” Fairel clasped her arms around her middle. Mimicking me from earlier. Kapastra’s scaly throne, I couldn’t imagine a more disastrous scenario than Fairel modeling her behavior after

me.

We ducked into a narrow alley, allowing the darkness to swallow us.

Neither of us needed help navigating the uneven path. A shower of pebbles rained into our hair. I shepherded her away from the deteriorating wall, wishing I could as easily guide her from this question.

I could have lied. I would have, had it been anyone other than Fairel and her hurt tone. “I do not have fond memories of being touched. My body recognizes it as a threat.” It hadn’t always, but Fairel didn’t need to know how I’d loved being swung up in Dawoud’s arms as a child. I would spend hours hanging on to Usr Jasad’s chief advisor while he conducted his business in the palace. Dawoud would walk into meetings with me dangling from his neck and carry on his conversation without batting an eye, as though the other person would be in the wrong for noticing the hyperactive seven-year-old clinging to him.

Hanim had bled those memories from me. She left them gray, so everything to follow could be a dark, dripping red. Whips tearing against my back and shoulders. Nights of hanging by my feet from a sturdy tree branch, not unlike a slab of meat from the butcher’s hooks, with a dagger placed in my hand to fight any curious animals. On those nights, I could have easily bent in half and sawed at the ropes lashed around my feet.

Another layer of Hanim’s punishment—knowing I had the ability to free myself, but not the bravery.

“I would never threaten you,” Fairel said, horrified.

Oh, but only this child could make me laugh in the temper I was in. “I know you wouldn’t. But my body interprets the sensation the same, no matter who it is coming from.”

A clatter echoed from the other end of the alley. I put a hand in front of Fairel and listened. A rat scurried next to my foot, overturning a pile of pebbles in its path.

Just a rat. I ushered Fairel forward, my arm hovering protectively a few inches behind her back.

The alley opened to the flickering illumination of lamplight. Fairel’s head swiveled, taking in the uncharacteristic stillness of the main road. A muddy dog loped to the front of the butcher’s shop, sniffing at the discarded bones.

Preparations for the waleema were almost complete. Lanterns connected

by silver twine hung from the balconies lining the plaza road, creating a roof of light over the village. Shop owners had laid out lovingly braided reed rugs, dyed in muted shades of Omal’s blue and white. Incense burned in almost every balcony, warding away the evil eye of the new visitors. I breathed in the smoky scents of lemongrass and rose and exhaled on a smile.

In the unlikely event the Nizahl Heir did not kill me, I wanted to preserve my happy moments here. I had precious few of them left. As soon as the Supreme’s son gazed upon my face, this village was lost to me. After his horses cleared Omal’s lower villages, I would disappear into Essam.

“Look.” Fairel tore ahead, pointing at a splash of vibrant red. “They have almost finished repainting the wall.”

A painting stretched over the tallest and sturdiest wall in the main road.

On it, the Awaleen towered over us. We craned our necks at the four figures representing the first and truest source of magic in the realm.

“The Awaleen’s story is different in Omal,” Fairel said.

“Which part?”

Fairel fidgeted with her sleeve. “Mama told me a different story about how they were entombed.”

I paused. Fairel never spoke of her parents.

Raya had brought her home from a market trip almost three years ago and dumped the nine-year-old into my lap. As the oldest in the keep, Marek, Sefa, and I helped with the new girls, especially in the first few months when all they did was weep. But Fairel hadn’t cried. She had attached herself to me instantly, ignoring my numerous attempts to trade her off to Sefa. Whether it was her steely determination or the fact that she was nearly the same age I was when I watched my grandparents burn, I’d softened far

too quickly.

“What did she tell you?”

Fairel brushed the bottom of Kapastra’s image. Omal’s Awala was drawn in boisterous colors and painstaking detail. Serpentine creatures with forked tails and reptilian eyes curled at her feet. Rochelyas. The revolting snakelike lizards were Omal’s symbol, centered on the kingdom’s flags. The Beast Tamer of Omal glared down at me, as though sensing my disgust for her favored pets.

“Omalians believe the Awaleen created the entire world. The kingdoms,

Essam Woods, Hirun River. Kapastra’s magic brought Omal its bountiful soil and docile animals. Her sister Dania’s axe delivered fearsome beasts and the thrill of hunting to Orban. Baira’s beauty resulted in Lukub’s wealth and good fortune; Rovial’s heart poured prosperity into Jasad. So the Omalians say,” Fairel said. She flattened her palm against Baira’s ankle.

“But Mama told me that the world and its beauty existed before the Awaleen, and the four siblings were simply first to enter it with magic. She agreed that they brought life to the land and ruled united for many years.

Siblings fight too much, though, so they parted ways to find their own kingdoms. They lived happily for many years.”

A loose curl bounced around Fairel’s freckled nose. She moved her hand to Dania, Orban’s Awala, who had her axe thrust into the sky. Baira had a hand pressed to her midnight-dark skin while she lounged back on her throne, watching her siblings with a mischievous expression. And finally, Rovial. Jasad’s Awal.

“Mama told me nothing in this world is meant to be limitless. Nature will find a way to exact a cost. I suppose it is true. She had seven children.

More than anyone else in our village.” A choked laugh. “And I was the cost.”

Oh. My surprise arrived and evaporated in the same breath. Fairel was Orbanian. I’d assumed Raya brought her from another lower village in Omal, but the truth made more sense. Austerity and humility were not pillars of Omalian society, but Orban prided itself on living by the scarcest of means, even if it entailed losing hundreds to starvation every year. I could not imagine the kind of straits a mother with seven mouths to feed must have endured to expel her youngest.

Fairel’s hand curled into a fist. “The Awaleen’s magic was boundless.

None of them had noticed the effects of the magic on their minds over the years. They were becoming colder. Cal—callu—”

“Callous?”

Fairel nodded, brows rumpling with concentration. She seemed determined to recite the story precisely as her mother had. My hand twitched at my side, driven to reach for the girl. Your mother loved you, I almost said. She filled you with stories.

“The Awaleen could have remained in rule for many more years if it had not been for Rovial. The Awal of Jasad lost his humanity to the magic-

madness. He had killed thousands by the time the other Awaleen realized.

His evil runs in the magic of all Jasadis.”

I struggled not to flinch. Fairel had said she would never threaten me, but Orbanians inherited their Awala’s skill and thirst for battle. Today, I was Sylvia. Tomorrow, I might simply be a Jasadi.

Oddly enough, I felt fierce pride at the image of Fairel as a grown woman with the power to challenge me.

Blissfully unaware of my thoughts, Fairel continued, “The Awaleen could not kill their brother. His magic was too strong to destroy without also destroying the kingdoms and everyone in them. It was Dania’s idea to contain his magic instead. She convinced Kapastra and Baira that they should entomb themselves with Rovial to ensure the continued survival of their descendants. Dania feared Rovial’s magic-madness would eventually catch up to the rest of them.”

I craned my neck to peer at my Awal. He was always drawn in profile, with his face turned away in shame. Even Jasad in its glory days hesitated to celebrate him. The blood he shed during the years before the entombing, the lives he stole, were a blight on Jasad’s records. They ignored that Rovial’s madness was only sped along because of how much magic he had poured into Jasad, into its soil and trees and people. The other kingdoms lost more of their magic with each generation after the entombment, but not Jasad. Rovial had given more of himself, of his magic, than any other of the Awaleen.

In the end, he gave more than he could afford to lose.

The rest of the story remained the same throughout the kingdoms.

Masons and architects worked side by side to build a tomb to contain the Awaleen. Chemists from Lukub perfected a draught to put the Awaleen to sleep, so the centuries might pass them in ease. The four kingdoms, determined to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, appointed a man to create an independent army to balance the power of the kingdoms.

This new kingdom would be known as Nizahl, and they would serve as arbiters for the conflicts between the four other kingdoms.

“The Awaleen were buried beneath Sirauk. Mama called it the Boundless Bridge, but my father said it was the Death Crossing, a bridge shrouded in so much mist and shadow that none who began the crossing ever finished.”

“My mother—” I stopped. Fairel waited, features open and innocently curious. I hadn’t spoken about my mother with anyone but Soraya. Whereas my grandparents had flinched at the mention of Niphran, my attendant had taken me to see my mother in Bakir Tower once a week. I believed she feared I would one day start to think of my mother the way the rest of our kingdom did. The Mad Heir of Jasad. The Wailing Widow. A tragedy to be tossed in a tower and forgotten. “My mother told me hundreds of people came to cross the bridge shortly after the entombment, thinking they could whisper their wants and secrets to the sleeping Awaleen. The bridge is so long, it took weeks before anyone realized none of them finished the crossing.” Their bodies simply vanished, devoured by the mist shrouding Sirauk.

Fairel shuddered. “How terrible. Then why do we celebrate the Awaleen with the Alcalah?”

Because it is the nature of humanity to celebrate the things that want to kill them.

We resumed our walk. I guided us off the main road, onto the street hosting Daron’s tavern and the visitors’ tents. I would never bring Fairel down this road under normal circumstances, but the Nizahl patrol would be eager to prove themselves to their Commander, and there was no glory in harassing drunkards leaving the tavern.

“The tournament is a remembrance. We thank the Awaleen for their sacrifice and honor them by sending our most worthy Champions to compete in the Alcalah.”

Fairel slapped a mosquito from her ear. She peered up at me. “Do you think I might become Champion someday?”

I skidded to a halt, gaping at her. “Most of the Champions die, Fairel.”

“They die brave. It is a worthy sacrifice,” she said. “Just like the Awaleen.”

I thought of the watch guard frog in my bucket and knelt to Fairel’s eye level. “There is no such thing as a worthy sacrifice. There are only those who die, and those willing to let them.”

The next morning, I went straight to Nadia’s duqan for extra chairs. I had forgotten to reserve two chairs for tomorrow, meaning Rory might find himself standing behind his booth for the entirety of the waleema.

Three women strode past me, massive clay pots balanced on their heads as they walked from door to door, freeing their hands to carry bundles of sweet-smelling mint. Shop owners swept the dust off their front steps and knocked spiders from their waterlogged awnings. The butcher’s sons knelt on the ground with a soapy bucket, scrubbing the bloodstains and shooing away the dogs. A group of children half the size of the knives they were wielding sliced the peels off chopped-up sugar cane stalks. No one’s gaze lingered on the bakery’s stone oven, cold from days of disuse.

Adel’s half-Jasadi children, who had never even visited Jasad, had evaded capture. In a day or two, the stone oven would probably light beneath the hands of a new owner. Adel and his family would become another shocking Jasadi story, more evidence of the lower villages’ lack of vigilance.

I spat the shell of a melon seed like it had done me a great personal offense and rolled my sleeves over my cuffs.

The bell over Nadia’s shop jangled. “Sylvia!” Fairel greeted. She scurried to fetch her mistress.

“We take care of our own before any of those donkeys from Gahre,”

Nadia said as Fairel carried out two chairs. She refused to let me pay her, a frustrating sort of reverse-haggling the elders of Omal too often engaged in.

Accepting her generosity without argument would also be grounds for offense, so I did not leave until I had persuaded her to come into Rory’s shop for three free bottles of ointment for her knees.

Fairel helped me carry the chairs. “Is it true, Sylvia? Have you met the Nizahl Heir? The Commander?”

I groaned. It had been less than five hours since I saw Fairel. Had news traveled so quickly? “Fay.”

She bit her lip. “Forgive me, I should hold my tongue, but it’s all so exciting, isn’t it? An Heir in our village, searching for his Champion! The girls say he’s odd-looking. Handsome, though. Very handsome. Have you ever seen hair colored so strangely? Like moonlight. What do you think?”

“I think you’re never too old for a spanking.” We rounded the corner, coming into view of the shop.

Fairel’s chair fell from her suddenly limp grip, hitting my foot. I cried out, hopping to the side. “Fairel! What has gotten into you?”

I followed the source of the girl’s stupefaction. Standing at the door of his shop, Rory held himself stiffly near the Nizahl Heir and his guard. The three men in the rear appeared to be suppressing smirks, which explained why Fairel was blanching. Her words had carried.

She dropped to her knees, shaking like an autumn leaf. The sight brought a sour taste to my mouth. “My lord, I didn’t intend any disrespect.

Silly gossip—you’re very pleasing to behold, truly—they just meant your hair was odd. And your face is just lovely, honest, the best I’ve ever seen.

Silver is an unusual color for Omal, you see—”

A lightness of spirit had not visited Vaun since we last met. He scowled at the girl. I scooted in front of her, matching his glare with my own.

“Your Highness. I see you have chosen to continue honoring our humble village with your company.”

“It is I who have the honor,” Arin said. To Fairel, he nodded. “You may rise.”

Fairel nearly toppled on the length of her skirt. I steadied her elbow, squeezing tight lest she find inspiration to dive for further prostrations. At the Commander’s steady gaze, she folded close to my side. My muscles clenched, resisting the urge to fling her off.

“Silver is an unusual color for any kingdom,” he said. “Thank you.”

When I could bear it no longer, I peeled Fairel off my person. “Go.

Nadia is waiting for you.”

Fairel set off at a run. The Heir and I regarded each other. His hair was tied back at the nape, not a single lock astray. His soldiers had made no effort to blend into the populace, laced in the dark hues and overcoats of Nizahl. The street was unusually still. Despite their curiosity, the residents of Mahair possessed a healthy sense of caution. They pressed inside their shops and windows, climbing atop one another for a glimpse of the Heir and his guard.

“Mahair will certainly lack in excitement when you depart, my liege,” I said, gesturing at the windows. “Whenever that sad occasion may be.”

The Commander glanced at the shops, causing a scramble as people ducked away from the windows. “Then it is fortunate I intend to remain in Mahair until the end of the waleema.”

I forced myself not to react. Only a guilty person would take this news poorly. The treaty Nizahl signed with the other kingdoms didn’t allow them to hurt just anyone—only Jasadis.

“I am surprised you seek to explore the lower villages,” I said, proud when my voice didn’t crack with anger. “There is not much to find in our corner of Omal. Certainly not a Champion.”

“I disagree,” he said. “There is plenty to be found, if one knows where to look.”

The Commander (Arin, his name was Arin, his mother hadn’t named him Commander or Nizahl Heir) stepped toward me. I prepared myself. I was coming to realize that every exchange with this man was consciously directed, designed to entrap.

He addressed his next words to Rory. “Her services as an apprentice must be unparalleled if she is twice employed.”

Twice? I glanced at Rory. He looked similarly mystified. I took additional work only over the summer, when Yuli paid handsomely for seasonal farmhands.

Wait. My entire body stiffened. He couldn’t mean my route, could he?

He had been in the village for less than a day. I hadn’t seen anyone since Zeinab and her mother. What if they told him my cures were like magic?

Kapastra’s fanged rochelyas, perhaps I was too good a crook.

“My services are unexceptional, my lord. I have simply been blessed.”

“Sylvia, where is the herb basket I asked for?” Rory spoke up. Sweat had collected in the lines of his forehead. Despite my rising nausea, I suppressed a small smirk. Who knew how poorly Rory reacted under pressure?

“I forgot to fetch it. My mistake. Your Highness, if you’ll excuse me, there are items—”

Arin didn’t bat an eye. “I am happy to escort you. My guards can set up your chairs in the meantime.”

The guards shifted, displeased about parting with their Commander.

Arin’s pointed glance brooked no arguments. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t a little smug. Rory made such a performance of my failure to dissuade Arin from escorting me from the woods. Now he could see for himself there was no victory in a battle of wills with the Heir. It rankled, how effortlessly we had been spun into the precise situation we sought to

avoid.

“You have made almost no impression on the other villagers,” he said once we passed Nadia’s storefront. I had no idea where I was taking him. “I find it peculiar. An orphan girl without ties to this village until the age of fifteen. No origins, no story.”

I stayed quiet. He was probing. If he knew anything, I would be tied to the back of a wagon.

“I must have a forgettable disposition.”

Three steps. In the distance, the clanking bell of a fruit cart.

“Or you have magic.”

He halted when I did. His brow arched at my expression. “You’re shocked. Did you think I was taken in by your show in the woods?”

“If I’ve mistakenly led Your Highness to believe—”

Arin waved aside my objection. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

My nails dug into my palms. “You don’t have proof.” As though he needed it. As though anyone would dare question him. A single word on his tongue held more power than a thousand objections on my own.

“True,” he conceded. “Either you are a study in restraint or these villagers are as unaware as they are dull.”

My cuffs burned. I mocked the villagers daily, had probably expressed the sentiment myself, but I could. I was one of them.

“If unaware means we do not brutalize defenseless old men in the middle of the street, then yes. I suppose we are.” It took all my effort not to snarl.

The Commander tilted his head. “Not restraint, then.” He moved toward me. I arrested my breath, belatedly remembering the magic building against my cuffs. Would he sense it frothing under my skin? I would not be able to dampen it fast enough.

I calculated my odds of survival. Cornered as I was, he could snap my neck or slit my throat before I could conjure any kind of functional attack. I would be able to scratch him, maybe, before my body crumpled at his feet.

“Now, it would be a simple matter if I had sensed your magic by the river. Magic is often eager to make itself known. The stronger the power, the faster the response. It takes only a single touch.”

A gloved finger hovered under my chin. Though he didn’t move to close the distance, my trepidation spiked. A world of danger lived in that inch of

space.

“The trouble is, your magic doesn’t seem to behave as it should.”

A day ago, Marek had shaken his head and said mild. Ten years of whittling away common vulnerabilities and leashing my violence. Ten years I felt willing to waste for the chance to stab Arin of Nizahl in the eye.

I gritted my teeth hard enough to crack. “Investigate as you wish, sire. I am afraid it will be time poorly spent.”

The Nizahl Heir withdrew his hand. “Perhaps. But a temper that ignites as quickly as yours leaves ashes in its wake. I need only follow the trail.”

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