Page 128 of The Jasad Heir
I writhed under its unyielding talons, trailing blood behind me.
Suddenly, Al Anqa’a bellowed again, releasing me to arch into the air. Behind it stood Dawoud, his hands raised and his lips moving. His eyes glowed gold and silver. Al Anqa’a teetered in the sky, a powerful gust of wind from its wings sending Dawoud stumbling.
“Dawoud, stop!” I cried out. He would need every ounce of magic he had to escape the patrol surrounding Dar al Mansi. He couldn’t waste it all on Al Anqa’a.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, gathering in its deep grooves. “Essiya, end this,” Dawoud said. I limped to my dagger and wiped it against my thigh. “You know what Rawain wants.”
It was my turn to stare uncomprehendingly. “I amnotgoing to kill you,” I snarled.
The sensible part of me knew failing Rawain’s test would mean an end to all my plans. An end to Arin’s designs. But I had lasted this long by recognizing the burdens I could bear, and killing Dawoud was not among them.
Al Anqa’a knocked a wall from a shop, sending bricks blasting around us. Dawoud’s magic couldn’t hold it much longer. My cuffs tightened, swelling with my fear.
He couldn’t hold it, but I could.
I stared at my cuffs as they grew tighter than they ever had.
Al Anqa’a swiped at Dawoud, missing him by inches. I threw my arms into the air, my cuffs throbbing as my magic hurtled into Al Anqa’a. The creature screamed, its sunset glass wings clinking. An opaque mist blanketed the sky.
Dawoud regarded the shrieking bird with no small amount of awe. But when he glanced at me, shock swept over his features. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
I frowned, blinking rapidly. My arms quaked with the strain of holding Al Anqa’a away.
“They’re—they have not changed. Not a hint of gold or silver.” He peered closer. “Where is the magic in your darling kitmer eyes?”
“The cuffs,” I spat. “My magic flows through the cuffs, not my body. Dawoud, you have to run. Please. I cannot hold it much longer, and the patrol will be closing in on Dar al Mansi.”
Dawoud went deathly white. He staggered away, looking at my wrists with more terror than he spared Al Anqa’a. Had the effects of expending so much magic caught up with him?
“How can they still be there? How?” he gasped. “Oh, my dear Essiya, oh no. What has happened to you?”
You have the potential and power to be worse than any who have come before you.
“Dawoud,” I set my feet as Al Anqa’a bashed itself against the barrier. I slid backward with each blow to my magic. “Did I ever burn your favorite quilt?”
A peculiar look flashed over Usr Jasad’s head of staff. It was the look of someone who believed one wrong pull of the ropes would bring the sky crashing down. A look I recognized from my childhood. His thick brows furrowed. “I should have let you take it to the courtyard,” he said.
Soraya was right.
Mirrors. My memories were fragments, reflections of what I needed them to be to survive. Dawoud’s pained admission cracked open the day I burned his quilt. The shatter echoed into my body, ringing in my bones.
Essiya was no better than Sylvia. I had always been this broken. This selfish.
Sylvia was just a reflection of the worst parts of a girl I had buried.
In a burst of fury, Al Anqa’a surged past the barrier of my magic. Sparks fell like gold rain from the breached barrier. Its talons closed around my body, and I swore as my feet left the ground.
Its grip faltered when I kicked out. A single talon pierced the back of my tunic like a hook. I dangled downward, the fabric of my tunic slowly ripping. Al Anqa’a’s wings thrashed, struggling to lift us against my magic’s wall.
On the ground, Dawoud picked up the dagger. He stared at me, tears tracking down the face that had once been more beloved to me than my own mother’s.
Dawoud’s mouth moved, and I realized what he meant to do a split second before he plunged the dagger into his heart.
“No!” I screamed. Al Anqa’a cried out as the barrier broke in a sky-shaking tremor. Gold sparks shot through the air like falling stars. Dawoud crumpled, and I lifted my arms, sliding out of my tunic and crashing to the ground. The dagger had slid into Dawoud in the same place Soraya stabbed me. Al Anqa’a flapped to the east, abandoning prey that had become more trouble than it was worth.
“Your Gedo Niyar would be so proud of you,” Dawoud said when I skidded to my knees next to him. I pressed my trembling hands to his wound, and he groaned. “I should have believed them when they said you were alive. I didn’t dare to. The thought of you alone for so long, while we—” He coughed, red droplets splattering on his chin. “Your cuffs were never meant to last this long. No one is meant to be alone for so long.”
“Then don’t leave me.” Desperation turned the words into a plea.
