Page 142 of The Jasad Heir
I learned later that Arin had discovered a glamored Soraya slumbering beneath a carriage, an empty vial in her grip. “Her magic was already fading when I touched her,” Arin had said. “In moments, she was dead.”
Avoiding details, I had explained how she chased me through her memories. The magic she infused the elixir with made it possible for me to die within my own dreams, but it also made it possible for her to die in mine. If my memories were mirrors, then Soraya’s were a vengeful void.
Soraya was dead, a band of Mufsids were caught, and I was Victor. The Orbanian Champion, the casualty of our victory, sank into a slumber from which nothing could rouse her. Sorn had arranged for a carriage to transport her to Orban and scattered messengers to every corner of the kingdoms in search of a cure.
“Diya is alive. Sorn is a bullheaded man. If there is a cure, he’ll find it. She knew the risks the third trial presented. It could have been far worse,” Arin said.
“How?” I stalked to the wardrobe. “She drank a poisoned elixir. Do you think Sorn trained her for that?”
I stomped on the ember of anger sparking in my chest. Anger opened the doors for everything else to come flooding through.
“You caught your Jasadis,” I murmured. “Our bargain is fulfilled.”
A muscle jumped in Arin’s jaw. “So it is. Freedom is yours.”
My laugh rang hollow to my own ears. The dream of taking over Rory’s shop and funding another keep for Raya’s wards, of buying Yuli’s old carriage for Marek and taking Sefa on adventures. Tainted now, rotted by inescapable, infernal knowledge.
My grandparents had betrayed our people in the most treacherous manner imaginable. Usr Jasad was an illusion, a beautiful story hiding the rotted roots beneath. My magic had driven the Mufsids to inadvertently pave the way for the siege. Everything I thought I knew was a lie.
Somewhere between Soraya and Dawoud, my last illusion of freedom had shattered.
“Here.” Arin held out my cloak. “I didn’t want to leave it in the carriage.”
I took the bundle and flipped it over. To my disbelief, the moth-eaten collar had been repaired. I thumbed along the new stitching. “Thank you.”
“Sylvia.” Arin’s voice was strained. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“Do what?” There was a lump in the cloak’s right pocket. Odd; my dagger was in my boot.
Arin moved, standing close enough that I nearly dropped the cloak. He slid his index finger under my chin, drawing my reluctant gaze up. Agitation colored Arin’s voice, drawing out his faint accent. “I want to help you. Tell me what I can say—”
I covered Arin’s mouth with my hand. He gripped my wrist in the blink of an eye. His gaze bored into mine, and when my hand wasn’t thrown off, I let myself speak.
“Soraya tried to kill me. For years, she led the Mufsids in murdering Jasadis. Diya may never wake because of her. Her death should have left me effervescent with glee.”
My words came out in a burst, as most unpleasant truths tend to, clamoring to be heard. The heaviness burst in its wake. “But all I feel is grief, Arin, because another Jasadi is dead.” My grandparents had as heavy a hand as Hanim in who Soraya had become. In the entitlement that led the Mufsids to turn against their own people.
I had worked so hard to block myself from this pain. To turn guilt into anger, sorrow into scorn. Hanim shamed and burdened me beyond what I could bear, and when killing her didn’t stop the noise, I built barriers taller than the gates of the Citadel. “All I wanted was to exist for myself alone, but I—I don’t really exist, do I?” I whispered, and they were the truest words I had spoken.
I retracted my hand, scrubbing my wet eyes. “What did you call it? An ‘infantile mastery of my emotions’?”
Arin looked at me. Not his calculating, considering glances, or his wary stare. He just looked at me, almost helplessly.
“Anyway.” I coughed, groping in the cloak’s pocket. A stream of inane chatter flowed past the brambles of my discomfort. I had shared too much. “Unfortunately for you, if I am not brooding, I’m complaining, and I plan to do plenty of both this evening.”
I drew from my pocket the fig necklace I purchased from the Omalian street merchant. Oh. I’d forgotten about this.
Arin’s brow arched. The motion was unfairly attractive. “You’re turning red.”
“I don’t turn red,” I argued, but this might very well have been the exception. Every drop of blood was rushing to my cheeks. I had endured a tainted elixir, poisoned sap, the talons of Al Anqa’a. They paled in comparison with the sheer effort it took to extend the fig necklace in the Nizahl Heir’s direction. “I bought this for you,” I said in a shower of syllables. “You don’t have to wear it, of course, I just thought. If you wanted. The violet color reminded me of the ravens on your coat.” I didn’t say that figs reminded me of safety and comfort. Two things that—in a painfully ironic twist of fate—I had come to associate with Arin.
Arin stared at the necklace. Two more seconds and I would pretend to faint, or maybe hurl myself on a wandering soldier’s sword. Anything to keep him from reviving me to this fervor of mortification. What was I thinking? The Commander didn’t wear jewelry, and certainly not a cheap Omalian necklace withfruiton it—
A gloved hand closed around the necklace. He tied it around his neck without looking away from me, patting the spot where it settled. “As though I would turn away a gift from Suraira herself,” he mused. A shake of his head, as though the very concept thwarted rationality. “From the Alcalah’s Victor.”
The redness spread from my cheeks to my scalp. I laughed, fumbling with the cloak. “Consider me flattered. The great and mighty Commander accepting my humble offering! The true victory to celebrate.”
Arin’s fingers convulsed around the fig. “Stop.”
