Page 103 of The Jasad Crown
As if reading his mind, she said, “You may be immune to magic.” Pebbles knocked against Arin’s boot as the ground trembled. Gold and silver whirled faster. “But the world around you is not.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ARIN
The earth rocked. The patch of dirt under Arin shot backward. He dropped to a knee, the tips of his fingers braced against the ground as it shifted beneath him on invisible wings. Arin slid across the dirt and hit the stone porch beneath the awning of the apothecary. The sudden inertia sent Arin hurtling through the door, wood splintering and exploding against him. Glass jars shattered, shards flying in the shop like sparks from a freshly lit hearth. Arin’s head slammed into a bench, and he blinked away black dots.
She appeared in the doorway, outlined in the smoke of the burning village. Before Arin could move, the cushions on the bench rippled. Two of them flattened and twisted, springing to life. They weaved around his forearms and fastened him to the shelf behind him. Arin tugged, and the shelf quivered in warning. One strong pull would bring the entire row crashing on top of him.
He rotated his wrists, testing the restraints, as Essiya approached him. In the dim of the shop, she might have truly been Suraira, arriving to lure him into the mists of Sirauk.
“You’re thinking about ways to get loose, and I highly suggest you save yourself the effort. You can’t out-strategize my magic, and I would hate to see you exhaust yourself.” Her knees settled on either side of Arin as she straddled his chest.
“The others have all these plans. Plans they think will save Jasad,save magic,” she mused. “They think our greatest strength lies in numbers. But the kind of Queen who would allow her nephew to commit these atrocities and destabilize half their kingdom… what use will she be to us? If she cannot even stand up for her own kingdom, why would she bother making the effort for another?”
Arin turned the information over, rotating the pieces until they formed an image he understood. The Urabi wanted Queen Hanan to rally behind Jasad? Why would they think—
Ah.
“You see it, too, don’t you?” Essiya asked, studying his face. Were Arin bleeding less, he might find it alarming how quickly she could glimpse the rotations of his mind. “Appealing to her is futile.”
Arin raised a brow. She wouldn’t be sharing the Urabi’s grand designs with him if she believed it was their best chance of success. “I gather you have a better idea.”
“Me? No, no. I am not the planner,” she sighed. “I am always the plan. But you see, I do have a theory.”
Essiya bent toward him, close enough for Arin to count the flecks of brown still visible in her magic-drenched gaze. “I think the only way we win is if we win you, Your Highness.”
Arin’s second brow joined the first, arching in twin peaks of mockery. “Win me,” he repeated slowly, tasting each absurd word. “And how exactly do you propose to do that?”
The outer wall of the shop shuddered. The ground rumbled beneath the beat of dozens of horses riding along the main road. A cheer went up, a cacophony of lively sound that unclenched the tense furrow in Essiya’s forehead.
“They won,” Essiya murmured. Her gaze softened. “We won.”
“Congratulations,” Arin said. “Let me go.”
She ignored him, biting her lip. “I imagine it won’t be long before your soldiers come looking for you.” She tilted her head back, nose scrunching in thought, and Arin emphatically refused to findit endearing. “Do you remember when I tried to stab you in the cabin and you broke my wrist?” Her gaze traveled unseeingly to the next row of shelves. “I knew if I immobilized you, your guardsmen wouldn’t be able to chase me. Their first dictate is to protect their Commander. To secure his safety above all else.”
Finally, her attention returned to his carefully impassive face. “Your soldiers will start rounding up the Urabi. I brought them here, Arin. I asked them to save Mahair, and now I need to save them, too.”
The desperation in her voice gave Arin pause. Did she think his soldiers would start killing the Urabi? With their magic drained from the fight, they posed no danger. They would be placed under hold until Arin arrived.
Before he could express as much, Essiya seemed to steel herself. “Iamsorry about this.”
She struck him, her fist slamming into his jaw with impressive force.
The first blow knocked the wind from him. The second brought with it an unpleasant ringing in his ears. By the fifth, the entire right side of Arin’s face had either split or swollen, and he coughed a spatter of bright red onto the ground.
“Sweet Sirauk,” she swore. “How are you still conscious?”
“I told… you.” Arin was acutely aware that he would soon succumb to the blood loss. “I was built… to survive you.”
“Survive a little less effectively, please.”
The blows began again.
“Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep,” she begged, a tortured mantra for every hit.
Despite the pulsating behind his eyes, the scream of every stitch of skin on his face, Arin lifted his head. As he gazed at her through the one eye that hadn’t swollen shut, he planned to say,You will fatigue before I do, as it appears our training wasn’t sufficient to teach you how to knock a chained man unconscious.
