Page 118 of The Jasad Crown
Even with the crescent moon’s lopsided smile tinting the sky, Sefa had a difficult time identifying the rider’s features. Though if she had to guess, she would say he was a ridiculously tall man with reddish-brown hair and gray eyes, a peculiar hat balanced above his head.
Someone walked toward the rider, and Sefa didn’t need to guess the newcomer’s identity. The leisurely gait, the spots of color where flower petals had been woven through her braids. Vaida strolled toward Bausit, the ends of her satin cloak trailing in her wake like a river of blood.
She’d worn one of the gowns Sefa made. It fit her much better than Sefa could have hoped, clinging to the Sultana like a second skin and emphasizing every inch of her towering, imposing frame.
Of course, if the Sultana had chosen any other dress from Sefa’s pile, Sefa would already be dead. Vaida would turn the gown inside out and see the words Sefa had painstakingly stitched line by line. Everything Sefa had witnessed, every whisper she had collected, every suspicion—Sefa had recorded it inside the gowns.
Vaida had told her to use her instincts, to be perceptive, and Sefahad listened. She wasn’t Marek—she wasn’t charming or gorgeous or particularly endearing. But Sefa was steady. Patient. Knitting quietly in the corner of the servants’ quarters, Sefa had eventually ceased to garner any notice. A while later, the staff had begun to speak freely, their volley of complaints every night as amusing as it was informative. Sefa had learned when the Sultana met with her counselors; which towns received resources beyond their allotment in exchange for hosting more celebrations honoring the Sultana; which families were under suspicion of Nizahlan espionage; how many gardeners Vaida had tossed into the Traitors’ Wells for harming her flowers.
Sefa had learned about the ring.
It wasn’t much. Rumors, mostly. Stories stitched together from generation to generation of servants who had served the Sultanas of Lukub. The ring had belonged to Baira, passed down from Sultana to Heir for thousands of years. When Lukub still had magic, the ring could summon Ruby Hounds from anywhere in the land to the Sultana’s side. As Lukub’s magic weakened, more of the Hounds died off, and the ring became a relic. Ornamental. Powerless, but beautiful.
Sefa thought of Vaida sitting in front of the mirror, cold eyes fixed on her own reflection. The cherries thrown at her portrait. The endless celebrations and cavalier tyranny.
A relic of a ruler.
Bausit knelt before Vaida, and Sefa gazed past them to the expanse of Essam stretching as far as the eye could see. She wished she’d had a chance to climb Baira’s Shoulders and see the kingdoms laid out beyond the trees.
She wished she could have seen Marek and Sylvia just one last time.
There was only one reason Bausit would rush to the palace instead of asking Vaida to meet him elsewhere.
Sefa’s candle guttered. Wax dribbled over the elaborate lettering carved into the alabaster stone, cooling inside the names of each of the Sultanas who had succeeded Baira.
Sultana Vaida would walk through the mists of Sirauk itself if power waited for her on the other side. She had a ring fused with Baira’s magic, an unrelenting desire to start war with Nizahl, and now—the location of a realm full of ancient, untamed magic.
Sefa gathered the gown she had finished this morning, folding it carefully. Across the bottom seam, she traced the final words she had written.
Find Vaida’s ring.
Tell Marek and Sylvia I fought.
CHAPTER FORTY
ARIN
Arin was being watched.
He stepped away from the window, letting the curtain fall shut behind him. The prickle of magic at the back of his neck hadn’t faded since he woke up twelve hours ago. Woke upalone, his hand sliding over the space where a warm body should have been.
“And this is the holding Vaida swallowed under her border?” Arin palpated two fingers against the underside of his jaw, testing for knots. The only benefit of losing four days to the Mirayah was skipping the tedium of healing.
The right side of his face had sunk into a black-and-blue bruise, and his eyes twinged if he blinked too hard, but the damage could have been worse. The most irksome effect was the fuzziness in his head, unraveling the seams of his thoughts before they could piece together.
He wouldn’t be surprised if the disorientation had nothing to do with his injuries, and the Mirayah had simply dosed him with magic in an attempt to alter his memories of finding it.
But Arin remembered her. He remembered every detail.
“It is, sire.” Jeru paused as Arin stripped off his coat and laid it flat on the table. “Vaida asked to be informed when you woke.”
“Did she?” Arin assessed his chest in the mirror. The gashes fromGalim’s Bend had already closed. In a week or two, they would be just another scar. The bruises from Mahair, meanwhile, throbbed across his shoulders and chest.
Other marks, much more pleasantly obtained, were scattered across Arin’s body. He grazed the bite mark on his stomach, a small smile playing over his lips.
Arin knew his reputation at court and around the kingdoms. They called him withholding. Heartless. Frozen.
Frigid, on their bolder days.
