Page 122 of The Jasad Crown
No, I wouldn’t call it a gamble. A gamble implied equal odds. It suggested that one outcome was just as likely as the other.
You lied to your father.
This was a theory.
When I finally stumbled out of the stairwell, a fine layer of dirt coated me from neck to knee.
I didn’t bother dusting it off. The grime fit perfectly with my new role as bedraggled orphan crawling to her grandmother’s knee for a morsel of mercy.
Before I had taken more than a step around the corner, the edge of a frame bumped against my sleeve. I glanced up at the portrait and recoiled.
After several minutes of reeling in my jaw from its drop to the palace kitchen, I took a step closer to the monstrosity.
This portrait hadn’t been there the last time I visited. Not only would it have been impossible to miss, but it would have guaranteed Arin’s discovery of my true identity.
In the portrait, Queen Hanan and the late King Toran stood side by side, holding hands. Lustrous waves of black hair fell to Queen Hanan’s waist, and mirth danced in brown eyes long since gone dull. King Toran, my grandfather, towered over her. I blinked at his fluffy, silver-streaked beard and thick eyebrows, one of which was arched in stern contemplation.
At least I knew where my height came from.
Sitting on the throne, one knee crooked to the side and the other straight forward, was Emre. He had the same wavy black hair as his mother, falling over his forehead and around his ears in a messy thicket. Spectacles perched at the top of his wide nose, and he gripped the arm of the throne as though it might eject him at any moment.
Balanced on one knee, an arm wrapped around her middle, the child version of myself aimed a gummy smile at the artist.
I stepped closer, studying the minute paint strokes as though I could glare them out of existence. They had drawn me at around six or seven, kicking my legs cheerfully on my father’s lap. My curls were free and voluminous, tightly coiled as they had only been when I was young.
My father on the throne, his child on his knee. An impossible tableau. A work of fiction. My father had seen me as a newborn and then died in the woods. I hadn’t visited Omal a single time until I fled there after killing Hanim—Gedo Niyar and Teta Palia had forbidden me from accompanying them on any diplomatic trips to the kingdom.
Had Queen Hanan commissioned this to fulfill some sick fantasy? To create a universe where she and her husband hadn’t happily disinherited me after Emre died?
A sick foreboding twisted through my gut. This portrait would have sent Felix into a rage. It suggested a claim. Legitimacy.
It was an act of defiance against her nephew.
A shadow fell over me. A hard grip caught my shoulder, spinning me around.
“Who—”
My dagger split through the side of his throat, severing everything but his spinal cord. Blood sprayed in a wide arc across the painting.
I stepped over his twitching body and kept moving. Blissfully unaware of my approach, the other two guards played cards in front of the doors to the throne room, a flipped wooden crate serving as their table.
The second guard looked up when blood spattered the cards. His companion gasped, clutching at his slit throat as I loomed behind him.
The cards went flying at my head. The second guard rolled to the ground as my dagger embedded itself in the wall behind him.
It was not a fair fight. The guard slammed his fist into my jaw, tilting forward as he did so. I absorbed the blow and drove my dagger into his heart before he could regain his balance.
Wiping my blade, I took in the bodies scattered on the clean white rugs. Just three guards?
Felix knew we were coming. Had he really been so confident that we wouldn’t penetrate the upper towns that he’d left the palace unsecured? Fairel would have been able to dispose of this lot with a single arrow.
I gripped the curved handles of the throne room’s doors. My blood beat in my ears.
For the last month, I had imagined the aftermath of this moment. Queen Hanan’s rejection, Felix’s wrath, the inevitability of raising the fortress and dying in a blaze of magic.
I hadn’t given much thought to the possibility of success. The portrait in the hall—it changed the conversation. Maybe Queen Hanan could be persuaded. Maybe Nuzret Kamel and the fortress could be avoided.
My dagger lifting to cut through more guards, I heaved against the doors to the throne room. They groaned, steel hinges fighting ancient wood, and parted.
