Page 128 of The Jasad Crown
With every scrap of her attention on the ring, Sefa didn’t see theshoe until the heel struck her across the face. An avalanche of lace fell on top of Sefa as Vaida tackled her flat to the ground. Blood trickled from a cut at Vaida’s cheekbone and dripped onto Sefa’s chin. A ghoulish slash of a smile stretched over Vaida’s face.
“Finally,” she hissed. “I’ve been waiting for you to come out and play.”
Sefa’s gut roiled. She was out of time. If Vaida screamed, the guards would arrest Sefa instantly. With a relic ring in the Mirayah, the possibilities of what she could unleash from the realm’s rogue magic were endless. War would tear apart Nizahl and Lukub as it had torn through Jasad, and Vaida wouldn’t care a whit about the lives she trampled on her way.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Tears burned in her eyes as her hand reached into the folds of her skirt. Into the pocket she had prayed she would not need to open. “I am so sorry.”
In a move Sylvia had helped Sefa practice a dozen times in the tunnels, Sefa fastened her hand around Vaida’s throat and heaved them to the side.
The Sultana struggled, her nails biting into Sefa’s arm and chest, but Sefa was heavier and stronger. She couldn’t allow Vaida enough air to scream.
And a small, strategic part of her had never forgotten Vaida’s weak grip around her wrist in the wardrobe; the terror in her eyes when she thought she might die.
With her free hand, Sefa pinned Vaida’s right wrist under her knee and pulled out the knife.
As soon as Vaida saw it, she thrashed like a landed fish.
“Please don’t move,” Sefa sobbed. Her vision had gone blurry. “Please.”
Sefa prodded the knife against Vaida’s fingers to splay them as far apart as they would go and didn’t allow herself to hesitate as she brought the knife down with all her might.
The quake of a scream rattled silently beneath Sefa’s palm. Vaida’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. Finally,finally, she lay mercifully still.
Wiping impatiently at the tears streaming down her face, Sefa released Vaida’s throat and gingerly picked up her severed ring finger by the nail.
Sefa retched, clutching the leg of a dresser for support. It was all the revulsion she had time for. She stuffed the finger into the pocket concealed within the flaps of her skirt and used the bloodied knife to tear off strips from the bedspread. She had repaired Marek and the girls at the keep enough times to know you never allowed blood to flow freely.
Once she had finished wrapping the wound, she dragged Vaida behind the bed in case the guards glanced over Sefa’s shoulder when she exited and caught sight of their prone Sultana.
She checked on the tourniquet to ensure it hadn’t loosened. Vaida would be fine. Her wound would heal, and Sefa had managed to avoid slicing into any of her other fingers.
Smoothing her skirts and taking a deep breath, Sefa forced her racing heart to slow. She couldn’t act as though anything were wrong.
Leaving empty-handed would look suspicious, so Sefa picked up the washing basket by the door. Balancing it on her hip, Sefa wiped the sweat-slicked curls from her forehead and counted to ten before she reached for the handle.
A chill crept along Sefa’s neck. It numbed Sefa’s ears as it sank through her clothes and burrowed into her skin.
Before it could reach her spine, Sefa turned around.
Vaida stood on the other side of the bed, milky-white eyes fixed on Sefa.
Not Vaida, something inside her whispered.
A primordial instinct locked every muscle in Sefa’s body. Herheart plummeted somewhere near her shoes, but she held still. The reaction of prey in the wild—or a human in the face of something so very clearly inhuman.
“It is all right, little flower.” Vaida’s lips moved, but it wasn’t Vaida’s voice. It rolled in deep waves, a storm barreling toward a clear horizon “I am tasked with defending Baira’s seal for its rightful inheritors, but she picked you.” Vaida waved her bleeding hand toward the door. “Though you had best hurry before she wakes up.”
The white orbs shining between Vaida’s lashes rolled back, and Vaida collapsed once more.
It took Sefa a precious minute to thaw herself back into motion. When she was sure the creature wasn’t rising again, she shoved aside the urge to curl into a little ball and scream for the rest of her life.
If she had had any lingering doubts about the magical potency of this ring, an ancient sentry guarding it on Baira’s behalf had effectively obliterated them.
The Lukubi guards didn’t budge as Sefa moved between them. Nobody rushed into Vaida’s chambers or stuck a dagger into Sefa’s side. Each step away from the room eased the weight from her lungs. Nothing mattered beyond putting one foot in front of the other. When the door to the servants’ stairwell closed behind Sefa, she tossed the basket and ran.
The servants, still harried from the Nizahlan newcomers, paid Sefa little attention as she sprinted across the kitchen and through the back door.
The vast gardens of the Ivory Palace’s northern pavilion teemed with black-and-violet uniforms. The sight temporarily distracted Sefa, and she scanned for any sight of silver hair.
