Page 13 of The Jasad Crown
I pressed my tongue against the point of my sharpest tooth, resisting the urge to throttle the woman. Unlike my body, my patience was famously short.
Fortunately for her health, she kept speaking. “The Silver Serpent doesn’t know the truth. We aren’t killers, and we only abduct those who give us no other alternative. As much as we wish it were otherwise, it is not always possible to win compliance from those comfortable in their secrecy or who believe our cause is doomed. We bring them back here. They meet the others and learn of our plans. They see that Jasad is not gone. Its spirit still fights, and so must we. Once they understand, we send them back. There are some who prefer to remain here, and those are the individuals flagged by the Nizahl soldiers. The rest reintegrate quietly, working for us from the inside.”
“They can’t return.” I twisted, blocking her path. “Once you takethem, they become targets. Ar—the Nizahl Heir hunts you and the Mufsids through the people you take.” He had recruited me as his Champion for the express purpose of luring the groups close.
“We do not send them back to the same place. They are scattered across courts and kingdoms.”
“So you strip them of their homes and force them to spy for you?”
“Jasadis their home,” Namsa said, anger finally bleeding into her tone. “As it is yours. They are glad to serve it.”
The implication couldn’t be clearer:They are glad to serve. Why aren’t you?
Sultana Vaida’s wall of suspected Nizahlan spies flashed through my mind. I had thought no one could possibly rival Arin in paranoia until I met her. If she knew the Urabi were taking our people from Lukub and bringing them back as spies, she would never sleep again.
Namsa moved around me, rounding the bend at an irritated clip. For someone who brought me here as a captive, she was certainly self-righteous.
The hallway ended, opening into a cavernous space vibrating with hundreds of voices.
I stopped walking. An unfamiliar panic surged through me, catching me off guard.
How many people were out there? Did Namsa say?
I braced my shoulder against the wall. I’d been chased by mutated dogs without experiencing this much panic, and certainly not this fast.
I slid my hand over my heart, counting out the beats.
One, two.I’m alive.
Three, four.I’m safe.
Five, six.I won’t let them catch me.
Nothing happened. My heart continued to beat wildly beneath my palm, heedless of the mantra I’d recited to myself for years.
And why not? It wasn’t true anymore. I was alive, but I wasn’t safe. I was alive, but I—Essiya—had finally been caught.
“Mawlati?” Namsa reappeared in front of me. I dropped my hand from my heart and fixed on the little divot in her right brow, its arch clearly sharpened by an expert thread.
I needed a new way to calm myself down, and fast.
“If you stop calling me that,” I ground out, “then I’ll walk out with you.”
Namsa considered. “Come along, Essiya.”
My stomach rolled unpleasantly, and I almost recanted.Essiyacame with its own knives.
I shuffled out behind Namsa, flinching as bright light replaced the gloom of the hall. I raised a hand to shield my eyes—and immediately stepped back.
The cacophony of voices quieted as hundreds of people turned at our entrance.
More Jasadis stared at me than I had seen in one room since I was a child. Which… there werechildrenhere. Not just the handful from my room, but dozens of them, toddlers and infants and sullen adolescents. Generations of Jasadis. Generations of magic.
Namsa gestured at the cavernous space around us. Alabaster stone walls rose into a high peak, the bumpy pattern of the pale rock face reminding me of freshly kneaded bread. Blankets covered the ground, and colorful hand-stitched cushions were strewn around low-rising wooden tables.
“Welcome to the Gibal.”
Maia waved shyly from behind a makeshift stone counter.
