Page 164 of The Jasad Crown
I clapped my hands together, once again startling Sefa into sloshing her soup.
“Who wants to fight the Nizahl Heir?”
Arin set his feet, waiting.
Even after clearing the tables, the dining hall hadn’t accommodated the influx of people rushing to take turns fighting the Nizahl Heir, so we had moved to the cliffside. My first set of kitmers circled overhead, chasing the sunlight as it receded over the sparkling surface of Suhna Sea. Everyone sat cross-legged in the valley between our mountain and the neighboring one, the frozen lakewhere the Visionists had conjured the attack at Galim’s Bend not far behind us.
Maia’s husband took the sword Lateef handed him and swallowed. He glanced at Arin’s discarded sword and then at Maia, who was rocking on her heels with dizzying velocity.
Maia’s husband set his sword on the ground. “Commander or not, I will not use a weapon against an unarmed man.”
Arin had yet to use the sword I’d handed him. He’d set it behind him and had not reached for it in the last seven challenges. With his coat off and his sleeves rolled to his elbows, there was no difference between him and a man enjoying a moonlit stroll.
“I admire your honor.” The suggestion of a smile touched Arin’s lips. “Perhaps the memory of it will keep your wife warm after you’re dead.”
Arin struck as jarringly fast as he had with the others. Maia’s husband barely had a chance to react before Arin swept his legs out from under him. Instead of rolling away from Arin’s boots, the husband rolled in, hurtling his weight against Arin’s legs. The crowd stirred, curious to see if the Nizahl Heir might finally lose his balance. So far, no one had been able to knock him down. Maia’s husband was a man of impressive height and build—if anyone could tangle Arin, it would be him.
So they thought. I leaned against Sefa’s shoulder, scooping a spoonful of sugared pomegranate seeds out of her bowl. On her other side, Marek and Jeru were observing the proceedings with matching looks of consternation.
“How many more is he going to fight?” Sefa sighed. Maia’s husband had gotten back on his feet. We watched him swing at Arin’s head and miss.
“As many as are stupid enough to challenge him.”
Without a vest, only the thin barrier of Arin’s shirt obstructed my view of his chest as it flexed. I drank in his twisting torso, the strip of his back where Maia’s husband had grabbed at Arin’s collarand rucked up his shirt. Rovial’s tainted tomb, Arin without his layers was obscene.
“Please get that look off of your face,” Sefa said, the strained request startling me from my reverie. “I feel an urgent need to throw you into the lake.”
“The lake is frozen.”
“And yet I doubt it’ll be cold enough.” Sefa shuddered. “I thought Marek had exposed me to the full range of human depravity, but Awaleen below, Essiya… unless you want everyone to know you’d like to eat the Heir alive, take a firmer hand with your lust.”
I flashed her a crude smirk. “I’ll tell you who I’d like to take a firmer hand with my lust.”
I erupted into peals of laughter as Sefa started shoving me toward the lake.
Maia’s husband hit the ground a third time, and he raised his hands in defeat. “I surrender. I need my spine in working order to survive the journey to Jasad.”
Arin extended a hand toward Maia’s husband. I stiffened, jerking away from Sefa. I couldn’t remember Arin extending a hand to anyone other than me. The Urabi were already paranoid about his abilities, about coming too close to him. If Maia’s husband rebuffed the gesture, all the goodwill Arin had spent the last hour fighting for would be destroyed.
He had taken a calculated risk, and it proved worthwhile when Maia’s husband clasped Arin’s glove.
I exhaled, belatedly noticing I had crushed the pomegranate seeds in my fist. Ugh. I reached around Jeru to wipe the sticky red mess on the back of Marek’s shirt.
“You’re nervous,” Sefa murmured, soft brown eyes roving over my features as though my emotions had been written in a special ink only she could read. “You want them to trust him. Do you think he can’t take care of himself?”
“It isn’t about capability.” We watched Lateef walk in front of Arin, hand him a glass of water, and promptly put as much distance between himself and the Heir as possible. A fighter, Lateef was not. “Arin is not willing to defend himself. If they try to kill him, he’ll—” My throat closed, the memory of finding him in a pool of his own blood on the cell floor still fresh. “He will let them.”
“He certainly does not seem to be letting them now.”
She was right. When Arin entered the mountains, the emptiness had leeched the life from every glance, every word. Arin’s entire identity had been cast to the flames; the order of his world obliterated into formless chaos. I knew better than to think my display with the Sareekh had convinced the Commander of Nizahl of the wonders of magic, but it was clear a shift had taken place.
“He is hiding something.” I studied him and did not flinch when he glanced over his shoulder, meeting my gaze with a piercing one of his own. “He has a plan.”
“Doesn’t he always?”
When Arin had dropped seventeen Jasadis to the ground, I stepped forward.
Amusement warmed the eyes fastened to my face. “Do you never tire of trying to spill my blood, Suraira?”
