Page 184 of The Jasad Crown
“Are you implying I am lying to myself?”
Sefa studied me for a long, disconcerting moment. I tied my hair into a knot at the back of my head and swept the stray strands behind my ears. My attention returned to Sirauk.
“I don’t know,” Sefa said, and the raw note in her voice caught me. “Since you raised the kitmer, there are moments where I cannot tell who I am speaking to. Whether you are Sylvia or Essiya or someone else entirely.”
Thrown, it took me too long to compose myself.
“You have more aliases than I do, Sayali.”
“That is not what I mean and you know it. My identity—my soul—does not shift from name to name.”
Magic singed my palms. “Maybe it should. What is so special about your soul that it must always remain perfectly pristine? Souls are made to be marked. To fracture and break. We spend lifetimes repairing them, and by the time you go to your grave, your soul should look nothing like what you started with.”
“I agree.” The mournful words doused the lit end of my anger. “But the essence of who you are does not change. The essence of who you are is what determines whether you keep repairing your soul or simply leave it in pieces each time it breaks.”
“Ugh,” Marek grumbled, turning his face into Sefa’s thigh. “Can we philosophize about our souls after breakfast?”
The leaf next to Marek shifted. Tiny pebbles danced on the dirt. I flattened my hand on the ground, absorbing the minute trembling.
Something was coming.
“Up! Up!” Efra broke through the trees, the other sentries on his heels. His wild cries lashed the Jasadis into full alert. We were on our feet in seconds. Efra’s shout echoed through the deathly silent camp. “Nizahl soldiers from the woods—several hundred at least—”
Pandemonium.
We had prepared for the possibility of some of them coming from Essam, but Namsa and the others were still pale with terror as they ran between groups, handing out weapons and snapping off instructions. I watched her shove an axe into the limp grip of the wide-eyed boy who had mouthed off to Lateef last night.
Gazing at the legions of terrified Jasadis, it occurred to me I might very well raise the fortress over a sea of the dead. The border of magic would become nothing more than a shiny headstone to commemorate the corpses stacked behind it.
“You should leave while there is still time,” I told Marek and Sefa distractedly. My veins tightened painfully as I rerouted a kitmer from Orban. We would need every last one of them to hold off the Nizahl soldiers, new recruits or not. “Find somewhere safe to hide.”
“Why would we hide?” Sefa crept closer to me, as though the mere suggestion repelled her.
“This is not your fight.”
“Your fight is our fight,” Sefa said. “We will not leave you.”
“You may have noticed we love you,” Marek added, accepting the bow and arrow hastily thrust in his direction. “Despite your most valiant efforts.”
There it was again. The same nameless, debilitating force I had succumbed to in the Victor’s Ball. Rising, roaring, gathering force. The sheer magnitude of it stole my breath.
No one is meant to be alone for so long.
Dawoud was buried in Silsilit Abeer, but he may as well have been whispering in my ear.
“I—I—”
Sefa squeezed my shoulder, silencing my stammer. “It’s okay. Go—they need you.”
I took her and Marek’s hands. “Don’t make me mourn you,” I said, punctuating it with a hard glare. “If the soldiers overtake us, surrender. Run into the woods. Do anything but die.”
Marek pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “You first.”
I stood alone at the front of the crowd, facing Hirun. Behind me, hundreds of small kitmers darkened the sky.
Fog shrouded the river, coasting over the water in timid plumes. This close to Sirauk, the current churned and wept onto the shores.
Reality had split neatly in two. On one side, I flew with my lastkitmer, the trees of Essam spread beneath us, the bony branches of its trees locked together, as though Essam couldn’t help but shield its ugly innards. The river wound between the trees like a flicking tongue.
