Page 197 of The Jasad Crown
He and Sefa wouldn’t be alone.
In the measure of monster or man, what tips the scales?
Lives unfinished flitted through my mind’s eye, playing before me like the last vision of the dying.
Rovial, the mad Awal. Essiya, the cruel Heir.
And Sylvia. My first and favorite lie.
The tide of my magic broke through a portion of the barrier, and I forced myself to swim. To keep my head above water and remember it all. Fairel’s laugh. The smell of Rory’s favorite mint tea brewing on a foggy morning. Sefa’s dazed giggles when she’d been working on a project for five hours straight without blinking. Marek’s endless chatter whenever I grew moody and sullen, too stubborn to leave me alone and too restless to stay quiet.
And the memories that hurt. The memories my magic had kicked to the corner and lit ablaze.
We—I—had loved my siblings once. I had loved them before I knew what the word meant or how fatal its corruption could be. I had loved Dania’s inability to go anywhere without her axe dangling from her hand or her waist. Kapastra’s obsession with shining each individual scale on the newborn rochelyas and giving them names more fitting for an inappropriate suitor, like Amar Arba’tashar and Helywa.
And Baira… nobody could tell a story like Baira. Everyone in this age remembered her for her beauty and her skills of deception, but the Lukub Awala had so much more to offer. She could turn a walk from one tree to the next into the grandest of adventures, whisk you into action with nothing more than the turn of a phrase.
And I…
I am what remains.
I opened my eyes, and the fortress had risen to its full height.
Standing on the other side of it, barely holding himself upright, was Arin.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
ARIN
Magic never stayed still.
It was a detail Arin had taken for granted. Magic always swirled or churned when a Jasadi used it; it never lingered too long.
The rings of gold and silver in Essiya’s eyes had settled into irises. The colors shaded the dark of her eyes in still pools of silver and gold, and Arin had never been more scared in his life.
She glanced past him disapprovingly. “You knocked out Jeru in the middle of a battle?”
Arin slammed his fist against the fortress. It refused to give, as solid as steel despite its fluid appearance. “Enough. You did it—you raised the fortress. The fighting has ended, and it will never renew. I am Supreme, and there will be no war. You aredone. Get off the bridge before the mist returns.”
As soon as the mist rose, Sirauk would devour her. And Arin would be stuck on the opposite side of this damned wall, pounding his knuckles bloody.
Her chin jutted out, her features taking on a stubborn set. “Why should I take orders from someone who nearly killed himself kissing me? You can barely stand, Arin.”
“I do not need to stand, Essiya,” Arin snarled. “Do you want me on my knees again? Do you want me to beg?”
Essiya set down the scepter, and Arin startled. He hadn’t evennoticed it when he kissed her. She wrapped her fingers around the orb, hiding the raven’s beady gaze.
“Essiya,” she repeated with a wan smile. “The almost-Heir. The sort-of Malika. I suppose their annoying little test wouldn’t have been complete without the temptation of total power.”
Arin took out his dagger and started hacking at the fortress.
“The stories are wrong, you know. Mostly wrong. They trapped me on the bridge—that much is true. But I didn’t ‘scream so loud that the skies crashed down,’” she scoffed. “Kapastra did. They also didn’t draw runes on my forehead. What a silly notion. What effect would runes have had against my magic? Also—and this is by far the most aggravating—I wasnotthe ‘kind and compassionate’ Awal. Perhaps I was compared to those three, but I was also impatient and short-tempered, and I once tried to stab my sister for stealing all the mangoes out of my trees as a jest.”
It took a beat for Arin to hear her.
She tapped her nails against the glass of the scepter. “The most consistent part of the story is the ending. I am dragged over the side of the bridge, trapped in eternal entombment. Satisfying, isn’t it? I understand why nobody examined the ending too closely. After all, the alternative was unthinkable. The alternative meant the mad Awal might have walked away. Rovial, roaming the kingdoms, alive and well while the only people capable of fending against him slept beneath Sirauk. An unbearable conclusion.”
“What. Are. You. Saying.” Arin could scarcely force out the words.
