Page 23 of The Jasad Crown
Later—I would dwell on the questionable state of my sanity later. “Even if you thought I was alone, why didn’t you get help?” He had still seen me completely stranded in the middle of the mountain, clearly panicked.
Brown curls tumbled over his brow, victims to the restless wind. The nervous way he swept them back reminded me of Sefa. If Sefa were here, she’d note Efra was only a year or two older than me. We had absolved Marek many a foolhardy mistake, and he had weathered much less damage in his life than Efra probably had. Sefa would try to forgive him.
But Sefa wasn’t here, and I hadn’t gone to find her because for the first time in my life, I was trying to keep a vow. To break a pattern. I had run after the Blood Summit, after I killed Hanim, after I killed the Nizahl soldier. I’d even run away my first night in the tunnels.
For once, I was trying tostay.
“You didn’t use your magic,” Efra said, and I stopped short.
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t use your magic to climb down. You didn’t use it to light your way. You didn’t even use it when you stumbled into the waterfall.”
“How long were you watching me?” I balked.
Efra’s lips curled back. “I told them it was a trick, what happened at the Victor’s Ball. Another hoax delivered by the same hands that ruined our kingdom.”
Frustration rolled like a rock between my teeth, and I forced myself to swallow it down. I hadn’t remembered the truth about my grandparents’ magic mining until after the second trial, but the Urabi had suffered under it their entire lives. Magic mining wasn’t some theory or whispered secret. To them, it was a family member who never came home. A friend whose death couldn’t be fully explained, whose body went missing.
“I’m sorry for what my grandparents did,” I said, because I was. I was sorrier than he would ever know. “But my magic is not your concern.”
“It is when our survival relies on it.”
I looked at Efra for a long moment. “Consider your next words to me carefully, Cinnamon. I do not take kindly to being manipulated to suit someone’s ends, regardless of how noble those ends might be.”
I moved to walk around him, but he shifted into my path. “You lack a natural connection with your magic.”
Without missing a beat, I shoved him with my full strength, sending him sprawling. “Of course I do,” I hissed, looming over him. “I didn’t have access to it for over half my life. It failed me every time I needed it. Where was my magic when Hanim flayed my back raw? When she sent monsters after me in Essam, when they ripped into me with teeth and claws the size of your ego? All this time, it was right there. What if I rely on it and it betrays me again?”
The confession caught us both by surprise.
Efra reclined on the ground, offering me a venom-tipped smile. “Perhaps it didn’t feel inclined to bend to the will of the Silver Serpent’s traitorous whore.”
Someone gasped, and I belatedly realized Maia had emerged from the mountain. I didn’t have to check to guess what her face would read: shock and horror. Not because of what Efra had said, but because he had dared say it. He had dared speak the thought circulating in everyone’s head.
For a dizzying moment, I stepped out of time to stand in a cabinmany miles from here, Arin across from me and a dead Nizahl soldier’s body at my feet.
I offer you a new life.
My freedom in exchange for competing as his Champion in the Alcalah and luring the Urabi and Mufsids into his trap. I had foreseen this moment, accepted the title of Nizahl Champion with full awareness that it would forever tarnish my true name. I hadn’t cared then. Essiya was a stranger to me, and I would have done anything to ensure Sylvia lived free.
“The last person who called me a whore was a guardsman named Vaun,” I mused. My waterlogged boot kicked out and caught Efra’s temple, snapping his head to the right. “We fought, and my magic erupted over me like fire—scorching him and leaving me untouched. I wanted to kill him. I should have killed him. It was a mistake to leave someone like Vaun alive.”
Efra leapt to his feet and swung, his fist careening wide. I grabbed a handful of his hair as his pathetic blow passed me by a mile and slammed my fist into his jaw, knocking him back into the dirt. Was this the caliber of fighters among the Urabi? Maybe if Efra hadn’t relied on his magic so much, he wouldn’t have the fighting instincts of an inebriated raccoon.
“I never make the same mistake twice.”
I fisted the front of his tunic and grabbed a heavy rock, preparing to deliver a blow he wouldn’t recover from. But first, I drew him forward, softening my voice to say, “In the next life, be more wary of us traitorous whores. Especially, sweet Cinnamon, when we’re the ones wearing the crown.”
My elbow bent, lifting the rock over my head. Efra’s eyes squeezed shut.
“We need your magic to raise the fortress!” Maia screamed.
Efra’s head twisted, alarm blaring through his battered features. “Be quiet, Omaima!”
Maia appeared behind Efra, crouching behind his shoulders. She threw her arms around his head. “Please! Efra was born this unpleasant, he can’t help himself. But he isn’t taunting you about your magic to be obnoxious, Mawlati. He asks after your magic because the Aada—our council—plans to invade the Omal palace to present you to Queen Hanan. As Emre’s only child, you have a higher claim to the throne than Felix. If you become Omal Heir, you control the armies of the largest kingdom in the lands.”
Disbelief tinged my laugh. I didn’t lower my arm. Their grand plan, the reason for hunting me down across four kingdoms… was to try to take Omal’s throne? “Why would you want Omal’s armies? Felix has rotted them. They have no battle skill, no tactical intelligence.”
