Page 40 of The Jasad Crown
No.
The floor of Marek’s chest disappeared, plunging his heart straight to his feet. The fight drained out of him. No wonder Jeru looked so tortured. Much as Marek loathed to admit it, Jeru wasa good man. He’d treated Sylvia kindly, even when the rest of the guardsmen barely acknowledged her. When the arrows had begun to rain down at the Meridian Pass, Jeru had immediately ridden for Sefa and Marek and led them to safety.
He was a good man, which meant it wasn’t easy for him to deliver Marek to a fate worse than death.
“I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
A new terror gripped Marek, and he clapped his hand over his mouth as bile surged in his throat. Jeru released him—quick thinking that narrowly saved him from the delight of Marek’s vomit spewing over his uniform. Marek hunched over, his arms going around his contracting middle.
“He doesn’t have Sefa. Right? Tell me he doesn’t have Sefa, Jeru,tell me that mad, coldhearted bastard doesn’t have—”
“No one has Sefa!” Jeru regarded Marek with an exhaustion hedging on pity. “But he’s looking for her.”
The relief crushed him. Marek slid to his knees, shoulders bumping against the chair Jeru had knocked over. “He wants to use us to lure Sylvia, doesn’t he?”
Jeru said nothing.
Fighting another wave of nausea, Marek shut his eyes. “If he tries to use her against Sylvia, Sefa will let him kill her.”
The guardsman blanched. “She wouldn’t—”
“She would. If she feels escape or rescue are impossible, if she knows the Heir is planning to execute Sylvia, she will not be a pawn to it. Sefa will remove herself from his game board.” Tears gathered behind Marek’s closed eyes. His brave, loyal, self-sacrificing fool of a friend.
Pushing to his feet, Marek thought fast. If Jeru had been instructed to capture them, perhaps he had an idea where Sefa might be. Maybe he could even get Marek out of this compound.
“I woke up in a storage room in this compound after the Victor’sBall. I don’t know where Sefa went. I can’t leave the compound, and even if I could, I don’t know where to start looking for Sefa and Sylvia.”
Jeru winced. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to look for Sylvia. The Malika of Jasad is a part of an entirely different game now—one neither of us is qualified to play. Pursuing her will get you killed, and you will be no use to anyone dead.”
Part of a different game? If Marek had anything left in his stomach, he would be donating it all over Jeru’s shoes. “Is that your sorry attempt to calm me down?” Marek lowered himself to a seat at the edge of the bed before his legs gave out. “I love that girl.”
Jeru paused his pacing to raise his brows. Marek rolled his eyes. “Like a sister,” he snapped.
“Good,” Jeru muttered. Marek couldn’t be sure, but he could have sworn he heard the guardsman grumble, “We don’t need to give him another reason to kill you.”
“You can’t let him find Sefa, Jeru. At least Sylvia has her magic and the leverage of her title. People to support her. Sefa doesn’t have anyone but me.”
“I told you, we don’t know where Sefa is. I haven’t found her. But I did find you, and I don’t—” Jeru scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t know what to do. His Highness isn’t… he isn’t himself. The prospect of war haunts him, and Sylvia’s betrayal cut him deeper than anyone knows. If I hand you to him, there’s no telling what he might do. And if he kills you knowing how it would destroy Sylvia, we may lose him altogether.”
“You’re worried about how killing me would emotionally impact him?” Snorting, Marek wondered why he was surprised. The guardsmen always put their Commander first. Frankly, Marek was shocked Jeru was still talking and hadn’t already summoned the carriage to haul him to the Citadel.
Jeru stopped pacing. He pivoted on his heel, taking stock ofMarek with an inscrutable expression. “You were a crook before Mahair.”
Marek raised a blond brow. “Looking for a career change?”
“Shut up.” Jeru ran his thumb over the row of embroidered ravens, lost in thought. “You managed to hide in Mahair under a false name for seven years.”
Marek eyed the door longingly, touching his throbbing jaw.
“I’ll help you find Sefa.”
The scattered pieces of Marek’s attention gathered themselves, welded into a steely focus, and aimed their combined force at Jeru. Marek stood slowly, a dangerous pulse in his veins. “Do not toy with me.”
“Shouldn’t you know what a proposition sounds like, Lazur?” Jeru crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m searching for a relic I believe to be hidden with a Nizahlan noble family. An insignia that vanished around the Siege of Six Dawns. It was once used as a token of favor, and I suspect they have it.”
Marek racked his memory for the Siege of Six Dawns. His attention span in class had ranged from abysmal to abominable. “The siege where they burned all the fields in Omal?” Marek didn’t consider himself an expert on the kingdoms’ many,manyconflicts, but he had passed the scorch marks on the wall dividing Mahair from Essam a thousand times. A long black streak stretched right under the wordsMay we lead the lives our ancestors were denied.
Even hundreds of years later, the land remembered what had been done to it by the Orbanian invaders.
