Page 52 of The Jasad Crown
Arin waited until he was alone to throw up.
Gripping the rim of the wastebasket, he sank to the floor. With his forehead pressed to the permanently chilled wall, Arin did his best to breathe through the pain. The healers had tried to attend him after the soldiers finally descended on Galim’s Bend, but Arin diverted them to the villages. They were still pulling bodies from the wreckage. Any survivors would need far more care than Arin. These wounds wouldn’t kill him. He was almost certain.
One more minute, and he would stand up and find his medical kit. Just one more minute.
The spot where the nisnas lashed its arm around Arin’s ankle had been stripped red and raw, burned by the acidic excretions from the creature’s skin. It could have been much worse. Itshouldhave been much worse. Arin had been on his knees at the base of the hill, the damage to his head making him see double, and he’d heard it.
Turn around.
Not many things had the privilege of frightening Arin. He had been the kind of child more likely to set a trap for the imaginary monster under his bed than tuck his feet beneath the blanket in passive surrender. Losing control of his mind, losing faith in his own judgment…
He knew what his mind was capable of. He knew what shadows it kept.
The voice had been real. It had to have been real—Arin’s talent for foresight did not translate to prophetic power.
By now, the council would have ridden halfway to the Wickalla, where survivors of Galim’s Bend would be living until new arrangements could be made. Bayoum had insisted on riding to meet them and giving a speech.
Arin couldn’t find it in himself to scrounge even a scrap of surprise. A massacre and the release of centuries-old monsters into Nizahl? It was the perfect opportunity for Bayoum to argue against the conscription protections without directly crossing Arin. The wreckage fit into Bayoum’s agenda so neatly, Arin might have wondered if the councilman was its architect. Fortunately for Bayoum, the only keys for those cages were in Arin’s possession, and he hadn’t touched them since the Alcalah.
The cages had been broken by magic.
With a white-knuckled grip on the table, Arin hoisted himself to his feet, a groan escaping his pressed lips. Each step toward his bureau whipped fire across his skin. He removed his emergency supplies and lined them up on the table by order of use. Talwith to clean the injury, a towel for the blood, a thin blade to cut out fragments stuck inside any open wounds, a needle and thread, and bandages to cover anything too small or hopeless for stitching.
Arin sank into a chair. He peeled off his vest and discarded the remnants of his torn shirt. They dropped in a wet heap at his feet. Another time, the sight would bother Arin more than the pain.
The chill air breathed a sigh of relief across Arin’s wounds. He poured talwith onto the towel and down his throat in equal turns and set to managing the smallest gashes first. Time crawled, content to relish Arin’s discomfort. By the time Arin reached the biggestwound, black spots danced in his vision and a metallic rust coated his tongue.
Arin had miscalculated his stunt at the hilltop by a fraction of a second. After he lured Al Anqa’a away from the village, he’d dropped to the ground too late. Al Anqa’a had grazed his chest with its claws and gouged three parallel lines into his torso before Arin plunged his knife into its underbelly.
Lifting the talwith over the first of the shredded marks, Arin hesitated. Reaching toward the bureau, he opened the middle drawer and pulled out another towel to slide between his teeth. He didn’t trust himself not to bite off his tongue.
Arin gripped the talwith like a man holding on to his last breath before dumping its contents over his chest.
The towel depressed between Arin’s teeth. He couldn’t tamp down a strangled gasp. He tried to reach for the bandages only to discover his arm refused to cooperate.
The black spots on the edges of his vision grew. The empty bottle dropped from Arin’s numb fingers to the carpet, and the thud was the last sound Arin heard before the darkness closed around him.
“You left him bleeding in here alone? What kind of guardsman are you?”
“I’m so sorry, sire. I thought he was in the infirmary, he ordered me to stay in Galim’s Bend to guide the recruits, and I didn’t realize his injuries were so—”
Arin stirred, fighting the pull of sleep.
“You have been in my son’s employ for ten years. How could you not know he wouldn’t go to the infirmary during an emergency? His utter nonsense about taking resources from others—as if heisn’t the Commander! As if the loss of a hundred thousand lives could ever be worth the loss of his! And for what? Some farmers and vagrants in Galim’s Bend?”
Arin became aware of a pressure on his chest. Someone was touching him.
Arin’s hand struck out. He opened his eyes to a petrified medic leaning over him, her wrist caught in Arin’s grip.
Behind her, Wes and Rawain whirled toward Arin. Relief poured over his guardsman, and he pressed a shaking hand to his pin. “Sire. You’re awake.”
The medic hesitantly tugged at her wrist. Arin released her, shifting his attention to the rest of the room. He was still in the chair he’d bandaged himself in, supplies haphazardly strewn across the table by his elbow. How long had he been unconscious?
“Well, if it isn’t my martyr of an Heir.” Rawain brushed the medic aside and peered down at Arin. “In your fit of heroism, did you notice you forgot to bandage your head wound?”
“I didn’t forget,” Arin said. “The blood had already clotted, and the injury itself was nothing of note.”
Rawain glanced at the healer for confirmation. Her timid nod only seemed to heighten his irritation.
