Page 66 of The Jasad Crown
When Arin landed this time, he knew the Mufsid’s magic was nearing its end. He could see the gray of the cell behind the vision, fading in and out.
A muddy creek flowed around the trees of Essam Woods, their branches lush with summer leaves. The texture of the vision was off, not as vivid or heavy as Niphran’s had been.
I had only a single fingerbone to draw from. It is a testament to my talent that I was able to pull anything at all from such a tiny bit of bone, let alone a whole memory, Waid sniffed.Unfortunately, Essiya is just as clever as her mother. We have never been able to recover more than a finger from Qayida Hanim’s bones. Wherever Essiya buried that wretched traitor, it was far from wherever Hanim had imprisoned her.
A whip split the air, and Arin whirled around.
A girl knelt in the mud, a red line bisecting her naked back. A woman stood tall behind her. One hand held the whip, and the other deftly knotted her wavy hair into a bun at the base of her neck.
The girl’s arms hugged the tree, her wrists tied around the other side of it. A band of black fabric covered her eyes.
Arin had weathered fires and stab wounds, poisons and beatings. He’d begun training to become a soldier at an age most children were learning how to sound out their letters. His very existence as Commander necessitated a close and familiar understanding of the many ways he could be harmed.
In short, Arin thought he knew pain.
He thought he knew rage.
The whip fell again, Sylvia jerking silently beneath it, and it became abundantly clear Arin didn’t know a thing about either. His real education came in that moment, eviscerating the tentative hold on his stability he’d managed to maintain throughout these visions.
Arin would find the body of Qayida Hanim and kill her again. He would hunt down each of her bones and crush them between his bare hands.
The lashes on Sylvia’s back multiplied until a curtain of red poured from her neck to her waist.
She never made a single sound.
This memory is how we knew she was still alive, Waid murmured.This is how we found the Jasad Heir.
Arin didn’t hear him. His entire being had narrowed to the lift and fall of the whip against Sylvia’s back. He thought of a room in Orban, a towel easing to reveal layers upon layers of brutal scarring.
I have a legacy of disappointing people, you see.
Bile built in Arin’s throat until he thought he might retch. After an eternity, Qayida Hanim moved behind the tree and cut through the ropes around Sylvia’s wrists. The Jasad Heir slumped forward, curling in on herself.
“You may take it off,” Hanim said.
Sylvia swept off her blindfold, red-rimmed eyes rising to Hanim’s. Softly, she whispered, “Do you forgive me?”
Her teeth clattered. Arin couldn’t fathom how they weren’t rushing to clean her wounds, to stop the blood loss.
“You were a good girl.” Hanim held out the whip. “Clean it off in the river. When you’re done, we can bandage you by the fire.”
“Thank you.” Sylvia took the bloody whip.
The Citadel’s cell materialized around them, and Arin finally saw the Mufsid. He was slouched on the cot, skin sallow with fatigue.
“Can it be?” Waid chuckled weakly. “Is that a glisten I see in the Silver Serpent’s eyes? Now, now. That was only the story of a single finger. How might you weep if we had recovered the rest of Hanim’s bones?”
Arin let himself have just one minute. One minute to re-collect as many pieces as he could from where he’d left them scattered by the magic-mined farmer, across the rulers’ trading table, and in the woods by Sylvia. He wanted nothing more than to leave this cell, to go—anywhere else.
But in less than an hour, Arin would watch dawn rise on the death of Waid Entair, Bone Spinner of Crowns. He would leave Arin with more questions and die with the answers inside him.
Even now, the Mufsid’s temporary lucidity was fading; the roving eyes had returned, the restless twitching.
“What did you want from the Jasad Heir’s magic?” Arin’s voice hardened. “Did you hope to mine it?”
The Mufsid had rearranged himself onto his cot once more, obscuring himself in the gloom of the windowless walls. Only the yellow of his gaze was visible, piercing Arin with a chilling intelligence.
“Naughty Commander.” The whisper floated on the back of a caustic laugh. “Mining magic, draining it. Same thief in a different hat. What matters is not what is taken, but where it goes.”
