Page 70 of The Jasad Crown
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SYLVIA
In the face of catastrophically bad news, the mountain decided to throw a party.
I watched in bemusement as Maia’s husband—a title which, upon introduction, had shocked me speechless—spun her in the middle of the dining hall. The low tables had been pushed to the sides of the room, leaving plenty of empty space in the center for dancing.
Lateef reclined on the ground, his back propped against the long stone counter in front of the kitchen. He’d gone around the room collecting the hastily tossed cushions and piled them into his corner, where he lounged like a bird guarding its nest. A gaggle of children sat cross-legged in front of him, listening raptly as he regaled them with the tales of Goha and his silly donkey. On the kitchen floor, a row of young girls scooped warm rice out of the enormous pots they had carried in from the firepits outside and rolled it into thinly cut and steamed grape leaves. At the counter, six boys traded insults as they chopped piles of parsley and onion. I winced sympathetically at their watering eyes.
“We save mahshy for special occasions,” Namsa shared with a tone of great magnanimity. We were clustered on the single cushion Lateef hadn’t managed to steal, observing the revelry and hustle from our own quiet corner.
“Probable death is a special occasion?” I curled my legs in time toavoid a stampede of boys running past, cackling at the top of their squeaky, prepubescent lungs.
“Well, yes.” Namsa shot me a sly smile. “When death lives around the corner, you learn to pay no attention to its shadow. Besides, we finally have a plan. A goal to put into motion. Soon, change will come. One way or the other.”
In the center of the room, Efra played the tubluh with flabbergasting skill, drumming as though he hadn’t spent the better part of an hour screaming himself hoarse as he was flung around the surface of the sea.
“I don’t understand why everyone is so calm,” I said. “The informant was nearly in tears. Omal’s lower villages are overflowing with soldiers, and Felix has patrols posted across the borders. Vaida is expanding her territory by miles in every direction within Essam, and she floods each gained acre with her soldiers. Orban closed their trade routes—their trade routes, which I might remind you, are the only way Jasadis in other kingdoms can even cross to Jasad.” I massaged my forehead, ignoring the faint echo of Raya ranting about wrinkles. “And Nizahl…”
“We don’t know what the Silver Serpent is commissioning. It could be nothing.”
“Nothing, Namsa? Yara said every blacksmith in Nizahl was asked to fashion a special kind of weapon. Rawain spent half his early reign amassing an arsenal beyond any the kingdoms could compete with. What kind of new weapon would the Heir need thousands of?”
Namsa picked at the dirt under her nails with a marked lack of nerves. “Do you know what Nizahl can’t commission?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“Magic.”
I groaned. “I’m serious. The Jasadis are trapped. If they manage to survive leaving their kingdoms, they will be killed on the wayto Jasad. If not by soldiers, then by the creatures we unleashed at Galim’s Bend.”
“The creatures will just disappear into the Mirayah.”
A plate appeared in front of me, heaped with a mountain of mahshy, missaka, and a grilled tomato. My mouth watered embarrassingly fast. Maia mistook my pause as dismay and immediately began rocking on her heels. “We usually use ground beef with the missaka, but beef is difficult to transport or preserve in the mountains. Potatoes make a decent alternative, and I have always thought the key part of the dish was the spiced tomato sauce, of which you will find plenty—”
I took the plate from Maia, curtailing what was sure to be the start of her long saga on sauce. “Thank you,” I said. “It looks delicious.”
She beamed, sliding down the wall to join me and Namsa on the ground. “What were you talking about?”
“Namsa appears to believe that the Mirayah is a real place,” I said, with the sort of patronizingly indulgent tone one reserves for speaking in front of children or the senile. “Next, we will discuss if she sees the Awaleen standing at the foot of her bed while she sleeps. Do they lean over and whisper sweet prophecies in your ear, or—”
An elbow caught me in the side, rocking me toward Maia. Gathering my plate close, I glared at Namsa. “My mahshy!”
“The Mirayah is real, Essiya,” Maia said, slicing into a baked potato circle soaked in her beloved sauce.
I stared. One was funny, but two was worrisome. “Surely, you don’t believe there are pockets of ancient magic scattered around Essam Woods? Actual realms of rogue magic?”
“What would you call Ayume Forest? You were there. You must have felt the perversion of Dania’s magic left over from the Battle of Ayume. That battle happened several millennia ago, yet to thisday, the very air in Ayume can kill you.” Namsa snatched a finger of mahshy from my plate before I could swat her away. “I don’t believe there are entire realms of rogue magic in Essam, no. But magic was born in those woods. It is in Essam’s very soil, the roots that stretch across our kingdoms, the river we rely on for life. Who knows what other worlds it sustains?”
“I lived in Essam for five years,” I said tersely. “The woods are disturbing and unsettling, but they pledge no power of their own. If there was a realm of rogue magic wandering around, I would surely have stumbled upon it.”
“How?” Oil glistened at the corner of Maia’s mouth. She wiped it on the inside of her wrist. “You were hidden from the strongest tracking magic for a decade. The Mirayah is as ancient as Essam. If you couldn’t be found and it did not want to be found, you could have walked straight past each other.”
I opened my mouth to argue and reconsidered. Flimsy as it might be, she had a point. The cuffs had protected me against most magic, repelling it as strongly as it trapped my own. It was not entirely impossible that a similar force existed to hide some pocket of magical fluctuation in Essam.
It was just mostly impossible.
I changed the subject before they could jump on my hesitation. “When do we leave?”
