Page 65 of Heir

The Raani had rolled her eyes at the threats.Sisters!she’d said. But Sirsha had seen other sisters. They didn’t fear their older siblings the way she did. The best night of sleep Sirsha had in years was after she was banished, and she’d put an ocean between herself and R’z.

“You were told that if you used your Inashi magic to hunt as we hunt, you would die,” R’zwana said. “We hunt a Karjad. So do you. Thus, you have flouted that law. As a Raan-Ruku, I have the right to mete out punishment in the name of our Raanis. Your punishment is death.”

“R’z.” Sirsha laughed, because for all R’zwana’s viciousness, her threats to murder Sirsha had only ever been threats. “If you were going to do it, you would have already. What do you want? Help? Fine, I’ll help.” If the Jaduna aided her in rounding up the killer faster, all the better. They didn’t need to know how well Sirsha was being paid, and Elias didn’t need to know Sirsha had help.

“I don’t want your aid,” R’zwana said softly. “I want your death.”

Sirsha opened her mouth to respond, but when she looked into the jagged glass of R’zwana’s eyes, every retort she’d had fled her mind. Her sister was serious.

R’zwanahadgotten worse.

“I would have killed you earlier,” R’zwana said. “If I’d had my way,the gulls of Jibaut harbor would be feasting on your liver right now. But J’yan insisted I give you a chance to explain yourself.”

“Wait a moment.” Sirsha tried to leash her rising panic. “I never said I was hunting a Karjad. I saidother quarry. You can’t prove—”

“Gag her,” R’zwana ordered J’yan. “I want this done by dawn. We’ll take her to the southern part of the harbor. Speak with the harbormaster so her body isn’t moved. Not until she’s nothing but bones.”

“You can’t prove anything!” Sirsha said again as R’zwana made for the door. She thrashed against J’yan, who, like a good little soldier, was trying to get the gag on again. Sirsha would be damned if she let him. “This is wrong, R’zwana! J’yan, tell her—”

J’yan looked nauseous as he pulled her to her feet. “I tried to warn you,” he whispered. “She’s so much worse than—”

Voices in the hallway beyond the room silenced J’yan. His body tensed, and Sirsha felt him draw his magic as the door burst open.

“Forgive me, Raan-Ruku.” D’rudo appeared out of breath. “I tried to stop them,” he said, “but this boy—he says—”

A lean figure eased past R’zwana and into the room, and Sirsha had no idea why he wasn’t yet dead, other than that he was Sufiyan Veturius, and rumor had it that death rolled off the members of the Veturius family like salt water off a seal.

“You have no business in the Jaduna compound.” R’zwana tried to menace Sufiyan by shoving in front of him, but he sidestepped her so elegantly that she blinked in confusion.

“You’re holding a citizen of the Martial Empire and we require her release.” Sufiyan spoke in accented Ankanese, his handsome face reflecting a genial sort of boredom. He spotted Sirsha and winked. “Ah. Excellent.” He called back over his shoulder, “She’s here!”

Sirsha stared in bafflement as someone tall stepped past D’rudo into the room. Quil. But not the same Quil from the shabka. Certainly, helookedidentical. His armor was a touch tight across the arms andchest—not that Sirsha minded—and he had the same silken, loose waves and light brown skin, the same hazel eyes and aquiline nose and broad shoulders. But something about the way he held himself was entirely different.

As if he owned the room, and everyone in it.

Quil’s gaze raked over her, snagging briefly on her cheek where she was no doubt developing a nasty bruise. For a moment, his pale eyes flashed with fury—and Sirsha felt a tingling warmth roll up her spine. He was angry not at her, but for her.

A moment later, his aloof expression returned, and he fixed his attention on Sirsha’s sister.

“Raan-Ruku-Ja’ira.”Honored Wolf of the Mother.Quil addressed R’zwana in a tone that danced on the edge of threatening. “I require the release of this woman. In accordance with the Treaty of Nur, signed by Empress Helene Aquilla and representatives of the Jaduna Raanis in the first year after the Battle of Sher Jinaat, any citizen of the Empire found to have broken the law of a participating nation will be extradited to the Empire to face judgment.”

R’zwana had by now gathered her wits and drew herself up, a hand on the dagger at her belt. “She isnota citizen of the Martial Empire. She is a Jaduna and—”

“Shewasa Jaduna. She has, however, been made a Martial citizen.”

“Lies,” R’zwana said, and Sirsha groaned, because Quil had picked absolutely the wrong Jaduna to argue jurisprudence with. R’zwana loved Jaduna law. She’d probably memorized every treaty the Jaduna made, including those inscribed on rock walls thousands of years ago.

“No Jaduna may be made into the citizen of another nation unless by marriageandsovereign decree,” R’zwana announced in ringing tones. “The process takes months, if not years, and do not tell me”—she marched over to Sirsha and grabbed the thin chain around her neck as Quil opened his mouth—“that she is married, because Jaduna takevows very seriously. We are not husbands or wives or partners. We are Adah—soul halves. If she had bound herself to another, she’d have a coin veined with diamonds.”

Sirsha’s chain had one measly coin on it—the one that materialized when she made her vow to Elias, skies curse him.

Quil crossed his arms. He looked around at the Jaduna assemblage with supreme arrogance.

“By marriageor engagement,” he said, and Sirsha realized that she was somehow being rescued by the one person on the entire Southern Continent who might know as much about the law as R’zwana. “No Jaduna may be made into the citizen of another nation unless by marriageor engagementand sovereign decree. And she is engaged. To me.”

Sirsha tried very hard to keep her face…well, whatever it looks like when your so-called fiancé announces your fake engagement to the sister who wants to turn you into bird food.

Beside Sirsha, J’yan, who’d never released hold of his magic, went still and tried to catch Sirsha’s eyes. She resolutely ignored him.

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