Page 129 of The Jasad Heir

Blood gushed between my fingers, and my cuffs heated as I called on every ounce of magic I had. My magic had to act somehow. Dawoud would not die in the dirt in Dar al Mansi. He would not be another Jasadi claimed by this village.

“I should have never stopped searching for you.” His hand came to rest over mine, his calloused palm cool over my knuckles. I flinched at the touch, and Dawoud’s sharp eyes narrowed. “What happened to you, Essiya? Where were you?”

My magic tore uselessly around us. “Hanim,” I ground out. I would speak, if only to keep the stubborn man from doing so himself. “She kept me in Essam for five years.”

My goal to talk him into relaxation failed miserably, because he tried to lurch upward. Blood poured down his front. “Qayida Hanim?” The remaining color leached from his face, leaving him gray and aghast. “That miserable traitor. She took you? She—she ruined us all. Soraya, Essiya, do you know about Soraya?”

“Dawoud, please, stay still,” I begged.

“Hanim brought her into the palace. Into our home. Hanim recommended her to your grandparents, because—” It seemed sheer spite kept Dawoud awake. His eyes rolled wildly. “They planned it all. But Hanim…” He shuddered in what might have been a laugh. “Soraya should have known better than to rely on the fidelity of traitors.”

“I don’t care about them,” I urged. “Liestill.”

Dawoud’s smiled with white lips. “My determined little Essiya,” he breathed. “To die knowing you are alive is all I could have wished for.”

I lost the battle against my heart. “Please stay. Please. I have so much to tell you. I apprenticed with a man named Rory. A chemist. I could hardly tolerate the subject with my tutors, remember? But he taught me about how to heal the body from the inside and out. He took me to a woman named Raya. She reminded me of you, except more rigid. I became her ward, and she treated me kindly.” My teeth were chattering, shaking along with the rest of my body. Dawoud’s breaths slowed beneath me. My magic’s assault on Dar al Mansi evaporated.

Dawoud was dying.

Wiping the blood from my hands, I slid behind him, pulling his head into my lap. I combed my fingers through his hair, raking them into his scalp the way he used to do for me after a nightmare. “I am here. I won’t go,” I said, and I repeated the words long after Dawoud’s chest stilled and his body went cold.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Night loomed over Dar al Mansi. I eased out from beneath Dawoud’s body. Once night fell, hordes of patrolling guards would attack the remaining creatures in Dar al Mansi.

I stared down at Dawoud’s still face. Supreme Rawain did this. He threw Dawoud into Dar al Mansi for me to slaughter. We were animals to him, playthings to use and dispose of.

And I was his Champion.

The rage cooled the howling grief in my chest. I bent down, and even without months of training, I wouldn’t have struggled to lift Dawoud in my arms. Though starved and tortured, Dawoud never bowed to Nizahl. Proud until his end, dying like every Jasadi in Dar al Mansi.

But unlike them, he would not dwell in the home of the forgotten.

I carried Dawoud through the stretch of Essam Woods separating Dar al Mansi from the rest of Omal. Lantern light and movement flickered between the trees. The marching patrol.

Essam cleared, and a commotion greeted my entry. The audience seethed on two opposite slopes, craning for a view of the narrow landing between them. They cheered as I walked onto the path, although the ones at the bottom quieted at the sight of the dead man in my arms.

The announcer’s expression scrunched with confusion as I approached. I glanced behind him. Supreme Rawain and the other royals lounged at the front, ringed with guards. I carefully kept my gaze away from Supreme Rawain or his son.

Jeru and Wes broke from the outskirts as the announcer peered down at Dawoud and my state of undress. Al Anqa’a had taken my tunic in its talon, and a large white band covered my breasts, keeping my stomach and shoulders exposed. He cleared his throat. “Do you—uh—”

I gently laid Dawoud in Jeru and Wes’s arms without meeting either of their eyes. They would care for him. See he was taken somewhere the scavengers could not reach.

I tossed the nisnas’s finger to the ground and pulled the dulhath’s spidery limb from its binding around my thigh.

“A nisnas finger. A dulhath leg. A Jasadi. Three monsters. Three trophies.” I smiled, and the announcer took a step back. “Go ahead. Declare me.”

“Sylvia,” Jeru tried, voice hoarse. I looked at him, and the Nizahl soldier blanched.

The announcer whirled to the gathered masses. “The Nizahl Champion joins the Orban Champion to proceed to the third trial!”

I walked past him, past Jeru and Wes and the dead man in their arms, past the applauding royals. I did not stop to see the satisfaction in Rawain’s gaze or the irritation in Vaun’s. I entered the Champions’ carriage with Diya, and the wheels groaned as the carriage jerked into motion.

We stayed silent until we reached the palace. Diya pulled the quilt from around her shoulders and tossed it into my lap. “Give them nothing to see but the look in your eyes,” she said.

Numb, I pulled the quilt around my shoulders. No servant intercepted me as I entered the palace, and no guard asked questions. I floated up the stairs in a haze. In the stillness of my quarters, I let the quilt spill to the ground.

Does it hurt more when your failures have names?Hanim whispered.Does it hurt more to put a face to the people you have let down?

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