Page 20 of The Jasad Heir

“Your Highness.” I averted my eyes.

The Commander and his guards withdrew. I waited until the thunder of beating hooves disappeared to turn to Rory. He’d climbed to his feet, but I doubted it was the exertion leaving him ashen.

A heavy silence remained in the Heir’s wake. When Rory finally spoke, it was low and racked with horror. “You led them into Mahair.”

I blinked. “I did notleadthem here. I was helping with Adel, and they happened upon me. He insisted on escorting me to the shop. What would you have had me do, Rory? Shove the Commander into Hirun and steal his horse?”

A storm waged inside the old man. My worry deepened. The sight of the Nizahl Heir would surely send Mahair into unmitigated hysteria, but I had not expected Rory to fall among them.

Despite his tantrums, Rory held ground as a man of medicine and fact, subservient to the callings of higher reason. Though the Supreme was no friend of science, I doubted he would send his son to mete out justice against a small village chemist.

“Rory,” I said slowly. “What are you hiding?”

Resignation weighed down the proud line of his shoulders. “I am not the one hiding, Essiya.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The ground rocked beneath my feet. Instinct struck, and my dagger was in my grip before sense could follow. Tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t want to hurt Rory.

The last person to call me Essiya was Hanim. Jasad’s exiled Qayida found me bruised and matted in ash after the Blood Summit. How I had quaked in relief to hear my name in her mouth, anticipating a quick exit from the unforgiving woods back to Usr Jasad. Instead, she kept me in the woods for five years as Jasad burned.

The name Essiya brought darkness wherever it went.

“Put that down!” Rory snapped, swatting his cane against my leg.

My words emerged soaked in grief. “How did you find out?”

I was so careful. But it wasn’t enough. Hanim was right. It would never be enough. No matter where I went or how hard I tried, Essiya would follow.

“I knew you the moment I saw you, starved and bloody and shivering at this door. Niphran’s daughter, Heir of Jasad. Essiya.”

“Don’t call me that!” I shouted. My blood pounded in my ears. “How?”

Concern colored Rory’s voice. For himself or for me? “I have a history with Jasad, one that existed long before you. Be at peace. Only I could have known you by sight. Fate’s hand drew you to my door that night.”

I had not realized how heavily I leaned against the wall until my legs ceased their support and sent me sliding to the floor. Dizzy, I said, “You told me fate is comfort for the content and a misfortune for fools.”

My knuckles were white around the dagger. It belonged lodged in Rory’s throat, stemming the poisonous truth. I needed a minute. Just a minute, to collect my thoughts.

“The Commander will sense your magic. He’ll execute you.” I finally deciphered the strange note in Rory’s voice. He was frightened for me. I was contemplating slicing his throat, and he was stewing in worry. “If he discovers who you really are—”

“My magic is hidden from him. He won’t know I am—I’m a Jasadi.” I swallowed hard. “The Heir of Jasad died with the rest of the royal family. There is nothing to discover.”

Rory’s lips pursed. “You can’t be certain. He has an unnatural aptitude for—”

“He touched my hand and found nothing, Rory.” I pinched the skin between my brows. A torrential migraine brewed between my temples. “I am not a novice.”

Rory’s confusion soothed some of my frayed corners. He did not know about the cuffs. I still had some secrets. “I don’t understand.”

A more important question rose to the surface. One I should have asked five years ago, but Rory hadn’t pressed, and I hadn’t offered. “Why did you never ask me whose blood I wore the night I arrived in Mahair?”

“I knew it wasn’t yours,” he said evenly. “I cared little past that.”

Rory, who threw apocalyptic fits every time one of his experiments went slightly awry, who nitpicked over proper storage temperatures, who regularly turned his hands different colors digging around baskets of plants I’d scrounged from the dankest corners of Hirun—that Rory didn’t care?

I pushed aside a basket of wrapped vials and clambered to my feet. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you care where I had vanished for five years if you recognized me? Or how I survived the Blood Summit?”

Rory’s grip tightened on his cane, but his features remained languid. “There is much we do not know about each other yet, Essiya.”

---