Page 34 of The Jasad Heir

Arin strode past them. With his hair swept tidily from his face and his vest meticulously laced beneath his coat, it was hard to imagine someone with such self-possession had nearly strangled me to death.

His attention found my face and settled, eradicating the small hope I had indulged that perhaps the soldier’s body had been in this room before I arrived. Arin wanted a reaction.

I had a split second to decide which one I should give. I could give him innocence, feign shock and horror at the mutilated corpse and maybe break into tears. I could offer the Heir subdued distress and ask him what happened. Every option I considered fell flat, because they all inevitably led to the same consequence: my death. He had declared as much in the war room.

I bent down and plucked the candy from the soldier’s chest. I studied it between two fingers, bringing it to my nose for a sniff. Filth and sugar.

“I think you misplaced this,” I said, casual.

No response. I may as well have spoken to a stone. He wanted a reaction? Well, that made two of us. I flicked the candy. It fell against his boot. “I do not care much for sweets, myself.”

Vaun stepped forward, a hand on the hilt of his sword. Jeru grasped his elbow.

“Out.” Arin did not raise his voice or move his eyes from mine. A sour-faced Vaun wrenched his elbow away and stormed out. Jeru followed, closing the door behind him.

We were alone.

I bit my lip. The urge to break the silence battered me, an unfortunate relic from my time with Hanim. Silence was danger. The more still he was, the more unsettled I became. I forced myself to hold his gaze. The blackness was gone, replaced with his placid blue. Not a suggestion of the savagery I had witnessed remained in his frosty disposition. One question pushed and pushed, forcing itself into creation.

“Is Fairel—” I cleared my throat. “Is Fairel alive?”

Arin arranged himself on a long-backed wooden chair, crossing his ankle over his knee. His gloved hand dangled loosely over his bent knee.

“Yes,” he said. Relief crashed through me, and I exhaled. I wanted to press further, inquire after her condition and recovery. But my affection for Fairel had plunged me into this disaster, and I could not move forward while she weighed on me.

She was alive. Raya and the other girls would not leave any of her needs unmet. The villagers would come to the keep with food and supplies. Despite their apathy concerning Adel, Mahair’s villagers knew how to support their own. If she had died at her own Heir’s hands, the village would never have recovered. The lower villages tolerated much from the Omal crown. Killing their children would be the torch to light resentment’s kindling.

Fairel would be taken care of. I could do nothing more for her.

“How am I alive?”

He tilted his head. The perfect polish of his expression had worn away, leaving faint distaste in its place. If his actions in the war room were any indication, few emotions were strong enough to overwhelm Arin of Nizahl’s command of his body. Which meant the look of faint distaste masked a much deeper hatred.

“Your magic saved you. Knitted you back together. You have slept for eleven hours.”

What a preposterous concept. My magic could not be convinced to dislodge a stone stuck in my boot, let alone repair broken bones and knit new skin.

I spoke without thinking. “My magic tried to kill me.”

A charged silence preempted his careful words. “You speak as though your magic has a will of its own.”

A fly buzzed over the corpse’s exposed insides. I was out of plans. If our roles were reversed, his silver tongue might bend this situation to his favor, weave glittering nets to evade his certain doom. But my own tongue was brutish, lacking fluency in the speech of serpents. I was versed in subterfuge and escape, and he had quite definitively proven I did not have a prayer of besting him at either.

I needed to change the direction of his questions. Exposing my cuffs and their hold over my magic might give the Heir momentary pause, but the law was clear: I possessed magic, and its presence would corrupt me regardless of its actual exercise.

You cannot mention your cuffs. Any information you give this man, no matter how inconsequential, will return to haunt you, Hanim warned.

For once, I agreed with her. No one had reason to believe Essiya of Jasad was alive. If Arin evensuspectedmy true identity, he would slit my throat in the same time it took to blink.

“Why am I alive?”

“Good,” he said. “You have arrived at the right question.”

“You knew I was a Jasadi the moment you met me.”

“I do not make accusations indiscriminately.”

I picked at the quilt’s threading, keeping his glove hidden from my sight. I couldn’t forget the weight of it falling on my chest, the red pain of his bare hand. “Why not allow the Omal Heir’s guardsmen to kill me at the festival? It would have been justly earned, and your task completed in efficiency.”

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