Page 39 of The Jasad Heir

“What if I’m dying?”

“Why would you be dying?”

“Perhaps an insect crawled into my throat. I’m choking, frothing at the mouth. Will you watch from the threshold?”

“Yes,” Wes said. “Try not to swallow any insects.”

I sniffed the sheets, relieved when I couldn’t detect the cloying scent of mold. How would I wash these? How would I bathe? Unless the soldiers intended to transport basins for my daily use. I imagined Vaun sloshing my bath water over his uniform and felt momentarily cheered.

The guards left, closing the door behind them. I collapsed onto the lumpy bed, jaw aching from hiding my tension from these Nizahlan snakes. I’d memorized our movements as we walked through the complex, but I had no idea how I would climb out once I reached the exit. The drop had been close to eight feet. Even if I managed to pull myself out, where would I go? I lacked the faintest clue as to where in Essam they had taken me. Nizahl maintained its surveillance of the kingdoms by keeping hundreds of secret locations sprinkled throughout Essam. Most were unoccupied, but without knowing for certain where the locations were and which were active, the kingdoms were compelled to behave. I could run directly into a busy Nizahlan stronghold as soon as I fled.

A part of me wondered if it wouldn’t be more prudent to remain in the complex until a more reasonable means of escape presented itself. Immediately, I brushed the prospect aside. The Nizahl Heir claimed he needed me to compete in the Alcalah to capture these mysterious Jasadi groups, but I very much doubted he would tolerate me to live the six weeks between now and the Champions’ opening banquet. As soon as Arin found a solution that did not require my continued existence, he would dispose of me with the same efficient brusqueness of a captain decapitating a lamed warhorse. And if he discovered I was once Essiya of Jasad… I shuddered.

I would not pin my life on a promise from the Nizahl Heir. Sefa and Marek would be fine. By now, I was sure they had packed their life in Mahair and fled. Arin’s threats against them would go unfulfilled.

I kicked off my shoes, grimacing at their state of disrepair. Hardly fit for fleeing through the woods. And if Arin was to be believed, it wasn’t just him I would be running from. These mysterious Jasadi groups “hunting me” would also be giving chase. Here was the trouble: I didn’t believe him. Why would a Jasadi group be interested in me? Recent exceptions aside, I didn’t have magic, and only Rory knew my true name. Arin wanted to use me as bait when my proximity to these Jasadis was entirely coincidental. Assuming they’d discovered I was a Jasadi, I doubted their interest was more than fleeting. He’d probably exaggerated the threat simply to incentivize against an escape.

Resolved, I changed into the clothes they had set out. The seams strained; they were obviously made to accommodate a woman of more diminutive dimensions. The pants had been designed to hang loosely on the wearer, so they fit me closely but not uncomfortably. I tore the pinching sleeves from my arms and used them to tie my hair into a high bun. I would not have time to slow for branches catching in my braid.

The colors brought the taste of ash to my tongue. Black and violet. They had dressed me in the colors of Nizahl.

Why wouldn’t they? You are the Commander’s puppet now. He can do with you what he wills, Hanim said.

“His will is strong. It always is, in the self-righteous,” I said to the empty room. The gray walls echoed my hollow words.

“But the will of the damned is even stronger.”

CHAPTER TEN

Six hours. Six agonizing hours I waited, ear to the door. Listening for patterns in their patrols. I had left to relieve myself midway through and emerged into an empty hall. I’d almost left right then, but I encountered the fourth guard at the bend. “The washroom is in the opposite direction,” he’d said.

I hadn’t heard footsteps in forty minutes. By my best estimation, it was the middle of the night. Perhaps the guard responsible for strolling by my room had fallen asleep.

With a litany of excuses ready on my lips, I cracked the door open. Silence. A peek in the hall confirmed my hope: the guards were gone.

I untied one of my torn sleeves from my bun and wrapped it around my knuckles. I hated not having my dagger. Still, anything could be a weapon in the right hands, and this length of sleeve would strangle a guard at least half as effectively as a rope.

I kept close to the walls. The stillness in the complex unnerved me. Decades of dust swirled in the stagnant air and tickled my nose. The back of my throat itched with a sneeze.

I raised two fingers and pressed them against the inner corners of my eyes. The urge to sneeze eased. Soraya had taught me the trick a few days after she became my attendant. She had caught me slipping out of the Usr, sugar-coated kahk shoved in my pockets and shoes abandoned to go play in Hirun. Instead of chastising me, Soraya had tucked my mane of curls behind my ears and said, with a conspiratorial smile, “Next time you try to sneak out of the Usr, take me with you.”

When the fortress fell, Soraya had burned in Usr Jasad. So had Dawoud.

And instead of rising from the ashes to save the rest of your people, you hid, Hanim goaded.

I pushed into the training center with more force than necessary. I studiously avoided the moving images of my grandparents and their palace on the walls. Why did I owe more to Jasad than Adel or anyone else? I couldn’t access the magic that marked us from the rest of the kingdoms. I had lived outside of Jasad longer than I had lived within it. They weren’t entitled to my protection or my life just because I’d been born to the wrong bloodline.

Halfway through crossing the mats, a glint in my peripheral vision stopped me in my tracks. An engraved wooden chest nearly the size of my bed occupied the left wall.

I glanced around the empty training center. Just a quick peek.

I braced my shoulder against the lid and heaved. With a soft click that sounded like a roar to my nervous ears, the chest opened. A veritable arsenal took up the space inside. Throwing spears, hunting spears, javelins, crossbows, three kinds of axes, and every type of sword and dagger known to man.

One similarity became clear the longer I perused. These weapons belonged to Jasad. All their handles bore some aspect of the kitmer, from its falcon head on the feline body to the golden wings. The Nizahl Heir meant to train me as Nizahl’s Champion using Jasadi weapons.

My cuffs tightened, and my nails curled into the wood at the sick comedy of it all. A normal Jasadi would balk at lifting a Jasadi-forged weapon in their enemy’s name, but theHeirof Jasad? Essiya would rather have died than demean her entire family so spectacularly.

I glanced at my cuffs and shook the specter of the Jasad Heir from my head. Shehaddied, in every way that mattered.

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