Page 63 of The Jasad Heir

“His Highness ordered a patrol to follow one of Raya’s wards around the market and bring back items typically found at an Omalian table,” Jeru added. “He’s never shown any extracurricular interest in food.”

“Maybe I should start complaining at the top of my lungs when I’m unhappy, too,” Jeru mused. I crossed my legs, balancing a plate on my risen knee. Sefa inhaled a bowl of bileela, the milky wheat topped with raisins and sugar.

“You’re not as attractive,” Marek said. He pounded Sefa’s back when she choked on her third bowl. I busied myself with food to hide my bewilderment. Why would Arin go through the trouble of bringing Omalian food to the tunnels when he couldn’t care less what he ate?

I didn’t voice my doubts aloud. Jeru and Wes had grown marginally more comfortable around me as the weeks passed. Marek and Sefa’s arrival had helped, too. Ren continued to pretend I didn’t exist, though, and Vaun… I wished Vaun would pretend I didn’t exist.

“Marek’s right,” Wes agreed.

Jeru clutched his chest, toppling to the floor. “Wes, catch me! I’m wounded!”

I finished chewing a bite of gibna areesh enough to garble, “Try throwing knives at him, Jeru. He seems to like that.”

All three guards turned to look at me. Wes put his head down on the table.

I cracked a boiled egg against Marek’s forehead. Wes and Jeru balked. It was a time-honored tradition at the keep, cracking eggs on the nearest victim’s forehead. I picked at the bits of shell and asked, “Did the patrol happen to find sesame candies?”

In unison, both guards scowled. Ah, I’d forgotten their last encounter with sesame candies took place when they removed one from the body of the Nizahl soldier I’d killed.

Marek inspected the colored berries with a frown. He plucked one from the stem, rolling it between his fingers. “This berry does not grow in Mahair,” he said. “I cannot even name it.”

“Let me see.” Marek dropped the berry into Sefa’s open palm. She studied the white fruit and shook her head. “I can’t, either. Sylvia, do you know?”

I accepted the berry when she held it out. I split it in half and popped a piece into my mouth.

The dry, sour flavor bursting on my tongue brought with it an old interaction, too hazy to be properly called a memory. Hadn’t Niyar tried to feed me a bowl of these white berries? It must have been before Soraya became my attendant and took over arranging my meals. I remembered Niyar going on and on about how special they were, how they only grew in the east of Jasad, and the nobles had taken to treating them like a delicacy. I called them “moon-vomit berries” and clenched my teeth when Niyar pushed one against my lips. When he would not desist, I shrieked, and my unrestrained magic threw the table and chairs into the wall. Someone had stayed with me after my grandfather stormed out—Dawoud, wasn’t it? He’d dried my tears and lifted me into his arms. “Even queens must bite sour fruit sometimes, Essiya. Now help the servants fix this mess.”

I hurled the fruit to the table, my pulse cacophonous in my ears. How could it be here? Nizahl had not left any portion of Jasad unscathed, and these berries’ existence was confined to the wilayahs in the east.

“I do not recognize it,” I whispered.

“Curious.”

I jolted in my seat. Arin and Vaun stood framed in the kitchen’s entrance. The Nizahl Heir glanced at the hastily discarded berry, and icy realization washed over me.

I was still being hunted. Arin would not stop until he uncovered my identity, culling the list of potential nobles in his systematic, efficient fashion.

My heartbeat slowed with new resolve. It wasn’t enough to simply hope I’d hidden my tracks. He would keep walking this path, and my only option was to direct where it led him. If he wanted clues, then I’d leave ones that took him far away from Essiya, Heir of Jasad.

I already had a good start. He had seemed puzzled at my violent outburst when the guards chased me through the woods. Nobles did not descend into a feral state under such conditions: they rolled into a ball and wept.

Vaun grimaced at the berries as though they had personally insulted his mother. Arin moved on smoothly, the moment locked in his web. “Wear tighter-fitting clothes,” he instructed. “You’ll be going into Hirun.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Arin and Ren stayed away from the tunnels for the next few days. I’d overheard the guards discussing the Commander’s renewed rotations in Essam to search for evidence that could help him learn more about the Jasadi groups’ movements. I was glad for a reprieve. Others seemed to view the Heir’s absence with less relief. I returned from the washroom to find a smashed mess of fruit on my door. Juice trickled onto the ground, threatening to draw several armies of ants. I scraped a chunk from the top and held it to the lantern.

Jasad’s white berry.

Vaun was not as inclined to bide his time as Arin. It was becoming a dangerous pattern with the guardsman. There were worrisome ways he could harm me without directly violating Arin’s orders. The duty binding Vaun to Arin went deeper than that of the rest of the guards. Jeru, Wes, or Ren would gladly throw their lives at their Heir’s feet, but they were not subject to the tumult of protectiveness and rage plaguing Vaun.

On our walk to the tunnels, Wes had mentioned that Vaun had been by Arin’s side since childhood. Instead of flourishing into his own person, the guardsman seemed to have grown around Arin, branched into an extension of the Heir. Vaun believed in the Nizahl throne, in his kingdom’s ultimate supremacy, with the same fanatiscim driving his vitriolic hatred of Jasadis.

The answer hit me with the force of a gale.

Arin was to Vaun what Sefa was to Marek.

Which meant Vaun would stop at nothing to ensure the Heir’s security, even if it meant going against Arin’s will.

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