Page 67 of The Jasad Heir

The implication was clear. I looked the Nizahl Heir directly in the eye. “I do not belong to the nobles.”

He hummed. “So you say.”

I threw the scrutiny back at him. “Why not dangle me in Mahair and lie in wait until they attack? The Alcalah will be swarming with people.”

“The Alcalah will be heavily guarded, and there are weak points between trials where both groups will try to attack. Mahair leaves open too much room for mistakes. The Urabi send their most powerful Jasadis to recruit, and it only takes moments for them to subdue their target and whisk everyone away. If you become Victor, you will be constantly surrounded by guards, protected in upper-town homes. The Alcalah is their best chance to capture you.”

“What about the Champions’ Banquet? Would it be better for them to attack me at the Ivory Palace than during the Alcalah?”

“Enough questions. Tell me about the Jasadi.”

I folded my knees to my chest and wondered, not for the first time, if our souls had a shape. If they were like the sheep hanging from the butcher’s hook, and each decision I made hacked mine down to its dangling, bloody bones. But I refused to believe it was a failure to prioritize my own freedom, even if Hanim’s voice insisted to the contrary.

I opened my mouth and told Arin everything. How the Jasadi mentioned there had been dissent in their ranks regarding my recruitment. The lie I told her about leaving an opening for the Mufsids. I molded the story in the shape closest to the truth, slicing the pieces ofEssiyaandMawlatilike mold from a loaf of bread.

Arin had sat forward while I spoke, his elbows bracing on his knees. The eerie mask had dropped in favor of something I never thought I’d see: bewilderment.

“You chose to stay. Here, in this stone prison, training for a tournament that has a roughly two in three chances of killing you,” he said slowly, disbelieving. “The Mufsids have evaded me for years. They are your best chance of hiding from Felix and me. Why would you stay?”

I set my jaw. “I told you. I am here by choice. I chose my freedom, and you are my best chance at achieving it.”

“At the cost of your own people?”

“They are not my—” I caught my breath, horrified. Rovial’s tainted tomb, I had almost said it. Almost spoken a secret worse than Essiya, worse than Hanim. I ground my teeth, sudden tears of frustration pricking the back of my eyes. “Why should I owe them my life? Why is it acceptable for others to choose themselves, but it is selfish when I do it? I didn’t ask for this. I do not want it.”

Abruptly, I stood, aghast at revealing a sliver of my deepest doubts to the person most likely to use them against me. “You should go.”

“Sylvia.” The use of my name—his first time since Mahair—brought my reluctant gaze back to his. Arin regarded me with earnestness. A shadow of understanding. “Tell me who you are.”

Shock rendered me mute. I had an opening. I’d displayed honesty by recounting the Mufsid’s conversation and an accidental show of vulnerability—apparently the right balance of ingredients to appease Arin’s guarded mistrust by an inch. If I stumbled, if he caught a whiff of dishonesty, he would never lower it again.

“You will not believe me.”

He waited.

“My father was Waleed Rayan.” I packaged the name with a hint of longing, a dose of sadness, and a heap of reproach. The emotions of a betrayed but once-beloved daughter. At least, I hoped. I was never anyone’s daughter. My father vanished from the world with an arrow in his throat, and my grandparents hurled Niphran into Bakir Tower when she sought to follow him.

“Waleed Rayan. The Justice of Ahr il Uboor.” Arin tapped a finger against his knee. “You mean to tell me you are Mervat Rayan, daughter of the third most powerful family in Jasad?”

I had chosen Mervat Rayan for three reasons. First, we were the same age. Her parents visited Usr Jasad often, leaving me with the onerous task of entertaining the girl. Waleed Rayan was important enough to be widely hated, so Arin would understand the significance of recruiting Waleed’s daughter. Second, I had disliked her. She wouldn’t climb the date trees with me or chase my pet caracal through the gardens.

Third, I knew for a fact Mervat Rayan and her family were dead. They had come to pay my grandparents a visit before we left for the Blood Summit, and Gedo Niyar invited them to remain in Usr Jasad until we returned. The moment the fortress broke, the Supreme’s soldiers had slaughtered every single person in Usr Jasad.

“I prefer Sylvia,” I said.

And perhaps I was on the wrong side of exhaustion. Perhaps my encounter with the Mufsid left a deeper mark than I thought. “I know what you think of me.”

The scar cut in sharp relief against his skin. Arin’s eyes narrowed as I lifted my hand near his jaw. It was stupid, so tremendously stupid I knew I’d spend the rest of the night berating myself. I traced the air above his scar, my fingers a hairsbreadth from his face. He could not hide his scars behind a tunic or a gown.

The ones on my back were a mark of shame. Not Arin’s. Whatever the cause, he wore this scar as he wore his gloves. Another barrier between him and the rest of the world.

“You would rather die protecting your own than live a half-life of hiding. I am fundamentally revolting to you, not only because I am a Jasadi, but because you believe me a coward.” I took one of his gloved hands in mine, turning his palm up. A thrill of terror raced up my spine when he did not withdraw. It felt like a forbidden triumph, doing this. Reaching forward and touching an Heir whose reputation for unapproachability had grown to mythical proportions. The urge to agitate him—to draw a reaction from the most reserved man in all the Awaleen-damned kingdoms—was too powerful to resist.

“Consider this, my liege: there are fates worse than death.” I drew an arrow from the edge of his glove to the tip of his longest finger. “When the treaty became the most important result of the Battle of Zinish, nobody wondered what remained of the Orbanian soldiers who had suffered the consequences of the Sultana’s magic. The ones who packed up their weapons, folded their uniforms, and went home to their families. Do you?”

“They dismembered themselves.”

I smiled. “Nothing motivates humans faster than fear. It is a lesson your father adopted to its fullest extent. I have lived in fear. It has not motivated me to join the Mufsids or Urabi and march into a battle they may very well win, but at the cost of my dismemberment.”

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