Page 117 of The Jasad Heir

Kicking aside the overstuffed pillow, I picked up a gray clay doll. The toy spanned the length from my wrist to the tip of my tallest finger. Stiff black twine wrapped around it from head to foot.

The twine. The twine should have been unwrapped. Why was it there? The doll needed to breathe. It couldn’t breathe with the twine around it.

Dreamily, I slid my nail under a strand of the twine and plucked. The doll slid from my grasp, slipping across my wrists before I caught it.

In a blink, my mind cleared. As soon as I separated the doll from my cuffs, the haze settled over me again, and I frowned at the twine. It should not have been there. The doll couldn’t breathe. I had to give it back its air.

I dropped the doll and scrambled away. “Ghaiba,” I gasped.

There weren’t many people who would leave such a thing in my quarters. I used a discarded tunic to pick up the doll. Hesitantly, I pressed its head against my left cuff and braced myself.

Nothing.

Soraya had said my cuffs resisted the strongest tracking spells. I assumed the spells simply couldn’t find any of my magic to track. What if my cuffs deflected some types of spells? If the runes kept my magic in, it was possible they also kept magic out.

Felix must have hoped I wouldn’t recognize this terrible doll. Said to come from Lukub during Baira’s rule, the ghaiba was an ancient entity that manifested as a shapeless, vicious cloud. Once inside a victim, it tore into their minds, distorting reality and showing them visions of every regret, agony, or secret doubt they kept hidden. If left inside too long, the ghaiba could leave its host catatonic or dead. After the entombment, Lukubis found a way to trap the ghaiba in these dolls and seal it with black twine. Hanim spent months trying to find one and test whether my magic could expel the ghaiba once it sank into me.

Why would he leave one in my quarters? If he was trying to intimidate me without alerting Arin, the easiest targets were—

I hurried from my room and shoved past Wes, breaking into a run. The hall stretched endlessly, and I nearly wept with relief at the sight of Jeru. A symphony of terror exploded in my chest when I threw open their door.

Jeru and Wes crashed into me from behind. Wes uttered a low oath.

“Get the Commander,” Jeru croaked. “Now!”

Jeru tried to enter after me, but I shoved him back. “The ghaiba can split itself among multiple people. Do not enter.”

I slammed the door shut.

Sefa and Marek floated in the middle of the room, their dilated eyes roving wildly, chasing the nightmares in their own heads. Their limbs dangled forward, twitching. The scent of spoiled eggs assaulted my nose. On the floor below them lay a doll identical to mine. Black twine hung limply from Marek’s fingers.

Sefa’s eyes rolled back in her head. She jerked violently. Marek’s arm twisted to an unnatural position, and a guttural moan leaked from his open mouth.

The door burst open. Arin blew in, rain clinging to his coat and darkening his hair. He took in the gruesome sight and shoved the door shut when his guards attempted to follow.

He picked up the doll. “How long?”

“I don’t know, I found mine five minutes ago.” Marek’s shoulder snapped back, and I shrieked. “How do we get it out?!”

He snatched the twine from Marek’s grip. “Tie this around the doll.”

Tying the cursed twine around the doll would flip the doll’s compulsion, drawing the ghaiba out of its host. I wrapped the twine from the top to bottom of the doll. “Each of them has absorbed half the ghaiba. It’ll take hours for the doll to pull it out of them!”

“I am aware,” Arin said. He pulled off his gloves and shed his coat. “It might be to your benefit to wait outside.” At my scowl, he clenched his teeth. “Then be prepared to catch them.”

“What are you going to do?” I had an inkling, but it couldn’t be right. He could not possibly be considering—

The Commander moved with the swiftness of a serpent’s strike, grabbing Marek’s exposed wrist in one hand, Sefa’s in the other. Marek’s deadweight fell onto the bed, and I rushed forward as Sefa tumbled. We collided in a heap next to Marek. I checked their breathing; shallow, but steady.

A loud crash spurred me to my feet. The doors of the wardrobe smashed to the floor, and the muscles in Arin’s back went rigid as the ghaiba attacked the Heir. He doubled over, gripping a shelf in the wardrobe as his face contorted with agony.

A great shudder went through him. His knuckles whitened around the shelf. What doubts did Arin have that the ghaiba could feed on? What regrets?

I gripped his forearm, squeezing the stiff tendons. Touching him in this state was foolish, but I couldn’t stand how helpless I felt. Another endless moment crawled past, and Arin exhaled, eyes flying open.

He tore his arm from me, the white sheen on his face dissolving with anger. “Have your limited senses forsaken you? I can scarcely bear your touch under the best circumstances. It only takes seconds to lose control, seconds to snap your neck.”

“Mylimited senses? I am not the one absorbing ghaibas into myself! How did you even know your maneuver would succeed?”

---