Page 21 of The Jasad Heir

My jaw clenched. “I told you—”

“My apologies. Sylvia.” Disdain dripped from his voice.

The visceral reaction I experienced whenever I heard my birth name was absurd. She was not an entity separate from myself, a fiction in the tales of bards. But neither was she truly real. Not anymore.

“Answer my question,” I growled.

“Watch yourself. I owe you no answers.”

“Give them to me anyway.”

We scowled at each other. Finally, through gritted teeth, Rory said, “I didn’t want to know.”

“Didn’t want to know what?”

“How you survived,” he burst. “Your grandparents killed so many at the Blood Summit. I did not want to know what lengths they took to ensure you walked away.”

I stopped short, shock rippling through me. “You think—” I clamped my mouth shut. Of course he thought Malik Niyar and Malika Palia had arranged the events of the Blood Summit. Everyone else believed it.

“What exactly do you know of what happened at the Blood Summit?”

For a moment, Rory looked unsure. “The messenger entered the hall with news of Niphran’s murder in Bakir Tower. Stabbed to death. The Jasad crown used the chaos to attack the other royals, but their grief over their Heir caused their magic to go awry. They couldn’t control what they created. It cost many lives and led to the war.”

I pulled at the fringed ends of my braid, avoiding the insistent tug of my memories. After the Blood Summit, the scholars asked all the wrong questions. They wanted to know whether the messenger referred to my mother as “dead” or “slain.” Whether he’d arrived on horseback or by carriage. Not why the Malik and Malika of the most successful kingdom in the lands would bother trying to assassinate the other royals, especially in such a reckless outburst. Why they would risk bringing their granddaughter and second Heir to a summit they intended to destroy.

Hurt sharpened my tone. For all his genius, Rory was as susceptible to Supreme Rawain’s lies as everyone else.

“I see. Because my grandparents were apparently smart enough to orchestrate the most violent massacre on royals seen in a hundred years, but not smart enough to survive it. Go on, Rory. Finish the tale.”

“I do not think—”

“Continue your tale, Rory.” My cuffs pulsed in warning. “You will not like my version of it.”

Rory sighed, making nervous circles around the cane’s handle. “Supreme Rawain rallied the other four kingdoms against Jasad. They found a way through the fortress. Left without a Qayida or any Heirs, Jasad fell to the invading forces.”

“I can finish for you.” I pushed off the counter, and the chemist’s expression tightened with unease. Good. “Nizahl’s armies reduced Jasad to rubble. They threw bodies into holes and burned the homes they left behind. Every Jasadi who survived is in hiding, their magic made a capital offense.” I trembled. My cuffs tightened around my wrists, warm with my vibrating magic. “No one asked, Rory! No one wondered. How does an unassailable fortress fall?”

Once given voice, the question bloomed in my mind like blood in a clear pond. Hanim hadn’t cared about the deaths at the Blood Summit; she hadn’t really cared when the siege began, either. But when the tide of war turned in Nizahl’s favor, what reduced her to a frothing rage was Supreme Rawain’s victory. With my grandparents gone, she had truly believed Jasad would bring forth a new dawn of political freedom. She had imagined herself leaving Essam Woods when Jasad was at its weakest, welcomed with open arms to the kingdom that had exiled her with a convenient Heir to put on the empty throne and manipulate.

But my magic didn’t work. And when the fortress fell, Supreme Rawain’s forces were joined by Omal’s, Lukub’s, Orban’s. Envy over Jasad’s prosperity, its magic, had hardened into a hate no one could have anticipated. No one except Supreme Rawain.

And so Jasad’s Heir suffered in the woods while the throne of magic sat empty in the newly scorched kingdom. In her captured corner, the soft girl who had known a bird by its song and calmed at the touch of another was burned away.

I am what remains.

“The Jasadis’ story deserves to be told in whole,” I said. “They are not something distasteful to be split up into pieces you can swallow.”

“I never said—” Rory stopped short, brows drawing together. “What do you mean,they?”

A light knock sounded at the door. We both went silent, our argument falling to the wayside in favor of trepidation. Had the Nizahl Heir returned?

Rory’s elbow caught my stomach, pushing me behind him. What did he think he would do against the Commander?

He could turn you in, Hanim whispered.The chemist works with dangerous substances every day. Think of how easy it would be for him to accidentally ingest a lethal dose. No one would suspect you.

Killing Rory would only cause more problems. Mahair might not second-guess the accidental death of a soldier, but two accidental deaths in the span of a week?

Rory went five years without speaking my true name. He would not betray me to the Heir now.

---