Page 111 of The Jasad Crown

We wouldnotbe going for a nighttime swim.

I stopped beside the tree, all thoughts of the Mirayah fadingbeneath the tide of recognition cresting over the back of my mind. “I have been here before,” I gasped. Before Arin could stop me, I sealed my palm to the bark. I knew these striations like I knew the lines on my palm. The spiky layers of the trunk, each thorn of wood curving upward like a corn husk. At the top, red roots sprouted long branches, feathered with thin green around the stem.

“This was a date tree,” I said, as I had once crouched in a burning room and said,The Malik and Malika of Jasad were magic miners.Absolute. Unequivocal. “It burned.”

I glanced at Arin, who was watching me with transparent concern. “We are in Jasad.”

Or at least, what would eventually become Jasad.

“We’re safe here,” I insisted, drawing Arin to the ground beside me. “The Mirayah wouldn’t dare.”

Arin observed me strangely, as though I had begun to slur my speech or speak in tongues. It was the same look Efra wore when my magic swept through me, scrambling my thoughts beneath its undertow. But my magic wasn’t here now. It was just me.

I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself as I leaned against the tree.

Just me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

SYLVIA

The Nizahl Heir was far more industrious than anyone with his looks had a right to be. He set about collecting fallen fronds for kindling, breaking the top layers into pieces to catch the flame. Once the spark had caught, he laid out his coat and gloves beside the fire.

“Are you going to ask me about it?”

Arin paused in the middle of untying the straps of his vest. After a beat, he continued, gaze fixed on the flames.

I wrapped my arms around my knees. The branches shuffled beneath a light breeze, scattering the shadows dancing across Arin’s grim face.

“The first one was there when I woke up.” I traced the vein on my palm. Without its light golden glow, it resembled a raised scar. “The rest began appearing afterward. Every time I use my magic, I find a new vein.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The others are hoping this war can be won without my magic, but I am not so optimistic,” I said. “I am afraid that I will have to choose—my mind or my people.”

Astonishment colored the gaze Arin turned onto me. “You have spent this entire time railing against the notion of magic-madness. You have told me again and again that it was a hoax.”

“In Mahair, I saved Raya’s life by transferring some of my magic to her. Not through her—toher. She woke up with silver-and-gold eyes.”

The crackling flames spat sparks into the air between us. In this meadow, on the outskirts of time and reality, the Nizahl Heir went deathly still.

“That isn’t possible.”

“You said it yourself, Arin.” I exhaled, tendrils of mist curling from my lips. “My magic does not behave as it should.”

“You cannottransfermagic. It has not been done since the Awaleen.”

“So I have heard.”

“Essiya, magic-madness—” Arin hesitated, a rare enough sight that I raised my brows. “What I said earlier, about the reoccurrence of a case every century. Each one was a Jasadi. It didn’t matter which kingdom still had magic or how strong the magic. Every single century, a massacre occurred at the hands of a magic-mad Jasadi, typically a child or adolescent. Magic-madness isn’t new; the cases were simply too rare and sporadic for the kingdoms to properly track.”

I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It must have taken him ages to filter through the countless texts of scholarly deception to find a trustworthy accounting of magic-madness. He wouldn’t be sharing the information with me if he hadn’t decided to believe it himself.

“You said it happens once a century. When was the last case?”

The Heir stayed quiet, and it was all I needed to know.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” I settled on a hoarse laugh, tipping my forehead onto my bent knees. “I am the next magic-mad Jasadi.”

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