Page 12 of The Jasad Crown

I went rigid. “Is she the one who undressed me?”

There were few touches I tolerated, and even fewer I welcomed. A stranger touching me in my sleep, even if just to take my measurements, raised every hair on the back of my neck.

Namsa read the murder on my face and quickly clarified, “Not the way you’re thinking. She doesn’t have to touch someone to dress or measure them. She looked at you for two minutes and walked out.”

My muscles relaxed. Magic. It had been so long since I was around other Jasadis that I’d forgotten how differently life operated with the use of our powers.

Namsa stepped outside while I tossed through the clothes. I picked up a pair of pants and frowned. The material glided between my fingers, much softer than what I would have expected. Shouldn’t they be preserving their magic for more important uses?

Shaking my head, I pulled on the pants and slipped my arms through the billowing sleeves of a black abaya. Teta Palia had always worn hers loose, but I cinched the fabric belt securely under my ribs.

Thumbing the embroidered edges, I thought of the ratty cloak I’d left in the Citadel. The poor thing had been practically begging to die for years, but it was the first garment I’d ever bought for myself in Mahair. The cloak had seen me through five years in the village and six weeks of underground training for the Alcalah. Through kingdoms and murders and agonized confessions.

I would never wear it again.

I would never be just Sylvia again.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I turned my attention to a problem I could solve. My curls, for one. I negotiated the biggestknots apart as I parted my hair into three and wove the strands into as tight a braid as I could bear.

Satisfied, I lowered my hands—and paused.

A gold vein ran from the bone at my wrist into my palm.

I wiped my hand on my leg and checked again. Still there. What in the Sirauk-damned waters wasthis? Some colorful scarring from the cuffs?

I curled my fingers over the inexplicable gold vein. A deep foreboding settled in my belly.

I had unfettered access to my magic.

It had taken approximately two seconds for my freed magic to cause irreparable damage. I could still remember how light and free I’d felt with the magic flowing through me, how inconsequential the chaos I’d unleashed had seemed. The boulder hurling toward Sefa and Marek, who in the melee had escaped the clutches of the Nizahl soldiers trying to haul them to prison.

My head snapped back to the mirror, reflecting my widening eyes.

Dania’s bloody axe, where had I sent Sefa and Marek?

The door cracked open. Namsa scanned over my outfit without much interest. “Shall we? Many people are eager to meet you.” She pivoted before I could reply, striding in the other direction. I shoved my feet into the slippers she’d left by the door and hurried after her.

Sefa and Marek were in Mahair. They had to be. Where else would my magic have sent them? I had never seen where they lived in Nizahl—or in Sefa’s case, Nizahl and Lukub—which meant the only home my magic knew for them was Omal.

They were fine. They had to be fine, because I could not think through any possibility where they were not.

“I don’t understand,” I said, frustrated. “Why would they be eager to meet me? They should be eager to dangle me over a den of hungry lions. Eager to run a sword through my belly and roast me over an open flame. Eager to—”

“Nobody is planning to harm you, Mawlati. We need you.”

“For what?”

She sighed and sealed her lips into an unimpressed line.

Not very forthcoming, was she? I made a note to corner the tiny woman from earlier. She had the countenance of someone who’d tell me what I wanted to know without a fuss.

The hall narrowed the farther we walked, until Namsa had to walk slightly behind me to fit. The top of my head brushed the roof, sending pebbles tumbling into my hair. I struggled to identify anything I could place: a smell, a sound, even the color of the dirt. But the odor tickling my nose wasn’t one I recognized. Not the mildew or mold found near the river, but something sweeter. Less pungent.

My head sent another shower of pebbles crumbling from the soft stone ceiling. Namsa glanced up with a frown. “Apologies. You’re taller than most.”

I shrugged. My height served me too well to quibble about its inconveniences. “Are we underground?”

“Not quite.”

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