Page 124 of The Jasad Crown

I gestured at Queen Hanan’s corpse. “Have you been naughty again, Felix?”

“Me?” The new King of Omal pursed his lips in a mockery of concern. “My dear Essiya, you are the one who executed the Queen of Omal. Your very own grandmother.”

When comprehension struck, it brought with it a bolt of begrudging respect. Well, well, well—my cousin had finally cast aside his little boy tantrums and played the game like the rest of us.

The raids in the lower villages had been his opening ceremony. The heralding of his new reign, establishing what fate would come for those who opposed him. Mahair was the last lower village he had targeted. He had wanted to give me enough time to see what would befall the town if I didn’t come running to save them.

There weren’t many guards protecting the palace because Felixwantedme to infiltrate the throne room. I needed to be caught beside the slain body of the Queen so he could claim the throne and my head in one fell swoop.

Even the dullest of minds could be sharpened against a powerful grudge. Felix had never recovered from Arin denying him his right to kill me that day at the waleema. I had stabbed him in the leg, insulted him, foiled his plot with the ghaiba, and then had the audacity to become a threat to his crown. Arin must have told them I was to be taken alive, but who would blame Felix for executing the Jasadi responsible for slaughtering the Queen? His revenge had given him the greater claim to my life.

“You can keep the crown,” Felix said magnanimously. “I had it made just for you.”

I rotated the false crown between my fingers. “Do you believe in death, Felix?”

The King crossed his arms over his chest. Indulging me in my last moments, it seemed. “Are you certain you wish for your last words to be such stupid ones? You might try begging for your life instead.”

“I have never been particularly averse to death,” I mused. “I didn’t welcome it. I resisted it with all my might. But at the end of the day, it was always a matter of scale. I would rather be a powerless fugitive than dead. I would rather be dead than trapped. I fought so hard against anything that might tie me to this earth—anything that might weigh the scale against death if ever I was trapped again. I cast aside my identity, my magic, my affections. I told myself they were nothing but stones in my pocket.

“I can’t fight my way through your soldiers, and I can’t die before Nuzret Kamel,” I said. “I have to choose living, and the only way I live past today is if I break the scale. If I surrender to my magic and walk into a trap from which there is no escape.”

Queen Hanan was dead. Even if I killed Felix right now, if I bypassed her council to reinstate myself to the line of inheritance and claim this kingdom in blood—it would not be enough. My claim would force Omal into war with Nizahl on Jasad’s behalf,and with two dead rulers supposedly slain at my hands, the armies would mutiny.

I had known the chances of victory today were slim, but some foolish part of me had held on to hope.There is a chance, it would whisper.Still a chance.

But a chance was mercy, and mercy was not for those with blood on their hands. For us, there were only choices.

Only the scale.

A true ruler is one who puts their people before themselves. No matter the cost.

I dropped the crown to the ground. The glass crunched beneath my boot. “I make you this promise, Felix of Omal: your name will not be remembered. When your story is told for generations to come, it will be an accessory to my own. Even the hate your people hold for you will dwindle, taking the last seed you’ve sown into this world with it. When you finally fade, dear cousin, you will taste true death long after you’ve rotted in your grave.”

An enraged flush darkened Felix’s neck, and he raised an arm. A row of archers in the back of the room lifted their bows. In the front, hundreds of spears flipped toward the platform. The soldiers in the center withdrew their swords and pointed them at the ground, waiting. He had taken layers of precaution against my magic.

If only it mattered.

How deep can you dig, Essiya?

Bows strained as the archers notched their arrows, and Felix grinned as he stepped behind a throng of his guardsmen.

I couldn’t whisper when I called for my magic anymore. What I demanded from it would answer only to my scream.

Mist crept over my skin. When I had summoned my magic before, it was usually a shapeless command.Protect. Fight. Save.The means through which it achieved those goals hadn’t mattered.

Shouts rang in the throne room as whirls of smoke erupted between the guards. They writhed like fallen storm clouds.

There was nothing shapeless about what I wanted from my magic this time.

Silver wings sliced through the smoke. The shouts matured to howls as hundreds of kitmers materialized between the rows of soldiers. Twice the size of any I had created before, they were near-perfect replicas of Rovial’s kitmers. Vicious black eyes blinked beneath curved horns. Feathers sharper than any blade unfurled as the kitmers rose to their full height.

As one, they roared.

Long claws gouged into uniformed chests, eviscerating soldiers where they stood. Anarchy claimed the throne room as attention turned to the kitmers and away from their creator. Arrows flew through the air, bouncing ineffectually against the creatures. One of the arrows went through the eye of the soldier sprinting toward me, and he dropped like a sack at the foot of the platform.

“Make way for the King!” came the order. “Get him out of here!”

“No!” Felix bellowed. “Kill her! Someone kill her!”

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