Page 125 of The Jasad Crown

Gold and silver veins flowered over my arms, effervescent beneath my skin. He still didn’t understand, did he? I was already dead. Sylvia, Essiya, whoever the other faces were—by Nuzret Kamel, they would be gone.

Magic was a greedy conqueror. When it finally laid claim to the rest of my mind, it wouldn’t share.

“For Fairel,” I murmured. “For everything your people have lost at your hands.”

One of the kitmers flew past my shoulder, obeying my silent command. Felix shrieked as the kitmer’s claws unfurled. They gouged into my cousin’s neck and yanked through muscle and bone. His screams choked off as blood filled his mouth, spraying thick and tacky onto his guards.

“For our grandmother.”

When Felix’s headless corpse fell to the ground, joining the slew of other carcasses, I felt no joy. I felt nothing much at all.

Blood spattered the serene walls of the throne room. The last of dusk shifting through the glass dome trailed its light over mangled and eviscerated bodies heaped like offerings at the altar of the dead Queen. Between them, moving under the veil of hundreds of beating wings, walked the gold-and-silver-eyed sole survivor.

“Fly to every corner of this land and tell them that the throne of Omal has fallen,” I ordered. “Take my voice and tell my people the Malika of Jasad is calling them home.”

I shielded my head as the kitmers smashed through the dome, raining glass over the graveyard they left in their wake. A blanket of silver and gold seethed over the darkening sky as the kitmers pooled together above the palace.

I watched through the dome’s shattered opening as Jasad’s symbol rose above the Omal palace like smoke from a burning pyre.

The kitmers flew apart, shadows streaking into the horizon. Carrying my voice, my message, to every corner of these kingdoms. When Nuzret Kamel came and the fortress rose, every Jasadi needed to be on the other side. War was upon us, and the time to choose had come.

I paused beside Felix’s body. His head had flown onto a slop of gore farther away, and I picked it up by its feathered hair. They would want proof, the villagers. They would want a memento to take back to their ravaged homes.

I retrieved his fallen crown, cleaning it off on my pant leg. I set it back on his hair.

“You can keep the crown,” I said.

A face reflected out of my cousin’s staring eyes, moving when I moved. It belonged to a stranger. A child this time, perhaps eleven or twelve years old.

My heart pounded. A sick rush of fear spread through my chest,spilling into the darkest recesses of my mind. I stared at the face, and I did not scream when I heard the voice.

You see us, my magic whispered.We know you see us.

Gritting my teeth, I closed Felix’s eyes. If madness was my destination, I would not ease its way.

I walked past the collapsed columns of the throne room. I tore the torch from the wall and touched the flame to the shredded leg of a dead soldier. It licked hungrily over his uniform and leapt to the next body. It would reach Queen Hanan last, but it would reach her eventually. Nobody would be spared.

Nobody except me. Felix hadn’t understood—nobody did.

When the dust settled, I would always be the one left standing.

Survival was not the story of my success.

It was my eternal punishment.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

SEFA

Move, you stupid girl!” An elbow caught Sefa in the shoulder, shoving her out of the way.

The kitchen moved at a jarring speed, trays whizzing over heads while the pile of dirty dishes accumulating on the counter grew to staggering heights. Dried stains covered Birta, caking her in the evidence of her long and ardent labor. “There are near a thousand Nizahl soldiers outside our gates for Sedain. Make yourself useful and start carrying out the bowls of bissara while I prepare the goulash.”

Sefa obeyed without thought, reaching for the first bowl of green soup she saw.

“That’s the molokhia, you imbecile!” Birta howled. “Get out!”

“Sorry!” Sefa swiped the knife lying beside a pile of diced potatoes—the only reason she had stopped by the kitchen in the first place—and left.

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