Page 14 of The Jasad Crown

“We still don’t know for certain she’s the Heir.” A girl roughly my age approached us alongside an older man. “Just because an insane Mufsid tried to kill her? It proves nothing.”

The Mufsids had hunted me alongside the Urabi, but the Mufsid the girl meant could only be Soraya. My former attendant who killed my mother and conspired with the rest of the Mufsids to overthrow Usr Jasad. Who hated my family enough to defect fromthe Mufsids and poison me during the third trial in a desperate effort to kill me before either the Mufsids or Urabi could put me on the throne of Jasad.

“Enough, Kawsar. I tire of this conversation. The Mufsid who tried to kill her knew her family—she worked in the palace. Soraya served the royal family and helped orchestrate the Blood Summit. Besides, Essiya is not the Heir.” The gravelly voiced older man stopped a few inches away, peering down at me with kind brown eyes. “She is the Malika.”

A ripple ran through the room. The intrigue in their eyes, the tentative hope… it hit me harder than any anger could.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

“Malika Essiya,” Namsa affirmed. She shot an apologetic glance when I grimaced.

The man put a hand to his slim chest. “My name is Lateef, Mawlati. We are so grateful to have you here.”

Lateef knelt. My hand went to a dagger that wasn’t there, but he didn’t swipe my feet out from under me or stab at my tendons. He simply knelt.

One by one, the others joined him on the ground. I balked at the sea of bowed heads, my stomach churning. After a minute, Kawsar huffed and joined the others.

Every bone in my body screamed at me to run. Blow a hole through the side of this mountain and crawl to freedom through the debris. I didn’t deserve reverence. I was not a leader of kingdoms. I was barely a leader ofme.

Namsa knelt last. My chest contracted, and I struggled to draw air. Rovial’s tainted tomb, I was about to throw up on all their bowed heads.

“Welcome home, Malika Essiya,” Namsa said.

I wasn’t home. I didn’t know these people, and they didn’t know me.

My heart beat faster, faster, diverting the route of every drop ofblood in my body to sustain its speed. My airways constricted, forcing me to breathe in shallow sips. Heat gathered at the back of my neck, the most damning warning signal.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, and they wouldn’t let me go, and they were looking at me like I was the answer to their problems, like fate had finally paid them a favor.

My grandparents betrayed the Urabi. I had little doubt most of the people before me were farmers and merchants from the southern wilayahs, Jasadis whose magic had been secretly mined for decades to satisfy the greed of the northern wilayahs. The Mufsids had reaped the reward of my grandparents’ atrocities—theirdesire to restore me to the throne, I understood. I couldn’t fathom why the Urabi wanted to place a crown in my hands.

I didn’t need Hanim’s voice to remind me of the colossal failure I represented to these people. The failure I had made of myself.

The thought of proving Hanim right sobered me. The exiled and disgraced Qayida of Jasad had tried to mold a warrior, a woman fit to fight for a throne. For five years, I had endured her expectations. Her punishments when I fell short. Killing her had freed me of her physical presence, but I had carried the rot of her voice, her insidious influence, for years.

I knotted my hand above my heart. Sweat damped the fabric clutched in my palm.

Malika Essiya.

I was not a natural leader. I would have to fight my instincts every step of the way. I would fail again and again, and the cost of my failure wouldn’t be more scars on my back. The cost of my failure would be the lives kneeling before me. The lives waiting in other kingdoms, their magic hidden and their destiny unknown.

I had understood the consequence of my decision the night of the Victor’s Ball.

When I gave Rawain my true name, I chose Jasad. I chose to giveeverything I could, no matter how imperfect the offering or how shaky the hands holding it.

There was nowhere left to run. Either Jasad would rise in victory, or we would all burn with it.

“Thank you.” Though I barely spoke above a murmur, it echoed across the vast room. “Thank you for letting me come home.”

CHAPTER FOUR

SYLVIA

As soon as she shoved a platter of food into my hands, Namsa abandoned me in the dining hall.

I watched her depart, resisting the urge to trail after her like a lost child. How bad would it look if I took my meal to my room?

I chanced a look around the tables, shoulders hiked up to my ears.

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