Page 152 of The Jasad Crown

Namsa glanced at Jeru uncertainly. I sighed. “Jeru, will you attack Namsa if she releases you?”

He blinked. “No.”

“There we are. Namsa, you have magic, and he’s beaten and exhausted. If he manages to best you, then you deserve to lose.”

With a chuckle, Namsa waved me off and withdrew a knife for Jeru’s ropes.

Arin and I rounded the corner. No sooner had we disappeared from Namsa’s view than I spun around and grabbed his coat, hauling him into the wall. He didn’t resist, bone-chillingly pliant against me.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed. “I have to walk into a room and spend a good portion of my day convincing them not to kill you. Do you know how long it will take to persuade a mountain full of Jasadis that their worst enemy should be spared?”

Arin shrugged. I thought his shoulder was falling off for a second, so off guard did the lazy motion catch me. “Then spare yourself the trouble and let them do as they please.”

I scoured his face, utterly baffled. What was he doing? I thought I understood the rules of our game, but this—I didn’t see the purpose, the objective.

My tone shifted to take on a plaintive note. “Arin, what’s wrong?”

It was the wrong question. Breathtaking grief fractured in the eyes he rapidly shut. He twisted out of my grip like a tiger shaking off a fly. “Just take me to the cell. Please.”

I stared at him, hurt swelling in my chest. Namsa appeared in the next instant, preventing me from coming up with more sensible questions thanwhat happened to you, who did it, and where can I find them?

“The cell is just up there,” she said, once again exercising wisdom by ignoring the obvious tension. “Shall we?”

Arin followed her without so much as a glance my way. As I scowled at his wide back, my attention snagged on the ground. A folded rectangle lay where I had slammed Arin into the wall. It must have slipped from his coat.

Awaleen below, I had done a detestable job searching him.

I picked it up, unrolling it carefully as I caught up with Namsaand Arin. As soon as he stepped between the three walls, alternating silver and gold bars slammed down, the wards radiating heat.

“Excellent.” Namsa wiped her hands on her hips. “We should hurry.”

I didn’t hear her. I wouldn’t have heard if she had yanked me down and shrieked it directly into my ear. Noise filled my head, a loud buzzing growing louder and louder the longer I stared at the portrait.

“Namsa,” I said, surprisingly even toned. “I have stretched your goodwill thin. Know that I appreciate your patience. I will put one last demand upon it and ask you to wait for me at the top of the stairs. I’ll just be a minute.”

“Please make haste,” Namsa sighed. “A minute, Essiya.”

She glanced at the portrait in my hands disinterestedly and departed.

The eyes were just as I remembered them. A chilling blue, the color of frost creeping over rushing water. Her black hair was long and silky in this photo, wavy instead of frayed and short. She looked regal. Queenly. The woman she might have become if I hadn’t ruined her.

I crumpled the portrait, fighting the urge to tear it into pieces. A sum of paint strokes and dabbled water. All it took to bring a nightmare to life.

I took a deep breath, trying to still my trembling hands. Perhaps he had a rational explanation. What was I thinking? Of course he did. They were his specialty.

“Why do you have a painting of Hanim in your coat?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

ARIN

It had all been going according to plan until he saw her.

Fear had been plain in her features as she pushed the blindfold from his head. He could count on one hand the number of times he had seen Suraira afraid, and the dismay of causing it had been the first thing to pierce him since he’d fallen into the void twelve days ago.

He shouldn’t have brought the portrait. He should have burned it or tossed it into Hirun on his way here. If he had, it would never have had a chance to put that stricken look on her face. Before he could ward it off, the memory forced its way through Arin’s defenses. Essiya on her knees, wrists tied on the other side of the tree as Hanim raised a whip to her bare back.

Hanim, Arin’s mother. Hanim, Essiya’s tormentor.

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