Page 154 of The Jasad Crown

“When would we have seen him use magic, Efra? The Malika said it was stripped from him at two years old.” Maia had firmly situated herself on Arin’s side.

Namsa gnawed on her lip. “What about his sensitivity to magic? It isn’t natural, and we know it could not have been a musrira.”

“Curses were more of a Lukubi specialty,” Lateef agreed. “Sustaining them is arduous work, and it requires the caster to expend magic throughout the lifetime of the curse. A failed curse would have killed the musriraandher victim.”

They went round and round. I should have been part of the conversation, analyzing theories alongside them. I shouldn’t have beensitting in the corner like a child, clutching my stomach as I sank through the sands of a different crisis.

Hanim’s son. Herson.

I tried to see the resemblances, and to my distress, they came readily. The silky fall of her hair, the sharp cut of his jaw. His tendency to fixate. Her strategic mind.

I thought of the dreams I’d had after Soraya stabbed me in the Ivory Palace. Isra blocking Rawain’s path in the nursery, where a black-haired baby slept in his bassinet.

He won’t survive it. Please, Rawain, you have to wait.

What do you care what happens to my son?

He is mine just as he is yours.

I kneaded my knuckles into my chin, willing myself not to emit the sounds brewing inside me. Hysteria would help nobody.

I killed Arin’s mother.

Lateef cleared his throat. “Mawlati, do you remember when you asked me the difference between draining magic and transferring it?”

Focus. I had to focus. Arin’s life hinged on my success in this room. If I disintegrated, my authority went with me.

I forced myself to think through the fog. “You said the only person capable of sensing and draining magic was Fareed. You said the Awaleen gave him that ability to protect the kingdoms against abuses of magic.”

“Exactly!” Lateef said, and I couldn’t help a small smile at the pleased note in his voice. “I regret my phrasing—it was not entirely accurate. You see, the Awaleen didn’tgiveFareed an ability so much as they took one away. They stripped out his magic and anchored it to his weapons, so that any magic he drained would flow into the two swords we know to be Nizahl’s symbol. In short, they turned Fareed into a conduit.”

I stared at Lateef. “Are you trying to say Rawain stripped out Arin’s magic and used it as a funnel to pull magic into some sword?”

“Not a sword.”

Everyone’s heads swiveled to the scepter.

“How?” Namsa rasped. “Only the Awaleen can create a conduit without killing the intended target.”

Arin’s aggravated admission to Wes the day I had manifested in Essam. He had to have been talking about the magic mines.

I cannot figure out where they are. I have spent days scouring my maps, but I would have felt them. I should have felt them.

“If Rawain bartered for mined magic from Jasad, and if Nizahl had stored enough of it from their centuries of the trade…” I looked at Lateef. “Could it have been enough power to create a conduit without killing him?”

Lateef blanched. “I… it is possible. Only if the subject was very young.”

I wouldn’t have survived if he waited until I was four.

Arin was a conduit. Which meant he had not only brought us his father’s scepter—he had brought us the source of his magic.

“The Silver Serpent’s lineage is of no consequence,” Efra interrupted. “We have four days until we leave for Jasad. His presence ensures our route will be compromised, since every Nizahl soldier under the sun will be out searching for him. Not only is he too dangerous for his fate to be left to chance, but he cut off the Supreme’s hand and stole the scepter. He will be branded as a traitor to his crown. They’ll want to execute him.”

I inhaled sharply. Execute him? Surely, Arin would be able to make Nizahl’s council understand why he had acted against the Supreme. What Rawain had done violated every tenet of Nizahl’s laws.

I took a deep breath. Here was where the test came. Where I discovered whether the last two months had earned me any goodwill among my people, or if I would always be the Heir who failed them.

“I think the Nizahl Heir will help us.”

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