Page 166 of The Jasad Crown

Cold blue eyes met mine in a challenge. This was the Arin I met in Essam, the Arin who hunted me in Mahair. The famed Commander of Nizahl, trapped against my blade.

“On your knees.”

Not a single person dared breathe.

“Get on your knees, Commander,” I repeated harshly.

For an awful second, I thought he wouldn’t move. I thought he would knock the sword out of my hand and cut me down in front of the watching Jasadis, done with the facade. This would be where he drew the line: the last frontier he would not surrender. Efra was right, and Arin had been toying with me all along. The Silver Serpent had infused his venom into me, and I was nothing more than another in a long line to fall prey to—

In a sinuous motion, Arin knelt.

Shock reverberated from our audience, so strong it threatened to shake the very mountain itself. I didn’t dare move beyond keeping the sword aimed. The beginnings of a tremor worked through my arm.

All of Nizahl’s power knelt before me. All of Rawain’s strength and might. The strongest Commander in centuries, gazing up at me with utter tranquility.

“Arin of Nizahl. For ten years, you have been the enemy of magic. You have hunted us. Harmed us. Done your best to break us. In the service of the Supreme, you have perpetuated the lie he fabricated ten years ago to justify our annihilation. Magic-madness, they said. A disease. An inevitability. A death sentence.”

The air changed, threaded with a dangerous pulse. If I wasn’t careful, righteous anger would fall way to vengeance.

What secret irony it was that Arin had been right. Partially right, as I had been partially wrong. Magic-madnessdidexist, and he was looking at it. He had seen my veins, suffocated beneath my magic, but nobody knew about my magic’s voice. About the hallucinations, the shifting figures.

The figures who now stood in a ring around me and Arin, holding vigil to the truth. Dozens of them, some faces I’d seen before and others I hadn’t, invisible to every eye but mine.

“The innocent blood on your hands does not care for what cause you shed it, Commander. For what you have done, death would be a just consequence.”

I didn’t dare look at Jeru.

“But you carry the magic of Jasad in your veins. You are of us, and we are of you. Today, we show you mercy. We offer you a choice.”

Arin’s words from the cabin, offered so long ago, came to life between us.

I offer you a new life.

“Swear yourself to the throne of Jasad. Swear your loyalty to magic and to those born with it. Swear yourself to us, and you can live.”

Please want to live, I didn’t add.Please want to stay.

“No.”

My lungs collapsed.

Murmurs broke out immediately, followed by the shuffle of dirt as everyone shoved in for a closer look.

“Thrones fall. Magic fades.” Arin’s level voice cut through the din. “I will swear my loyalty, but not to Jasad’s throne, nor to its magic.” A black gloved hand pressed against the tip of the sword, lowering it to aim at his heart.

“I swear my loyalty to Jasad’s Malika.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Everything I have is hers to command. What she wills, I will create. What she hates, I will destroy. I am the weapon of the Malika, and it is her alone I pledge myself to.”

Speechless, I stared at Arin.

I’d had a plan—a good plan, damn him. I didn’t know what to do with this. What game was he playing, suggesting something so ludicrous? I’d offered him a pledge everyone would consider reasonable, but who would believe Arin of Nizahl had vowed himself to the Malika of Jasad?

Unless it wasn’t a game.

I stepped back. Arin simply watched me. Sword pointed at his heart, on his knees, and terrifyingly sincere.

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