Page 172 of The Jasad Crown

After a strained minute, he said, “Go on. Tell me of the rest of your life.”

Lying on my back, I subjected the ceiling to intense and unwarranted scrutiny. “Eventually, when the world was safe again, I wouldwant to settle. Probably in Jasad, but… there is a blue cottage in Mahair, not far from the keep. It has a garden and space for Marek and Sefa. I would replant my fig tree, and Marek would probably keep it alive for me, because plants seem to like him better. I would open an apothecary, or maybe a keep like Raya’s. I’d teach young girls the best way to gut a man and how to braid your hair without looking in a mirror. Fairel has yet to master the latter.”

My restraint reached its limit, and I burrowed into Arin’s shoulder once more, eyes drifting shut. Sleep had been crawling over me, and its weight swiftly became too strong to resist—though I tried. What could it offer me when my waking hours had already woven me the sweetest of dreams?

“In the evening, I would come home to you.”

When sleep finally stole me away, it whispered its apology.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

ARIN

He tucked the note into her clenched fist and drew the blanket over her shoulders before he stood.

And continued to stand, fixed in place.

Arin had always considered it a requirement of any leader to delineate their areas of strength and weakness. What could be more imperative than understanding where you might be tested and fail?

But as Arin watched Essiya wriggle into the empty pallet where he’d lain, her chin jutting out from under the covers as she burrowed deep, Arin did not know whether the ache coring him from the inside was strength or weakness. It destabilized him. Unraveled him with every minute spent in her presence.

But it also gave him the strength to turn around and walk away.

Carving her out, pretending that leaving her side did not shatter pieces of him as he walked, was not a viable option. If she weakened him, so be it. Arin would be twice as strong.

The guard at Jeru’s door jerked awake at the sight of Arin heading toward him. He glanced behind Arin, searching for an escort, and leapt to his feet at the sight of the empty hall.

“You can’t be here,” the man said, panicked. Silver and gold swirled in his eyes, but Arin struck faster, locking an arm around his neck.

The first guard slumped just as the second guard rounded thecorner carrying a clay ula and a plate of ruz ma’amar. Both fell at her feet at the sight of Arin carefully laying the guard on the ground.

A smart one; she did not attempt to fight Arin directly. Someone needed to sound the alarm, and she swung around, chest expanding with the beginnings of a scream.

It would have worked were Arin not already in motion. One of the guards’ chairs sailed across the short hall and slammed into her back.

A minute later, Arin dragged her unconscious form next to the other guard’s.

At least they had not wasted their magic on a useless attempt to hold him off.

Jeru glanced up at the sound of the creaking door, wide awake. At the sight of his Commander, Jeru nodded to himself. “I thought so.”

Without prompting, the guardsman followed Arin out of the room, stepping over the slumbering bodies at his threshold.

They had made their way around the corner when Marek stumbled out of his room, hair mussed in every direction and sleep hanging over him. He was holding an empty ula. When he spotted Arin and the unconscious guards, the sleep vanished. Comprehension dawned onto the farmhand.

“You cold-blooded traitor,” he breathed. “You’re abandoning her. She gave you every secret they have, and you’re leaving.”

“Marek, it is not what you think.” Jeru grabbed the boy’s arm. Marek tore free, and Arin had the foresight to grab the front of Marek’s shirt before he could sprint down the hall and finish what the second guard had started. Arin shoved him through the door he’d emerged from, stepping into the dark room with Jeru close behind.

“The Commander isn’t betraying the Malika,” Jeru said, glancing toward Sefa’s still outline on the bed. “He is trying to help her. If he returns to Nizahl, he can recall the soldiers from Jasad. Remove theblockades from the trade routes the Jasadis need to reach their kingdom. He can prevent his father from sending recruits to die. Marek, if Arin returns, Jasad will have Nizahl at its side.”

Reluctantly, Marek’s attention slid to Jeru. “What about the Supreme?”

Arin abruptly released the boy and wiped his gloves on his pants. “My father is my responsibility. As is Vaida.”

The lump beneath the covers sat up, and Sefa regarded the three men in her bedroom coolly.

“Are you going to kill her?”

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