Page 179 of The Jasad Crown

“Awaleen save us.” Gersiny sat heavily upon his chair, his cane crooked beneath his white-knuckled grip. “It will be a massacre.”

“Yes.” Arin inclined his head. “But it needn’t be.”

Gersiny raised his head, hope spilling over his greenish complexion. “Do you have a plan, Your Highness?”

Gersiny’s deference snapped the last of Bayoum’s pathetic restraint. “Have we forgotten the traitor disappeared with the Supreme’s scepter? That he is suspected of collaborating with the Jasadi rebels?” The counselor slapped his hand onto the table. “Who knows what magic his Jasadi whore placed—”

Bayoum’s scream shattered the night’s serenity. The other counselors shielded themselves from the splatter of blood as Arin’s dagger drove into the hand Bayoum set on the table. It wedged deep through wood and bone, the hilt resting an inch beneath the counselor’s middle knuckle.

Arin allowed himself to take some pleasure in the spectacle of Bayoum pinned, baying like a stuck boar. The counselor writhed in Arin’s hold as he grabbed Bayoum by the collar and pulled out the dagger. Arin hauled him across the table, knocking over inkwells and empty chalices.

When Arin hoisted Bayoum’s head through the window, the counselor began to plead. Incoherent babbling, a stream of pitiful appeals. Arin didn’t hear a word of it. His head pounded, the edges of the void he’d managed to subdue in the Gibal straining against its restraints. The darkness tore open at the back of Arin’s mind, and from its depth, reckless rage burst free.

Arin lowered his mouth to the counselor’s ear. “Tell High Counselor Rodan I said hello.”

Nobody intervened. Nobody stepped toward Bayoum’s defense.

The counselor’s shrill scream bounced between each wing of the Citadel as Arin heaved him through the window. When he landed, a small, still speck on the lawn of the Citadel, Arin and the raven mounted above the tower looked down upon the late counselor, both pairs of eyes cold and unmoved.

“As I was saying.” Arin turned back to the remaining counselors, withdrawing a handkerchief to clean the blood from his dagger. “The bloodshed is not inevitable. I can prevent it.”

Layla’s arrival did not distract the council, though her bloodstained gown won itself a smattering of raised brows. She responded to Arin’s questioning glance with a nod.

“How?” Sama demanded. “What means do you have to fight hundreds of Ruby Hounds?”

Faheem waved Sama aside. The High Counselor came around the table, ignoring the streaks of blood Bayoum’s hand had left across the surface. “What do you require, my lord? We can reinstate your inheritance. You can be Nizahl’s Heir again.”

“I have no interest in being the Heir,” Arin said. “My price for your lives is Nizahl’s crown.”

The council stopped short. Even his father, who had been watching the proceedings with an inscrutable expression, snapped to attention.

“You wish to be Supreme?” Faheem asked, as though he might have misheard. “Your Highness, it isn’t—your father—”

“My father is the traitor,” Arin said. “As Bayoum so succinctly put it, titles do not outlast treason.”

“We can supersede the laws of inheritance in a state of emergency. The Nitraus Vote isn’t just for the removal of a sitting Commander—it also permits the advancement of their title. He needs three votes,” Layla said. A calculating gleam sparked in the emissary’s eyes, and Arin remembered why they had gotten along so well in their youth. Layla loved devouring every morsel of knowledgeabout the kingdoms’ political framework, no matter how abstract or ancient. “For the Nitraus Vote to advance a title, he would need the High Counselor’s vote and two others.”

When Rawain stood, the counselors jumped. His father’s presence, always so preeminent, had shrunk considerably. “He is bluffing,” Rawain said calmly. “Everyone in this room knows how Arin favors those lower villages. He forbids their conscription, empties our treasuries for their little nimwa system, appoints their vagrants to his personal guard. Do you truly believe he will allow them to die if the power to stop it is in his grasp?”

Arin leaned back against the windowsill, wrapping his hands around the squared ends. “Do you remember what you told me after Galim’s Bend?” The words had been emblazoned into his core. “You said I have the most aggravating habit of measuring the worth of my life as equal to those around me.”

Movement across the horizon caught Arin’s eye. The tops of the trees rustled, rows upon rows bending beneath an invisible pressure. The movement rippled toward the gates with the unstoppable force of a wave barreling toward shore.

“Consider the habit broken,” Arin said.

Metal screamed as the wave reached the first gate. Arin did not flinch at the siren’s sudden wail. The piercing cry razed across Nizahl as the first gate to the Citadel fell.

Dress strategy in the right clothes, and it transformed into prophecy. As Arin had promised, Vaida had arrived at the gates. What, then, of the lower villages? The noble towns lying just behind, where their families lived?

Faheem knelt at Arin’s feet. “I am High Counselor Faheem Giran of Nizahl. My vote lies with the Commander, Supreme Arin of Nizahl.”

The blood drained out of Rawain’s face. He looked at Arin as though he had never seen him before.

“He is lying!” Rawain shouted. “He will not sacrifice the lower villages!”

The next to kneel was Layla. “I am Layla Ayud, diplomat of Nizahl, and my vote lies with the Commander, Supreme Arin of Nizahl.”

Gersiny, the oldest counselor in the room, shrank beneath the wail of the siren. Sama chewed her lip, and Arin knew she wanted an answer to her question. She wanted ahow, and the presence of Vaida’s Hounds at their threshold did not alter her skepticism.

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