Page 196 of The Jasad Crown

As soon as Jeru dropped to the ground beside Arin, setting Sefa down, I slid back into my body.

My sudden motion startled Jeru in the middle of checking Arin’s breathing. He was slightly less blue, but my stomach still twisted with unease at his pallor. I brushed his hair with the back of my hand.

“He’s alive. Keep him that way,” I commanded.

I turned to Sefa and took her face in my hands. She barely reacted, still and unresponsive once again.

“He died,” she said, and I was not sure who she was speaking to. “He wasn’t supposed to die before me. He wasn’t supposed to die because of me.”

I doubted she would hear me now, but I hoped the words would linger somewhere in her subconscious. Somewhere she could retrieve them when the time came.

“I love you, Sefa.” I wanted to cry, but I didn’t quite remember how. “I love you, Sayali. I love you, whoever you will be next. You don’t deserve this, but you will survive it.”

I grabbed the scepter and rose to my feet. Battles still raged around us, but it had begun to slow. More and more Nizahl soldiers were joining the group of confused, uncertain soldiers dropping their weapons to their sides. Most of the Jasadis had drained through their magic stores, turning the fighting mundane.

It was nearly over.

The fortress lingered at half the height of its predecessor, but it was still too high to climb. Too high for him to scale.

The mist around Sirauk hadn’t returned, but I could feel the chill of it grazing the back of my neck.

Not long now.

“When he comes after me, stop him,” I told Jeru.

“What do you—”

The mist crawled, and I disappeared.

When I materialized on the bridge, I was dressed in a long abaya striped with silver and gold, fastened at my middle with a pin in the shape of a kitmer.

I supposed my magic understood we’d need to be well-dressed for this particular reunion.

Ugh, still with themy magic. As though it was a stray cat I’d found and reluctantly taken in, something separate and discordant from myself.

My magic was me. The hallucinations, the visions—all me. Each life we’d lived, stacked in thin layers on top of this last one.

Time’s brutality had spared Sirauk Bridge, leaving it as endless and ethereal as the day I had died on it. Rot had not dared approach the perpetually damp wooden planks beneath my feet, nor had rain weathered the thick ropes on either side. Beneath it lay darkness and the quiet hum of Hirun River.

I placed my hand on the fortress. It vibrated, jubilant at my touch.

Inside me, dread turned leaden.

I remembered my magic’s previous lives as one might remember a childhood story. The details had blurred, but the endings were always the same. The madness that caused Dania, Baira, and Kapastra to kill Rovial and cast themselves into an eternal slumber would catch up to my mortal mind and consume it. Thousands had died at the hands of my magic-madness, entire populations wiped clean. Even now, the barrier between me and complete surrender shivered beneath my magic’s onslaught, fine cracks forming on its surface.

I pressed my fingers to my lips, holding back a wholly inappropriate laugh. I hadn’t wanted the responsibility of being the Jasad Heir, and all along, I had had the magic of the JasadAwal? If I hadn’t grown up with the cuffs suppressing my magic, I might very well have gone mad before I reached adolescence, like most of the others. They hadn’t had the chance to remember who they were before the magic ripped through their minds. They hadn’t had a beautiful conduit siphoning away the worst of its effects.

What had the creature protecting Vaida’s ring said that night in the Omal palace?Nearly there. They tried again and again, but your choices never changed. Who knew this one would meet with success?

She may as well have spelledROVIALin large letters on my forehead.

A drop of blood hit my chin. I wiped my nose with a scowl. My magic had been restrained for fourteen years. Surely, another couple of minutes did not merit such a tantrum.

Once the barrier in my mind cracked, I would go mad. The damage I would unleash would be rivaled only by Rovial’s, and this time, Arin’s abilities would not be enough to pull me back from the brink.

Without that knowledge, I would have walked straight through the fortress to Sefa and Arin. I would have let myself dream of keeping this life, of seeing it through to the end. Arin had come for me, which meant Nizahl would stand beside Jasad. None of the kingdoms could harm us with Nizahl at our side.

I could walk through this fortress and find Arin. We could have a life together. A future.

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