Page 200 of The Jasad Crown

I closed my eyes and tipped over the side of the bridge.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

ESSIYA

Is this normal? Did we sleep this long the first time?”

“Stop slapping her, Dania. She’ll wake up and set us on fire.”

“Again,” a familiar voice groused.

I grabbed the hand resting on my arm. My eyes flashed open. They shrieked, skittering away from me like roaches under a freshly lit lamp.

I sat up, massaging my scalp and squinting. When I had my vision after Soraya stabbed me, I’d stood amid four thrones cast in darkness and suspended over a gushing river. I had expected to land somewhere grim and dark, suited toward an eternal mind brimming with regret.

Instead, I was in Essam. Lush trees around us, their branches heavy with leaves unmarked by disease or pestilence. The rotten egg smell of Hirun had disappeared, replaced by a faint lilac fragrance. The slivers of sky I could make out above the trees were clear blue.

A frog leapt onto my knee, and I needed no further evidence.

This Essam was not my Essam. A frog would never approach me in the real Essam. They had learned better.

Dania, Baira, and Kapastra stood a distance from me, watching with expressions ranging from mild distrust to naked hope. My magic’s memories and my own bled together, my awe and confusion, its rage and regret, churning in the sea of history between us.

I leaned against the tree and petted the frog’s head, crossing my ankles together. “So, what do we do for fun down here?”

Surprisingly, it was Kapastra who took the first step. She slid to the ground next to me. “This, mostly. We roam and we remember. Between the three of us, we have amassed quite a storage of memories to relive.”

I glanced around Essam and laughed. Of course—this was my memory. My sisters had been long entombed by the time the woods looked like this. “I see.”

“Sometimes, we can hear what happens in our kingdoms,” Baira offered, coming to join Kapastra on the ground. It was startling to see Baira again and realize how closely she resembled Vaida.

It was strange. Half of me had started shrieking as soon as I opened my eyes to the Awalas of our kingdoms, overwhelmed at encountering the most powerful figures to ever exist in my time or any.

The other half saw three agitating siblings.

“Why did you come here, Rovial?” Dania remained rooted to the spot. “Why now?”

“It seemed like a good time.” I rubbed the heel of my hand against my heart. “Rovial is gone. I have his memories, but they are piled against thousands of others. They belong to my magic, but Essiya belongs to me.”

“You are your magic.”

“Would you calm down, Dania?” Kapastra snapped. “She just had seven thousand years’ worth of memories shoved into her head.”

Good to know several millennia’s worth of sleep had not done much to improve everyone’s temper.

Dania rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

“Don’t listen to Dania,” Baira said in her lilting, breathy voice. “She felt incredibly guilty for killing you. We all did. We kept hoping your memories would catch up to your magic someday.”

“Hoping and fearing,” Kapastra corrected. “But you seem less intent on murder and destruction, which is a relief.”

Dania scuffed her foot on the dirt. Perhaps it was not too terrible of a blend, my magic’s memories and my own. Through the former, I saw a petulant little sister too prideful to admit her guilt. Through the latter, I saw one of the young wards in the keep, standing outside my door to confess their theft of my sesame seed candies.

“I have too many grudges in this life to keep track of the ones from previous lives,” I said. “Besides, I vaguely remember planning to kill you at the time.”

Dania settled on the grass with a sigh. “Fair enough.”

The tension broken, the Awalas regaled me with stories of their lives in eternal slumber and peppered me with questions about their kingdoms. They already knew about the faded magic, but the political turmoil of the last century or so had gone largely unnoticed.

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