Page 47 of The Jasad Crown

My hand flew over my mouth as a nisnas chased a screaming girl down the street, dragging itself after her with jarring speed. The creature Wes had once charmingly described aswhat happens when you crush a body like a walnut and soak the remains in sewage.

“Whatisthat?” Maia covered her mouth, horrified.

Another nisnas flung its arm around the ankles of a man and unhinged its jaw, revealing spikes of teeth covering the entire roof and bottom of its mouth. It clamped them around the screaming man’s face. Maia turned green at the crunch of bone.

A figure leaned against the side of a wagon, watching the chaos with leisurely interest. Between one blink and the next, its features shifted, rearranging themselves to resemble the man lying bloody beneath the nisnas.

A chill of recognition swept through me. But it couldn’t be. I’d buried my axe in his neck during the second trial.

“Is that a…” Namsa trailed off as the man caught the reins of a fleeing horse and laid a comforting hand on its nose.

His neck pulsed. The tendons thickened, pushing out like veins in a tree trunk. He swallowed, and his neck solidified once more.

“Dulhath,” I hissed. Magic Eater. They must have kept multiple of them imprisoned.

The dulhath swung onto the horse and snapped the reins. He rode into the carnage and disappeared.

I wanted to storm around the lake and shove Efra’s head into thewater. He’d released adulhath? That idiot—a dulhath had no interest in Nizahl or random violence. It just wanted to eat. It would ride straight for the nearest source of magic and drain it dry. Efra may as well have unleashed a sentient compass pointing straight toward Jasadis.

In the distance, a zulal burst between the rows of flaming roofs. I’d never seen the worm extended to its full height before. When it killed Mehti, it had been tightly wound around the Omal Champion as it absorbed the moisture from his desiccating corpse. The yellow of the zulal’s fleshy body split the horizon.

Several of the Jasadis jumped when it suddenly struck, diving between the houses in an impossible burst of speed. Dirt sprayed in long arcs through the air, landing on the thatched roofs of the flaming village.

I lost track of the number of monsters razing through Galim’s Bend. I recognized a mere handful, many of which I’d thought had gone extinct during the purge that wiped monsters from Essam Woods decades ago.

The scene shifted, expanding outward, and I saw Efra whispering to the Visionists.

Above the wreckage, the sunrise wings of the creature that haunted my nightmares unfolded in the sky.

My insides went cold. Maia touched my shoulder, but I shoved her off. I was going to kill him, and no one would stop me this time.

“You unleashed Al Anqa’a?!” I roared.

Al Anqa’a weaved low over Galim’s Bend, its clipped wings forcing it into a low loop around the village. Its beady eyes scanned the screaming villagers. Hunting.

Namsa’s grip on my elbow halted my progress around the lake. “Mawlati, the kingdoms recapture Al Anqa’a every Alcalah. As soon as the Supreme’s soldiers arrive—”

“Dawoud died protecting me from Al Anqa’a.” I tore my armaway. “It nearly killed me. And now you’ve unleashed it on villages of people without a trace of magic or training!”

Namsa had gone white at the mention of her uncle. I hoped she felt the judgment of his ghost heavy at her neck.

“Look!” came a shout. I whirled around, and my heart leapt into my throat at the image in the water.

At the crest of a low hill, thundering down on a black horse, was Arin.

He believed me.

I waited for the soldiers to come pouring down the hill behind him. Reinforcements with the weapons and tools needed to take down Al Anqa’a and hordes of monsters, more of them than the kingdoms had handled in decades.

No one came. Arin was the single spot of color on the dark hillside, and he rode toward the wreckage of Galim’s Bend without slowing.

I was fixed to the spot as I watched Arin swing from his horse and survey the rubble and smoke. A nisnas lashed its arm around his knee, but he slashed through its joint before it could tighten its grip. Arin had trained me for the Alcalah; he had prepared other Champions before me. He knew that walking into Galim’s Bend without help would spell his quick and brutal demise.

Arin swung onto his horse and turned it back up the hill.

“Coward,” I heard Efra hiss.

Tension lined my body. Arin wouldn’t leave his people in distress. I knew that look. Damn it to the tombs, he had a theory.

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