Page 56 of The Jasad Crown

Not quite as painful as hitting a wall, but close.

His grip loosened the barest fraction, but I capitalized on it, twisting my restrained wrist down and out.

My victory lasted mere seconds, sliced in half by the dagger glinting in Arin’s hand. I marveled at the frequency with which this man hid a blade on his person.

We moved in a sadistic mirror of the moments before the Victor’s Ball when we’d exploded into motion toward each other. Except then, he’d drawn me close with his mouth over mine, and this time—this time, he swung a knife at my heart with deadly accuracy while I rammed my shoulder into his chest at full speed.

Were Arin less grievously injured, he would have used the force of my run to overturn me and sink the dagger into my chest. We’d practiced the strategy together a million times in the tunnels. But blood had starting weeping through his bandages, and we went down in a heap.

We grappled. I tightened my knees around Arin’s hips as he twisted on top of me. As soon as he raised the knife, I dug my fingers into the bandages at his side until he gasped. Blood stained my nails.

“Sorry, I’m sorry—” I grabbed his wrist, knocking it into the ground by my head, but he wouldn’t drop the knife. His other fist drove into my side, and the pain shot me straight into a coughing fit.

Bastard. I grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked him close.

I had a hard head—a useful detail Hanim uncovered during her long tenure of torture. Arin learned about it in the training tunnels, and I paid him another reminder by smashing my forehead against his.

I recovered quickly and used his momentary disorientation to throw my weight forward, flipping us once again. I leaned over him and clasped his wrist, grinding it into the floor. His fingers wouldn’t unclench.

“Let go, you stubborn fool! You’re bleeding and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t want to hurt me?” The growled words, the first he’d spoken, caught me off guard. Strands of silver hair slipped over his forehead, catching on the blood newly flowing from his temple.

He heaved with the effort of speaking with me atop his torn chest, sweat shining on his collarbone. But he’d stopped resisting. He wasn’t trying to buck me off or pursue any of the vulnerabilities my position above him granted.

I looked at the trail of dried blood along his cheek and thought of the way I’d found him sitting. Hunched and drawn.

“I didn’t know about Galim’s Bend.”

Lightning cracked through the impenetrable frost in his eyes, brightly furious.

“Arin, I would never have released Al Anqa’a. You know I wouldn’t.”

“I know nothing about you,” he said, harsh and low. “Essiya.”

Uttered with contempt, clearly meant to injure, my name in his mouth had the opposite effect. Hearing it filled me with a shapeless wonder. I didn’t have to battle the instinct to correct him or grimaceat the sound. It didn’t feel like an ill-fitting piece of clothing someone else had chosen for me. I wanted him to say it again.

Our shroud of secrets had fallen, and we knew each other truly for the first time.

“Be careful how you address a Queen,” I whispered, legs tightening around his waist as I leaned forward, “little Heir.”

He went still, and I realized my mistake in shifting forward. Arin’s free hand—the one I’d pinned against his body, between my knees—came loose. In seconds, I went airborne, a powerful shove sending me halfway across the room.

By the time I hit the ground and rolled to my feet, Arin was stalking toward me. I darted behind the table and threw an inkwell at his head. He dodged, so I started hurling everything within reach. Bandages, clothes, scrolls, and books rained on Arin. He batted them aside without slowing.

Physically, Arin was unimpeachable. Every muscle on his finely honed body had earned its way there through hard labor, wrapping around a broad and powerful frame. The Commander of Nizahl had trained since childhood, and his ironclad will made it so nothing beyond death would slow his blade or alter his aim. Even now, with so much blood leaking from his bandages, he would keep coming until one of us was in pieces.

To know Arin of Nizahl was to know the real force—and the real vulnerability—lived beyond his body.

I blurted the words that had been circling in my head since the Aada meeting. “The fortress fell before the messenger did!”

It was a gamble. A match tossed in a dark well. I grabbed a bottle and held it between us like a sword, waiting for him to cross the last of the distance.

Instead, a miracle happened.

Arin paused.

I had never encountered anyone whose mind worked like Arin’s.Once cut with curiosity, it would not heal. Any uncertainty would fester, spreading like poison, consuming him.

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