Page 6 of The Jasad Crown

Arin had chosen that moment to interrupt, startling the guardsmen apart.

“Sire?” Jeru’s tentative touch on Arin’s shoulder jolted him back to the present, and Arin drew away from the guard, pushing open the door.

“By Hirun’s glory…” Jeru whispered, raised brows threatening to disappear into his curly hair.

Maps covered every inch of the room. Precious maps, maps Arin traded from Orbanian khawaga, collected in Omalian markets and smoke-filled Lukubi gambling houses. Maps he’d been gifted as a child from diplomats visiting from Jasad.

On the ground, an entire armory lay organized in twenty-seven neat rows.

“Sire…” Jeru trailed off, raking over the hundreds of blades Arin had sharpened to a deadly gleam; the arrowheads he had stacked into bundles of fifteen, each triangular point perfectly matched to the one beside it. “Were the Citadel’s blacksmiths unable to accommodate you?”

“They are working on another assignment for me,” Arin said.

Arin could predict each revolution of Jeru’s mind as he worked through the sight before him. It would have taken weeks to fix and organize this many weapons. Arin had done it in days, which meant Arin was not sleeping. In one room, Arin destroyed maps in a flare of temper. In another, he fixated on the precise edge of weapons older than the Heir himself.

Jeru opened his mouth. The question shaped on his tongue.

Before it could fall, Arin supplied one of his own.

“Where are Sefa and Marek?”

It worked. Chagrin flushed over Jeru, and he bowed his head, addressing his shoes. “No one has seen or heard from them, sire. I am still waiting on word from the soldiers I sent to Mahair, but I suspect they will return empty-handed.”

Arin’s palm flattened against the map to prevent it from curling. “Have I made myself less than clear, Jeru?”

“I’ll find them, my liege, I swear it. I plan to extend the search into Essam Woods.”

“You shouldn’t have waited this long to extend your search.”

The guard continued to study the ground. The stubborn angle of his chin reminded Arin of the day he’d found Jeru, head lowered in preparation for the executioner’s sword.

Jeru and Wes believed Arin saved Jeru and began the nimwa system out of a desire to see the lower villages at least as well fed as they were well punished. A sign of Arin’s mercy.

Perhaps. Arin liked to think he would have inevitably interceded to save Jeru from his idiocy, regardless of the potential he saw in the young man.

But in that moment, Arin saved Jeru because he saw something more rare than reckless courage and renegade justice: conviction.

“This week, the council will meet to discuss ending the conscription pardon on the lower villages.”

Jeru went white.

“If they see fit to end it, young soldiers will flood our training compounds, and many will not come willingly.”

“Sire—”

“Five days.” The words were a condemnation. “Five days ago, I asked you to bring me Marek and Sefa. Each day the Jasad Queen evades our capture is another day closer to war. Five days, and you have nothing.”

“Sylvia sent them—”

“Sylviadoesn’t exist.” Rage buckled in the void where Arin had thrust it, straining against its chains. “There is only the Jasad Heir.” A dry curl of his lips. “The JasadMalika.”

Jeru swallowed. “My apologies. The Jasad Malika used her magic to send Sefa and Marek away during the Victor’s Ball, sire. They could be anywhere.”

The Jasad Malika.Oh, it was enough to make him wish he remembered how to laugh.

When Arin thought of the former Jasad Queen, a murky image of Malika Palia surfaced. He’d met the former Malika once as a child. She’d carried an air of authority that could not be taught, brimming with poise and power.

How could the Jasad Queen be a mouthy crook who would sooner wrestle a rabid bear than hold her temper for ten minutes? The Jasad Malika couldn’t be vicious and loud and unreasonably confident in her comedic skills—

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