Page 63 of The Jasad Crown

Sultana Nafeesa. It took me seven years to find her bones. She had decoy tombs set up all over Lukub.

Impossible. If the woman staring down her nose at the corpse was Sultana Nafeesa, then the Mufsid had taken Arin to a four-hundred-year-old memory.

It meant Arin was in the presence of the ruler who brokered the Zinish Accords. Vaida’s ancestor.

“She dragged the body into the courtyard, Your Majesty,” one of the guards murmured. He nodded to the sobbing girl. “We apprehended her before she could bother the guests, but some of the servants saw her.”

“How did she get past the obelisk?” Nafeesa snapped.

Right. Four hundred years ago, Lukub still possessed its magic. If Arin recalled correctly, the ruby obelisk had originally been designed to signal to the Ruby Hounds if any danger ventured toward the Ivory Palace from Essam Woods.

The age of monsters was still in full swing, which meant nobody dared enter or travel through Essam save for the most urgent of necessities, and Ruby Hounds still prowled the perimeter of the Ivory Palace.

Arin held himself still, perilously aware of the precipice upon which his calm teetered.

“You killed him,” the sobbing girl finally managed. She couldn’t be more than nineteen years old. In her fraying green frock, shelooked completely out of place in the palace. “I told him not to believe you. I told him it wasn’t possible to gently drain a little magic. You tore him apart. You tookeverything.”

Lashes tipped in red swept the top of Nafeesa’s cheekbones in a slow blink. “Your husband made a deal, and I kept my end of it. Your farm is thriving now, no?”

“My… farm?”

“Besides,” the Sultana continued, “his magic allowed six of my Hounds to stay alive. Six! You should be proud of him.”

“May the Awaleen damn you.” Rage crackled over her, twisting her youthful features into a snarl. “May you meet your justice, you lying wh—”

“Now, now.” Nafessa lifted her hand. At the sight of the ring on her second finger, Arin took an involuntary step forward.

Vaida’s ring.

“If you want your husband back,” Sultana Nafeesa said. “By all means, darling. Have him.”

White bloomed in Sultana Nafeesa’s eyes, encircled by a glowing red ring. Her magic didn’t churn like the gold and silver of Jasadi magic, but unfurled like the petals of a poisonous rose.

This is my favorite part, Waid said.

The rage melted from the girl, sloughing off like a lizard’s skin. She beamed at the broken remains of her husband. “Hani! Oh, you silly man. I was so worried.”

She gripped the fractured sides of her husband’s head, and the shards of his cheekbones pierced through her hands. The smile didn’t leave her face as she bent to bathe the cavern of his face in kisses. The crystallized skin shredded her lips, her cheeks, but her bloody smile never faded.

It is a merciful fate. There are worse illusions the Sultana could have created.

The girl kept going until ribbons of her skin clung to her husband’s corpse. Arin couldn’t do anything but watch, spellboundwith revulsion, until a shard of rib bone impaled her right eye. She slumped over the corpse, finally limp.

Sultana Nafeesa gave the bodies a disdainful sniff. “See if they assigned next of kin for the farm. If not, slaughter the animals and empty out the house. We need a new den for my Hounds.”

She turned, the tail of her gown trailing across the blood spreading over the rug. “Get them out of my palace.”

Arin moved to follow her into the hall.

Ah ah ah, Waid tutted.

The floor beneath Arin sank, caving like a house of sand. He could feel the Mufsid’s magic around him, its oily residue thick on his skin.

Waid groaned.So obsessed with your rules and reason, aren’t you? Rest assured, you are still draining my magic, just much slower than you would if I wasn’t aiming most of it at the space around you instead of at you.

But I am the Bone Spinner of Crowns, and you still have much to see.

The ground hardened beneath Arin. Fighting through a surge of nausea, he braced himself on his thighs.

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