Page 81 of The Jasad Crown

The road smoothed beneath them. Conversation ceased as the moonlight disappeared behind houses grander than Marek had seen in a long time. Verdant gardens grew beside immaculate entryways, each step behind their wrought-iron gates glittering with incandescent glass tiles. Lanterns flush with oil burned over soaring stone walls, illuminating the gilded nameplates at the front of each gate that declared the household’s name, many of which Marek recognized as well-known dignitaries of the Citadel.

The soldiers dropped off one by one. Marek remained in the wagon as they passed decadent estates eating up the same amount of acreage as a sizable Omalian village.

As uncomfortable as he found such ostentatious displays of wealth after the massacre in the kingdom’s poorest village, a small part of Marek… relaxed. For a very long time, this had been his world. Though he would happily spend the rest of his life in a tent with Sefa rather than a single hour in his former home, he sometimes missed those days of luxury.

Until he remembered the cost.

Those names carved onto each gate? The Lazurs had one, too. They’d varnished theirs with the blood of Marek’s siblings. Amira, Hani, Binyar, Darin. The gravedigger’s shovel never had a chance to leave the ground before the next Lazur body arrived.

How tragic for his parents that their spoiled, spineless, vain son was the only one left to survive them. They shouldn’t have been so hasty to turn their other children into heroes. Maybe they would have noticed that their youngest had been born with a deficit of bravery. If it came down to dying a hero or living a coward, Marek would do whatever it took to keep himself aboveground.

The wagon juddered to a halt. “Out,” called the driver.

Marek shook himself out of his reverie. The house the driver stopped in front of couldn’t be the right one. It was the last in the neighborhood and the most magnificent by far.

“Out!” A canvas bag hit his chest.

“Easy!” Marek clutched the bag carrying his meager overnight fortifications and hopped out of the wagon. The driver barely waited for Marek’s boots to hit the ground before snapping the reins.

Marek eyed the long path to the front of the manor uncertainly. He had more viscera coating him than the buckets in the back of a butcher’s shop.

Nerves danced in his belly as he knocked on the door. What if whoever waited on the other side recognized Caleb Lazur? He should have stopped to glance at the nameplate on the gate—was there enough time to run back and check?

A woman roughly one or two years Marek’s junior opened the door. Fiery red hair cascaded past her shoulders, curtaining her slim frame like the sun blazing around the horizon. Freckles kissed the rounds of her cheeks. A mouth Marek could write poems about widened into a grin.

Marek’s nerves melted into a slow smile. A beautiful woman staring at him in wide-eyed curiosity. Familiar territory at last.

“Hello, soldier. Welcome to our home.”

She stepped aside, and Marek didn’t take his eyes off her as he crossed the threshold. “And what a beautiful home it is,” Marek said. They could have been standing in the middle of a sinking cesspool for all he cared.

A throng of servants appeared out of nowhere, whisking off his filthy coat and dabbing the sludge caked into his hair. A bout of shyness stifled the girl’s momentary confidence, and she pointed at the stairs without lifting her gaze to Marek’s. “The attendants will see you to your chambers. Once you’ve had a chance to freshen up, please join me and my mother in the sitting room. We have the most luscious cake prepared for you.”

Before Marek could get the girl’s name, he lost sight of her in the flurry of attendants. They hustled him across the manor and into anempty room, where he was stripped bare and scrubbed nearly to the bone.

Once Marek had been cleaned to within an inch of his life, he buttoned his white shirt into a pair of high-waisted black trousers and tied the leather ends of his suspenders into the belt loops.

Marek smirked at the mirror. Sulor, the section leader at their compound, had ordered Marek to get his hair cut to issue length, but Marek had convinced the barber to leave a little extra. Wisps of gold fell over his forehead. His skin glowed, having miraculously survived the fabric of the compound’s cot. The bruise on his chin, while not the most attractive injury in his new collection, would remind the hosts of Marek’s noble and brave endeavors on their behalf. (Never mind that he had gotten the bruise by tripping over a basket and hitting his chin on the buckle of a saddle.)

The servant outside Marek’s door led him to the sitting room. Decadence draped every facet of Marek’s temporary accommodations, from the hundreds of lanterns flickering in empty rooms to the carpets and curtains dyed in more shades of violet and black than should ever exist in one place. Marek passed a steel door bearing Nizahl’s insignia and grimaced at the gilded raven flying from between the two clashing swords.

Two people stood at his entrance. One was the girl who’d greeted him at the door. The other woman shared similar features to the first, but bestowed with age’s loving touch. Silver streaked her short red hair, framing the sharp cut of her chin and the bow of her lips.

Marek couldn’t believe his luck.I have passed into death, and eternity has met me with bliss.

He took his host’s hand and bowed, brushing his lips lightly over her wedding band. “My lady. I have marveled at my privilege to be hosted at the loveliest home in Nizahl, and now you grant me your company? The blood I shed on the battlefield is not worth half this honor.”

“Leave your formality at the door, soldier. You may call me Mira.” The orders fell naturally, as prim as the rest of her property. “You’ve already met my daughter. Gigi, did you say hello?”

“Hello.” Gigi blushed. Adorable.

Marek kissed her hand, too, and straightened with a smile. “A pleasure.”

Had there ever been a more delicious dilemma? If Marek were a smarter man, his gaze would stay with the daughter. He would subtly coax her from her shell with a mixture of humor and rapt attention, and when the time came to retire, he would restrain himself to a kiss on her cheek and a gentle good night.

But Mira cocked a brow at Marek, pointing at the chair in silent command, and Marek was lost.

He could almost hear Sefa cajoling him. She would call him a jelly-kneed obsessive who couldn’t resist a pretty smile. She’d ask if he had developed a taste for the fists of cuckolded husbands.The one trait all these women share is their unavailability, Sefa would scold.When will you find someone who can love you the way you deserve?

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