Page 9 of The Jasad Crown

I am what remains.

My eyes flew open. I was moving before my body remembered how.

I hit the ground in a crouch. A group of children sitting in a circle shrieked, rushing to their feet and stampeding to the door. The young woman at the front froze, watching me with wide eyes. I reached for the knife in my boot without thinking. No boot. They’d taken my clothes. My knives. A simple brown dress covered my body.

With the attention I wasn’t using to take stock of my surroundings, I assessed the willowy stranger. She couldn’t weigh more than my left leg. Black hair fell in a frizzy curtain around her pale, round face. Bright brown eyes roved over me with too much fascination and not nearly enough caution. My fists would be more than enough to get her out of my way.

“I can’t believe it. You woke up. We were so afraid you wouldn’t. They had to put more than a dozen arrows of sim siya in your body before your magic stopped. A normal person just needs one.” She paused. “I’m Omaima, by the way. You can call me Maia. If you want.”

Had she just offered me her nickname in the same sentence she described tranquilizing me like a feral animal?

“Where am I?” I ground out.

If possible, the girl’s eyes grew rounder. “You don’t remember?”

I took a step toward her and nearly crumpled. Maia backed to the door, fumbling for the handle. My legs—they were shaking. My hands, my jaw. A clacking sound scraped in my ears, and I recognized it as my teeth knocking against one another.

I reached for my legs—and stopped short.

My wrists were bare. Not a single remanent of the cuffs I’d worn almost my entire life showed itself on my skin.

The world bucked and heaved as I struggled to understand.

I remembered kneeling before Rawain to plead for Sefa and Marek’s lives. My cuffs falling to my feet when I rose, declaring mytrue name. The kitmer borne of my magic roaring in the center of the Citadel’s ballroom and the entire wing of the castle crashing around us. The sting of arrows dissolving into my skin and the strange faces surrounding me as the world faded to black. Had it all been real?

“Malika Essiya.”

I snapped to attention as a woman appeared in the spot Maia had occupied. The girl must have taken advantage of my stupor to fetch her. The newcomer’s hair was gathered in a severe bun, and a series of white scars forked through the brown skin of her throat. A dagger the length of my forearm dangled from the belt at her waist. The muscles on her arms bulged as she crossed them over her chest.

My fists would not be enough against this one.

“You’re one of the Urabi,” I said accusingly, scouring the room for anything I could use to protect myself. If I could get her close, maybe I could wrestle the dagger from her.

“I am. My name is Namsa. It is a pleasure to meet you, Malika Essiya.”

I flinched. She kept calling me that, and my nerves were too raw to tolerate the added scrape of the title.

“You drugged and abducted me from the Victor’s Ball.”

“We see it as drugged and rescued.”

“Oh, well ifyousee it that way.” I balled my fists. “Let me leave.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Namsa didn’t bother with the pretense of regret. She stayed cool in the face of my unraveling temper. “Your safety is our highest priority.”

My nostrils flared. She had unwittingly stomped right on one of the few threats someone could make to drive me straight out of my sanity. The last time I had felt trapped, I fled into Essam and dangled my bleeding body over the rocky bank of a river. The time before that, I’d left behind a corpse.

“Get out of my way.” My muscles, sore from disuse, bunched in preparation.

She set her feet. “Mawlati—”

I swung, fist colliding squarely with her right eye socket. An odd whine slipped from her mouth before she raised her arm to block my next blow.

She defended against each blow I tried to strike, not ceding a single inch. I couldn’t get close enough to reach for the dagger, nor could I maneuver around her to the door.

It took me longer than it should have to notice she hadn’t raised a hand against me once.

“Fight back!” I snapped. “What game is this?”

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