Page 97 of The Jasad Crown

—they did this—

When the magic swept through me this time, I welcomed it. I greeted an old friend with open arms.

I kneel in the mud, rain sluicing over my hair and shoulders. I failed. I failed. I failed.

The figures from the waterfall appeared beside me. We wouldn’t let her die. We would save her. We would not lose her the way we lost Dawoud. They knelt in a circle around Raya, shoulders touching.

“Essiya,” Rory repeated, low. “My child, magic cannot reverse death.”

“She lives, chemist,” we said. “Death has not laid its claim.”

One hand closed around Raya’s wound. The other, we pressed to the center of her chest. Together, we counted the beats.

One, two.She will live.

Three, four.She will be safe.

Five, six.She is ours.

Light bloomed in the center of Raya’s chest. It built, a sun burning through its mortal skin. Gold waves lapped over one another as it grew, searing into the eyes of the girls crouched around Raya. They cried out, turning away, but my eyes held steady.

I pressed down against her chest, her heart trapped between her spine and the heel of my hand, and her wound began to bleed. Silver blood poured from Raya’s chest and trickled onto the ground. Gallons and gallons of silver, pooling around us. Soaking our knees and swords.

Once given, it cannot be returned, the others whispered. Billows of gold unhinged like a ravenous mouth, unspooling out of Raya.If you make her ours, we cannot take it back.

I didn’t want anything back. There was no Mahair without Raya. These girls would not become vagrants at my hand. Raya’s story would not end today, not like this.

We pressed until a bone cracked in Raya’s chest.

A drop of silver slithered back into Raya’s wound. Then another, and another. Sliding into her skin, brightening her veins as we watched. The golden light flared in tides that could reach the ends of the world, rise as tall as the mountains on the edge of the sea.

We pressed our wrists together, the memory of silver cuffs trapping us never too far behind, and threw our arms open.

The face in the bucket of water smiles. Behind her, the mutilated bodies of the cats that wouldn’t play sway from the branches of her favorite trees. The gold and silver in her eyes hold perfectly still, and she is too busy admiring them to notice the shadow stretching over the water, nor the shovel hurtling toward the back of her head.

As suddenly as they had flooded forth, the tides of gold receded, shrinking until they were a single glowing ember floating in the air.

Soft as a feather, it melted into the center of Raya’s forehead.

I gasped as my magic waned. The figures disappeared around me, emptiness following in their wake. I wanted to cry at the loss.

“What did you do?” Rory whispered, and his fear finally drew me away from the aching nothingness. Rory had an arm out as though to shield the girls from me. They cowered behind him, and two thoughts collided as one.

Why would he think I would hurt them?

Does he think he could stop me? I can strip their bones dry in the same time it takes him to waste my name on his lips.

A shudder rolled over me. I scrambled off of Raya, startling my horse. Rory and I stared at each other, wide-eyed, and I opened my mouth.

Except, I didn’t trust my voice. If I spoke, I wasn’t sure who would shape the words.

Me, orit.

The answer would remain unknown to us both, because Raya groaned. I crawled toward her, hovering without touching. Terrified of what my hands would do if they reached for her.

“Raya?” I said, tentative. “Can you hear me?”

A guttural groan. “I wish I couldn’t.”

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