Page 10 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER FIVE

SYLVIA

T hree days had passed with sleep failing to find me in the Gibal, and tonight, I did not bother giving chase.

Like most Jasadis, the Urabi seemed to be largely nocturnal, which meant I couldn’t pace the inside of the mountain without running into someone around every corner.

The last time I had lived under the same roof as so many people was at Usr Jasad, and I’d had the benefit of my own wing.

Here, every covert stare and whisper pricked at the back of my neck, leaving me twitchy and increasingly on edge.

So, engaging in the perfectly rational actions of a woman missing two nights of sleep, I snuck back onto the pitch-black cliffside to explore the outside of the mountain.

The mountain quickly made its opinion of my presence known.

In the last twenty minutes, I had swallowed a bug and fallen face-first onto the frozen surface of a lake.

The ice hadn’t broken, thankfully, leaving me with only a bruised cheekbone and saving me from drowning under the most idiotic circumstances imaginable.

Despite the mountain’s passionate efforts to repel me, I seemed to have developed an appetite for near-death experiences, because I took one look at the edge of the cliffside and decided a bruised cheekbone was merely the introductory soup in my supper for fools.

Swearing under my breath, I tightened my grip on the rocks slipping beneath the frozen flesh formerly known as my fingers.

The gloves I’d had the presence of mind to wear before leaving my room had already saved me three times over.

I swept my boot across the rocks, groping for a solid place to land as I dangled over open air.

The lake hadn’t just gifted me with a giant, throbbing bruise. It had knocked loose a tale Soraya would read to me on nights as dark and overcast as this one. A tale of adventure and perilous journeys, of magic-rich waterfalls on the other side of the mountains that spilled into Suhna Sea.

Waterfalls flowing from Hirun River.

The waterfalls are the mountains weeping for the Awaleen , Soraya would say. All along Orban, Nizahl, and Jasad, they shed their tears into Suhna Sea to mourn the magic that has left this earth.

I climbed lower, digging the toes of my boots into the crumbling side of the mountain in lieu of a stable foothold.

Considering Soraya had poisoned my mother for years in Bakir Tower, helped the Mufsids sack Usr Jasad, and accidentally brought down the Jasad fortress, I wasn’t inclined to place much weight onto a single word out of her duplicitous mouth.

Not to mention the absurdity of believing Hirun River flowed beneath Orban—beneath the Desert Flats.

But Soraya had spoken about the waterfalls with such genuine emotion. The longing in her voice… it couldn’t hurt to check, could it?

I huffed a laugh, pressing my forehead to the inside of my arm to catch my breath. Even now, alone in my head, I couldn’t resist hiding from the truth.

Waterfalls sounded wonderful, but I wasn’t clinging to a sea-slicked mountainside in the dead of night because I craved a pretty view.

The other part of Soraya’s story brought me out here.

Specifically, the part about adventurers sneaking across the mountains into Suhna Sea by sailing through Hirun, which poured into the waterfalls and became the tears the mountains shed.

And if someone could find their way into the mountains through Hirun, maybe they could find their way out.

I was not planning to escape. Not just because I had nowhere to go, but because I had made a vow.

Still… time was the enemy of intention, and it couldn’t hurt to know what my options were.

It would be so much easier if the clouds would just part and let the moonlight through. I had always been a good climber—the trees in Usr Jasad’s courtyards had seen me dangling from their branches more than any leaf. A tiny, little bit of light would change everything.

Slowly, I scaled my way down the side of the cliff, the memory of Ayume Forest too near for comfort. But my hands were not raw and bloody from poisoned sap, and the stones were less punishing than the rope I had used to climb out of the forest and over the cliff.

I gritted my teeth. The climb in Ayume hadn’t just wreaked havoc on my body. My magic had been pounding against my cuffs, fighting for release, and managed to conjure a childhood version of myself to taunt and scold me.

I think even if your magic was free, and you had every advantage to reclaim our kingdom, you still wouldn’t save Jasad.

I flexed my fingers, holding tight as my boot found the flat of a protruding stone.

Power is a choice. When you choose who you are willing to fight for, you choose who you are.

Absurdly, just the memory of that snide little Essiya sparked my indignation.

I had chosen. In the heart of Nizahl, I had declared my true name to every royal in the land and exposed my magic.

I knew choosing just one time would not suffice; one time would not make up for the thousands of times I hadn’t chosen Jasad.

But did it mean I could only choose to fight for Jasad for the rest of my life?

Did it mean I could never choose myself again?

My ears caught a sound sweeter than any harmony, slightly louder than the cacophony in my head.

Rushing water.

The mountains curved along the sea, the night sky draped over their silhouette like a velvet shroud.

If not for the dull roar of waves smashing into the mountainside, the darkness beneath me might have been the doorway to another world, waiting to catch me as I tumbled off the side of the cliff and into an entirely different realm.

Swallowing, I forced myself to focus on my climbing without contemplating the impossible vastness of these mountains. The strange sense that I was disturbing something sacred—something better left unseen.

Droplets of water clung to my eyelashes, cold against my lips. I was getting close.

I considered releasing one of my hands to wipe the moisture from my eyes and thought better of it. The rocks had grown too slippery to risk leaving even an inch of air between myself and the surface.

Besides, I didn’t want to see the vein on my palm again.

I’d toyed with the idea of asking Namsa about it before she frolicked off to the “Aada” but thought better of it.

More likely than not, the vein was merely a remnant of the cuffs.

Nothing worth drawing attention to, and certainly not worth alarming Namsa.

She might consider it an ill tiding of my newly freed magic, and I wouldn’t know how to prove her wrong.

I knew my cuffs as well as I knew my right arm, but my magic?

I caught my breath as I shuffled from stone to stone, heading in the direction of the rushing water.

Hanim had tried to draw out my magic and failed, thanks to the cuffs.

Arin had drawn out my magic in limited amounts only, thanks to the cuffs.

My cuffs had protected me from the very worst of what I could do, and without them…

In the wrong hands, I could become a weapon turned against Jasad. I wasn’t like Dawoud, able to withstand years and years of torture without breaking. I wasn’t like my grandparents, knowledgeable in every way magic could be stolen, restrained, and withheld.

History had shown that I could be broken. I could be used. That, in fact, I seemed to accept my place most readily in circumstances where I lost the illusion of control. When I surrendered my choices to someone else to make on my behalf.

If Arin caught me, the war would end before it began.

At least with the Urabi, I could be used for Jasad. The choices they would make—the control I would surrender—would be on behalf of the kingdom I had failed.

The Urabi needed me, but I needed them, too.

I raised my leg to the next stone and nearly tipped sideways onto a long, flat surface holding firm beneath my boot. I tested its strength, shifting more and more of my weight onto it without releasing the rocks under my hands.

After reassuring myself it wouldn’t collapse and plunge me into the sea, I settled myself onto the ledge. The gush of fast-flowing water surrounded me. My hands prickled as I shook them out, stiff from hours of clinging to slippery stone.

The night refused to relent. I was clearly close to some kind of moving water, but without light, it was impossible to tell how close. Resigned to waiting until the moon reared its stubborn head, I slid to a cross-legged seat on the ledge.

I knew what Arin would say. I could use my magic to illuminate my surroundings. In fact, I could have used my magic to scale down the side of the mountain. Each time the idea occurred to me, I brushed it aside.

Without any other distraction, I reluctantly unchained the thought I had held captive the instant I saw my bare wrists.

“I can’t know for certain what would happen if your full magic was accessible.

I might be able to drain it normally. Maybe I’d never reach the bottom of your magic’s well, so to speak, and could only temporarily drain portions of it,” Arin said.

“But if you want my strongest theory, I suspect touching you while you can fully express your magic would kill me.”

If I started laughing at the irony, I might never stop. Arin’s touch had brought forth my magic and saved my life on at least two separate occasions, and now my touch could end his life.

The Urabi could never know. They already suspected my loyalties, and if they knew I had this ability and refused to use it, they would begin to doubt my heart, too. And I wouldn’t use it—not unless Arin left me with no other choice.

Perhaps growing jealous of the clouds I had collected over my own head, the moon finally decided to show its face. Wisps of white melted from the dissipating clouds, and I blinked against the brightness of the crescent waiting behind them.