Page 111 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

EPILOGUE

ARIN

TEN YEARS LATER

A rin had never given much thought to what he might face if love ever found him.

It was a word he vaguely understood, upon which people seemed to place great importance, and the combination had been a recurring point of frustration in his otherwise organized understanding of human nature.

He knew the general shapes of it—the back of his mother’s hand on his brow when he fell ill; rainy childhood days spent in his father’s chambers, working on his maps while Rawain read, their breathing the only sound for hours; Isra’s worry and Rawain’s pride when Arin excelled above his peers.

He had thought if love found him, it would be more of the same.

Just another bruise—something fleeting, painful if pressed, easy to hide.

Nobody warned him.

Why hadn’t they told him that love was not a soft and gentle wind, but a storm determined to rip you apart and build its home in the wreckage? That it brought with it uninvited guests, new fears and worries and paranoias beyond the reach of any reason.

How in those early days, before he knew what was happening, he would lose his breath at the thought of a future without her.

A future where the guests would be gone, but so would his new home.

The home she had carved inside him, where the air smelled like her hair and the bells sounded like her laugh.

A place where he could rest until he was old and weary, where he could only sleep with his hand settled over her heart, because even so many years later, that steady pulse was the only pillar Arin would ever lean on.

Death, he learned, did not change anything.

It didn’t destroy their home; it simply barred Arin from entering.

It meant years waiting on the steps. Days where Arin’s wrath would flare out of his control, and he would ride into Essam until he became safe for others to be around again.

Nights where, if he managed to go to sleep, he would just as often wake up gasping.

Maybe nobody warned him because they hoped they would never have to. Maybe they knew Arin’s love, like everything else about him, was made to frighten. Maybe they understood that if it found him and he lost it, what would be left of Arin would not be worth salvaging.

You don’t warn an injured horse before you swing the axe. Maybe that was why nobody warned Arin what he might face if love ever found him.

As usual, Ehal came to a stop a few paces away from the front of Sirauk Bridge. Wheeling above them, Niseeba crowed in victory. Arin usually took his excursions to Sirauk by flight, and he suspected the kitmer was jealous he had chosen Ehal for this journey.

Arin slid from his mount, patting the horse’s neck. “Ignore her. You took me much farther than any other horse would.”

Arin didn’t mind the added travel time of coming on horseback. It gave him the opportunity to stop by the market in Har Adiween and buy out the stock from the vendor selling sesame seed candies. She liked to joke that Arin’s one visit to Sirauk every year kept her in business.

She’d been surprised to see him this time. Understandable, since he had already made his trip to Sirauk four months ago, on Sylvia’s birthday. Essiya’s birthday had passed more recently, and he’d spent it with Sefa.

Arin’s gratitude at having the bridge to himself came striped in resentment. As soon as magic had begun to trickle back into the kingdoms, they had forgotten about the anniversary of a day they claimed changed history. They turned the page on Nuzret Kamel and never looked back.

Arin laughed softly. Perhaps he was simply jealous. Time had continued to turn after Nuzret Kamel, and everyone turned with it.

Everyone except Arin.

The life Arin led had not been touched by anything as merciful as time.

As Supreme, he had propelled his kingdom toward a future their founder would be proud of—a future better than the one his father had intended.

As Commander, he had helped navigate the nebulous future after Nuzret Kamel, forging bonds with Jasad and the newly appointed rulers in Lukub, Omal, and Orban.

He had done his best to keep his promise to Fareed.

But in every other sense, Arin had not taken a single step beyond this spot in ten years.

The mist swirled against his boots. Ten years ago, the fortress had stood where Arin was. Where it had fallen, the grass grew in brilliant blades of gold and silver.

No one had ever emerged from the mist.

It had been repeated to him more times than Arin cared to count. As though he were some delusional child or pining fool. As though he didn’t understand .

He understood perfectly. Nobody ever emerged from the mist. Sirauk Bridge did not entertain survivors. This was reality.

Arin had deliberately decided it would not be his.

He didn’t know if the mist would fall today. Malik Lateef had barred any travel toward Sirauk for the entire week, concerned people would forget that the mist might only fall for a total of two minutes during Nuzret Kamel, leaving them stuck on the bridge if they flocked onto it in great numbers.

To Arin, he had written a short note: We also remember her today. Be careful.

Arin pulled his necklace from under his vest and wrapped his fingers around the worn beads of the fig. It never left his neck, dangling inches above the black raven etched over his heart.

Sefa had wanted to come with him today. Arin rarely refused the Sultana of Lukub anything, but under no circumstances would he bring her to the site of Marek’s death. Ten years, and his ghost still haunted the Sultana. Arin would not deliver her to her grief.

He also did not want to bring along someone who believed Essiya dead. No matter what she claimed, Arin knew she only wanted to come because she was worried. She worried every time he visited.

“She is not coming back, Arin. Nobody who enters the mist returns,” Sefa had shouted once. “Every year, you wait. And every year, you come back from the bridge as broken as you were that first day.”

Arin had not spoken to her for eight months afterward.

Arin’s kingdom thrived. His people were fed, sheltered, and safe.

The kingdoms had not seen a significant conflict since the previous Nuzret Kamel, and Arin had spent years working with rulers he barely tolerated to ensure a smooth transition for the widespread return of magic, both within the kingdoms and between them.

He had done everything that needed to be done, dedicated the whole of his time and attention to their people’s shared success, and Sefa could not grant him one day a year?

A splatter of mud on the side of the basket caught his eye, and Arin swept it clean with the handkerchief in his pocket.

Arin never used his own magic. He frequently found himself wishing Essiya had just taken the scepter with her.

She had given Arin back a piece of himself that could not fit into any corner Arin cast it into.

Tightening his grip on the basket, Arin stepped onto Sirauk Bridge. The mist billowed around him, pale breath winding beneath his coat and through the black strands of his hair.

He was not as woefully tragic as Sefa and Jeru believed. He knew the Awaleen had been entombed for thousands of years. He knew it was almost impossible they would rise again, let alone within his lifetime.

But it should have been almost impossible for magic to return to the kingdoms.

It should have been almost impossible for the Nizahl Heir to find the Jasad Heir hiding in a tiny village in Omal.

It should have been almost impossible for him to fall in love with a woman who maddened him at every turn.

It had taken Arin too long to recognize that the best parts of his life existed in the almost . They existed here—beyond the reach of certainty, on the outskirts of doubt, swaying over the cliff of catastrophe.

His coat hung so heavy with frost, Arin did not notice when some of the warmth returned to his stiff limbs.

He did not register the rays of sunlight piercing the thinning mist, golden pools gathering over the damp boards of the bridge.

The boards he could see again for the first time in ten years, connecting Sirauk Bridge to the dense thicket of trees on the other side of the swaying planks.

Arin watched the mist dissipate, and he feared Sefa might have been right. His heart had begun to thump erratically, beating stronger than it had in a decade.

Ten years he had spent navigating the nexus of duty and despair, learning to balance himself on its fractures. Ten years in constant motion, never allowing anything as dangerous as hope to rise between the cracks long enough to change the path forward into a cliff.

In the center of the bridge, the mist melted around four figures.

One of them took an unsteady step toward him, curls catching on the rising wind. A slow grin spread over her face. Dark eyes fastened on to him as the sun cleared the last of the mist from Sirauk Bridge.

And Arin finally allowed himself to fall.

“Welcome home, Suraira.”