Page 12 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER SIX

SYLVIA

W ater rushed over me once more, bringing the creatures on the other side of the barrier with it. My magic had failed me, and now legendary sea beasts were about to take turns tearing me to pieces.

Something hard collided with my wheeling feet, halting my descent. I caught a glimpse of red scales and giant black eyes. Before I could scream again, the creature surged forward. My knees buckled, flattening me against its back as I scrambled to hold on to its slippery skin.

Was it carrying me back to its home? Was I about to be dropped over a cradle of baby sea monsters?

The water parted above me, and beautiful, wonderful, freezing wind slapped the gasp of relief straight from my lips. The clouds parted, a ray of hazy dawn light catching on the scales beneath me and casting millions of red diamonds over the churning waters.

I dug my fingers between scales larger than my body, wincing at the gooey squelch, and held tight. If it planned to throw its head back and eat me in midair the way I’d seen Marek toss a roasted pumpkin seed into his mouth, it would have to throw me hard .

Please cease your wriggling. I am earnestly endeavoring not to dislodge you.

I jerked, nearly losing my grip. “Are you talking to me?”

No response, although the vibrations in my head seemed to shape themselves into a sigh.

Where were the waves? The slap of waves against the cliffside had vanished, the sting of its spray noticeably absent.

I immediately regretted glancing back. My mind frayed like the hem of a poorly sewn blouse. Maybe I had drowned. Maybe my dying brain was rewriting reality to comfort me in my last moments.

The sea level flattened as a red island rose out of the water.

A spine longer than the tallest mountain blotted the horizon as its iridescent scales emerged from beneath the waves.

On either side of its enormous body, two powerful fins propelled the creature through the water.

Each fin could flatten an entire village.

I whipped my head forward. My wet braid slapped me across the cheek. If this was what I thought it was…

In Jasad, we called this creature Sareekh il Ma’a. Omal referred to it as the Scream of the Sea, and the other kingdoms just called it a legendary nightmare.

One of Rovial’s first acts upon founding Jasad had been to swim the length of Hirun. A brisk thousand miles later, Rovial stood in the shadows of the mountains, captivated by the sight of the setting sun gilding Suhna Sea in golds and reds.

A precocious lizard had raced over his foot, and Rovial scooped it up, studying the little red reptile.

Baira had her Ruby Hounds, Kapastra her rochelyas, and Dania her bulls.

Unlike his siblings, Rovial didn’t see the need to create an army of creatures at his beck and call, but one…

just one creature, something to appreciate the beauty of the sun as it disappeared beneath the sea and protect Hirun from ever being dammed.

I was not a “little” lizard. I was a burss the size of your leg.

I managed not to yelp this time, which should be lauded as one of the most impressive feats of my existence.

Sareekh il Ma’a stopped lifting us halfway up the cliff. The shimmering scales beneath my hands quivered and slid apart. I lost my hold and tumbled down its back, grappling for purchase.

A dozen vines shot out from the Sareekh’s back.

Attached to the end of each one was a large bone-white knob, not unlike a rosebud before its bloom.

One of the claws unfurled, spikes of bone stretching open to catch me before I had slid more than a few feet.

It wrapped itself around my middle like a skeletal corset.

The spikes tightened when I tried to wiggle my fingers between them and my torso.

They held me fast as the rest of the Sareekh’s spine separated, revealing a spinal column covered in a heavy gelatinous sheath. Beneath the layers of goo, hundreds of furled bone claws formed the knobs of the Sareekh’s spine.

I shrieked as hundreds of those spinal buds speared through the gelatinous sheath, blooming like death’s bouquet.

Had I not watched my family burn before my eyes, this would have been the most frightening sight of my life.

I touched one of the spines wrapped around me like a second set of ribs. Warm and hard to the touch, it shivered but didn’t unlatch. Even if I managed to pry them off without one of them skewering me, I’d just slide right into the next one.

The vine lifted me through the air, and I was so occupied watching the distance between me and the Sareekh grow, I almost didn’t notice when my feet made contact with a hard surface.

The cliff.

The bones relaxed, unceremoniously dropping me into a heap on the ground.

I crawled away from the edge on all fours, abandoning any notions of dignity.

I turned in time to watch the stems retract into the Sareekh and the bone claws coil back into a hard knob before being absorbed into the gelatinous layer of the spinal column.

Its scales rippled as the panels of its spine closed once more.

I patted my body, absently checking for any wayward pieces as my heart heaved back to life. It hadn’t dropped me. It saved me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

You may call upon me at any hour of need.

I shivered. My magic hadn’t betrayed me. It broke the protective bubble because it knew my best chance of survival was waiting behind it.

But it had also made the decision on my behalf.

I sensed a presence behind me, but I couldn’t peel my gaze from the Sareekh’s. It regarded me with an intelligence I could live ten thousand lifetimes without equaling.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I dipped my chin in a slow nod. Of gratitude, of respect. This creature was as old as Sirauk Bridge, as ancient as the Awaleen sleeping in the tombs beneath it.

The Sareekh sank into the darkening waters. Its spine arched, casting a shadow over the side of the mountain. I threw my arm over my face as a wave slammed into the cliffside.

The surface of the sea smoothed. The only evidence of the Sareekh were the thin, symmetrical bruises forming on my sides from the bone claw. The presence behind me shifted closer.

Because of the Sareekh, I would live another day.

Because of Efra, I almost hadn’t.

I got to my feet. I was trembling, but it had nothing to do with the cold. I greeted the rage flooding through me like an old friend. It wasn’t the livid, impassioned rage that led to the Victor’s Ball collapsing around Supreme Rawain and the other guests. This rage was cold. Cleansing.

Efra lingered a few paces behind me, open-mouthed with astonishment. “That was Sareekh il Ma’a!”

“You saw me before I fell! I waved to you for help, and you ignored me!” I seethed. “You watched that thing jumping around the ledges before it pulled me into the waterfall.”

Efra’s brows furrowed. “Thing? What thing?”

“Do you think lies will save you? I saw you .”

“I am not lying,” he snapped. “Yes, I watched you standing by the waterfall, but you seemed fine on the ledge. And you were completely alone .”

I stopped short. He hadn’t seen the apparitions?

If none of that had been real… if I had imagined it all…

But the voice I’d heard behind the water. The glowing gold-and-silver eyes that may as well have been plucked out of my face, the hand yanking me into the waterfall.

Later—I would dwell on the questionable state of my sanity later. “Even if you thought I was alone, why didn’t you get help?” He had still seen me completely stranded in the middle of the mountain, clearly panicked.

Brown curls tumbled over his brow, victims to the restless wind.

The nervous way he swept them back reminded me of Sefa.

If Sefa were here, she’d note Efra was only a year or two older than me.

We had absolved Marek many a foolhardy mistake, and he had weathered much less damage in his life than Efra probably had. Sefa would try to forgive him.

But Sefa wasn’t here, and I hadn’t gone to find her because for the first time in my life, I was trying to keep a vow. To break a pattern. I had run after the Blood Summit, after I killed Hanim, after I killed the Nizahl soldier. I’d even run away my first night in the tunnels.

For once, I was trying to stay .

“You didn’t use your magic,” Efra said, and I stopped short.

“What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t use your magic to climb down. You didn’t use it to light your way. You didn’t even use it when you stumbled into the waterfall.”

“How long were you watching me?” I balked.

Efra’s lips curled back. “I told them it was a trick, what happened at the Victor’s Ball. Another hoax delivered by the same hands that ruined our kingdom.”

Frustration rolled like a rock between my teeth, and I forced myself to swallow it down.

I hadn’t remembered the truth about my grandparents’ magic mining until after the second trial, but the Urabi had suffered under it their entire lives.

Magic mining wasn’t some theory or whispered secret.

To them, it was a family member who never came home.

A friend whose death couldn’t be fully explained, whose body went missing.

“I’m sorry for what my grandparents did,” I said, because I was. I was sorrier than he would ever know. “But my magic is not your concern.”

“It is when our survival relies on it.”

I looked at Efra for a long moment. “Consider your next words to me carefully, Cinnamon. I do not take kindly to being manipulated to suit someone’s ends, regardless of how noble those ends might be.”

I moved to walk around him, but he shifted into my path. “You lack a natural connection with your magic.”