Page 13 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

Without missing a beat, I shoved him with my full strength, sending him sprawling.

“Of course I do,” I hissed, looming over him.

“I didn’t have access to it for over half my life.

It failed me every time I needed it. Where was my magic when Hanim flayed my back raw?

When she sent monsters after me in Essam, when they ripped into me with teeth and claws the size of your ego?

All this time, it was right there. What if I rely on it and it betrays me again? ”

The confession caught us both by surprise.

Efra reclined on the ground, offering me a venom-tipped smile. “Perhaps it didn’t feel inclined to bend to the will of the Silver Serpent’s traitorous whore.”

Someone gasped, and I belatedly realized Maia had emerged from the mountain. I didn’t have to check to guess what her face would read: shock and horror. Not because of what Efra had said, but because he had dared say it. He had dared speak the thought circulating in everyone’s head.

For a dizzying moment, I stepped out of time to stand in a cabin many miles from here, Arin across from me and a dead Nizahl soldier’s body at my feet.

I offer you a new life.

My freedom in exchange for competing as his Champion in the Alcalah and luring the Urabi and Mufsids into his trap.

I had foreseen this moment, accepted the title of Nizahl Champion with full awareness that it would forever tarnish my true name.

I hadn’t cared then. Essiya was a stranger to me, and I would have done anything to ensure Sylvia lived free.

“The last person who called me a whore was a guardsman named Vaun,” I mused.

My waterlogged boot kicked out and caught Efra’s temple, snapping his head to the right.

“We fought, and my magic erupted over me like fire—scorching him and leaving me untouched. I wanted to kill him. I should have killed him. It was a mistake to leave someone like Vaun alive.”

Efra leapt to his feet and swung, his fist careening wide.

I grabbed a handful of his hair as his pathetic blow passed me by a mile and slammed my fist into his jaw, knocking him back into the dirt.

Was this the caliber of fighters among the Urabi?

Maybe if Efra hadn’t relied on his magic so much, he wouldn’t have the fighting instincts of an inebriated raccoon.

“I never make the same mistake twice.”

I fisted the front of his tunic and grabbed a heavy rock, preparing to deliver a blow he wouldn’t recover from. But first, I drew him forward, softening my voice to say, “In the next life, be more wary of us traitorous whores. Especially, sweet Cinnamon, when we’re the ones wearing the crown.”

My elbow bent, lifting the rock over my head. Efra’s eyes squeezed shut.

“We need your magic to raise the fortress!” Maia screamed.

Efra’s head twisted, alarm blaring through his battered features. “Be quiet, Omaima!”

Maia appeared behind Efra, crouching behind his shoulders.

She threw her arms around his head. “Please! Efra was born this unpleasant, he can’t help himself.

But he isn’t taunting you about your magic to be obnoxious, Mawlati.

He asks after your magic because the Aada—our council—plans to invade the Omal palace to present you to Queen Hanan.

As Emre’s only child, you have a higher claim to the throne than Felix.

If you become Omal Heir, you control the armies of the largest kingdom in the lands. ”

Disbelief tinged my laugh. I didn’t lower my arm. Their grand plan, the reason for hunting me down across four kingdoms… was to try to take Omal’s throne? “Why would you want Omal’s armies? Felix has rotted them. They have no battle skill, no tactical intelligence.”

“They have numbers,” Maia said. “We need numbers.”

Dumbstruck, I stared at Maia. It dawned on me that she was telling the truth. If Efra’s petulant silence hadn’t convinced me, the sheer absurdity of this plan would have.

Title and magic. I’d thought I had the answer for what my title offered them, but clearly I had underestimated the Urabi. I was the daughter of Niphran of Jasad and Emre of Omal.

Born Heir of Jasad and Heir of Omal.

“Queen Hanan disinherited me at birth.” I thought of the dull-eyed, fragile woman drowning in her finery at the head of Omal’s banquet table.

She’d barely had the strength to hold a conversation, let alone strip her monstrous nephew of his title and pass it to the human equivalent of political suicide.

“Giving the title to me would turn her own council against her. It would mean war with Nizahl. Queen Hanan helped tear our kingdom to pieces. She signed the decree against magic. What makes you think she would have any interest in reinstating me?”

“She was grieving her son and her husband during the war,” Maia said. “She may feel differently now, knowing her granddaughter lives.”

Rovial’s tainted tomb. Sequestering in the mountains had bred their delusion, unchecked, and developed it into a plan guaranteed to annihilate us.

I went back to Maia’s first remark. “What does Queen Hanan have to do with the fortress?”

Maia hesitated. She glanced at the rock still clenched in my fist. “If our plan to regain your title in Omal fails, we will have no choice but to stand on our own in Jasad. Even if seventy percent of the Jasadis in hiding come out to fight with us, we will not triumph against the forces of Nizahl, Omal, Orban, and Lukub. We are already running out of time—the kingdoms have been purging their lands of magic, bypassing Nizahl’s laws to execute anyone suspected of having it.

Hundreds are already dead, and the rest will be too frightened to risk traveling to Jasad without assurance of their protection.

Our only chance of survival would be to resurrect the fortress around Jasad. ”

Was this some sick attempt at humor? “It took thousands of Jasadis to raise the fortress. The effort of channeling their power burned Qayida Hend alive, and that was centuries ago, when magic was still rich in our blood.” My grip tightened on the rock. “The Jasad fortress cannot be raised.”

Eyes entirely too sincere for someone protecting an idiot pleaded with me. “I swear to Sirauk, Namsa and the Aada have been meeting to figure out how we can prepare you to raise the fortress by Nuzret Kamel.”

Nuzret Kamel? The name rang a distant bell. Some holiday the lower wilayahs had celebrated. What did it have to do with raising the fortress?

Maia placed her hand on the rock and gently pushed my arm down. “We were going to tell you once you became more comfortable in the Gibal, but circumstances have changed. Efra acted without thinking, but it wasn’t out of malice. We’re desperate.”

I dropped the rock, disgusted with myself for entertaining any of this. “What do you mean, circumstances changed?”

Efra’s purpling lips curled into a sneer, and he finally broke his silence. “The Silver Serpent thinks he can hide your existence and wage this war in the shadows.”

I didn’t move my glare from Efra as the door to the mountain scraped opened.

“Maia, Efra, what’s happening?” Namsa appeared in my periphery. “Mawlati, you’re soaked!”

“Efra,” I said quietly. Dangerously. “What did you do?”

He wiped the blood dribbling from his nose. “The first strike of this war, Mawlati , goes to us.”