Page 17 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER NINE

ARIN

A rin reclined in his seat at the head of an excessively long table and imagined setting fire to the room.

Wishful thinking, but the idea tempted Arin more the longer he watched the council bicker.

A particularly opaque Nizahlan proverb came to mind, one his father had been partial to when teaching Arin about the foils of pursuing a plan out of passion instead of strategy.

Those with hunger and no vision will catch the duck and gorge themselves on its feathers.

He hadn’t understood it until this moment, sitting silently while men and women of supposedly advanced intelligence scrambled to ensure their horrible ideas were heard louder than the horrible ideas of the person next to them.

The war wing of the Citadel was the only one of the three—formerly four—wings of the Citadel strictly forbidden to anyone other than the council, royals, and their guards.

The first time he walked into Hatem Hall, shortly after the Victor’s Ball, Arin had counted no less than seventy-seven active spiderwebs.

Lanterns hung above the iron-banded table, dangling from a peaked glass ceiling.

The chairs were built many millennia ago from the oldest trees in Essam, and the austere wood had seated thousands of increasingly foolish counselors passing through Hatem Hall.

Basalt had been carved into sharp, long raven feathers and forged to the back of the Commander’s chair at the head of the table.

Their shadow stretched like raised wings on either side of Arin.

When the counselors’ blathering finally breached the outer limits of Arin’s patience, he spoke.

“Sama, correct me if I’m mistaken, but are you suggesting we rip apart every kingdom’s poorest population with an overwhelming show of military force on the slight chance we’ll capture members of a rebel group I have already scoured those same kingdoms for? ”

“What other choice do we have, sire?” Sama asked.

Her pin-straight hair fell in an assertive cut around her square jaw, giving Arin the impression of a soldier playing at accountant.

“The rebellions in Omal’s lower villages have made it impossible to search for the Jasad Heir without meddling in Omal’s affairs. ”

Three schools of thought— thought being a word Arin hesitated to apply to the intellectual backwash spewing from everyone in the room—had solidified in the last several hours. The longer Arin considered them, the harder it became to mask his scorn.

Arin tapped a finger against the edge of the table, counting the ridges.

Disdain dripped from his voice. “There will be no Nizahlan interference in the lower village rebellions. The chances of the Jasad Heir hiding in the Omalian lower villages are negligible, and I will not violate our own laws on a poorly calculated gamble.”

Rebellion had been brewing against the Omal crown for some time, and it had only grown stronger after Felix saw fit to interrupt Mahair’s Alcalah waleema by hurling a child in front of his horses.

In this, Nizahl’s founding laws had always been absolute: unless it involved magic or directly compromised Nizahlan lives, they would not interfere with the internal affairs of another kingdom.

The villagers could dismember Felix and hoist him on the spires of his own palace, and if it did not involve magic, Arin would execute any soldier who walked onto Omalian soil to intervene.

A few other counselors wanted to gather Sultana Vaida, Queen Hanan, and King Murib to secure their support and convince them to give Nizahl complete freedom to search their territories until the Jasad Heir was found.

Arin crossed one leg over the other. He affected a tone as lazy as his posture, befitting the value of the proposition.

“King Murib hasn’t strategized beyond what he plans to have for breakfast since the Jasad War.

Sorn runs most of the army’s operations.

And as we know, the whole of the Orban Heir’s time is dedicated to searching for a cure for his comatose Champion. ”

Sorn’s continued grief over his Champion had surprised everyone, including Arin. Rarely did Champions live to see the end of the Alcalah—a fact Arin would have thought Sorn needed no reminding of.

Even now, Sorn’s frantic bellowing while his Champion hung limp in his arms rang in Arin’s ears.

The sound had played in the background of his own consuming panic as Arin dragged the Jasad Heir out of the sand.

Though her head hadn’t gone under like Diya of Orban, her limp body and shallow breathing had been sufficient to strip Arin of any sense of relief.

Arin shook off the uninvited recollection. Until Sorn gave up on finding a cure for Diya, he was useless.

Arin continued, “The Zinish Accords are the only reason Sultana Vaida has not instigated war with us. I see no worthwhile reason to offer the Sultana a way to implicate Nizahl in a breach of the accords by involving her in our search.”

“The Sultana has a long history of running right up against the barriers of the Zinish Accords before backing down,” Layla added, speaking for the first time. The Nizahl emissary had been quietly taking notes since she sat down.

Arin nodded. “Layla is right. For years, Sultana Vaida has tested the limits of the Zinish Accords like a cat with a mouse under its paw: too clever to risk removing its grip entirely and too mischievous to resist pressing down.”

“What about Omal? Are we positive Queen Hanan holds no sway over her nephew?” Faheem asked. The newly appointed High Counselor ran the pad of his thumb over his brow, studying his notes with a weariness Arin knew all too well.

Faheem was the second person Arin had appointed to the council. The first was Layla. One by one, Arin’s people were replacing his father’s.

It had not gone unnoticed.

Gersiny, the oldest counselor in the room, shook his head. “Queen Hanan barely leaves the Omal palace, and reports have come back saying her health has taken a turn for the worse. The shock of seeing her son’s daughter alive has been difficult.”

“What does it matter? She’s been obsolete since the Blood Summit,” said Sama. “Felix should be our target. He helms the kingdom and its substantial resources. He has every reason to want the Jasad Queen captured. Her father was first Heir of Omal; her blood gives her a direct claim to his throne.”

“Felix is a spoiled child,” Faheem replied.

“The magnitude of an allyship is beyond his comprehension, and we cannot rely on the support of a vacillating ruler who holds his power like a rattle in a baby’s fist. We already have access into Omal and the rest of the kingdoms through the Madeen Declaration—as long as the soldiers do not exceed their bounds, we have written authority to search for the Jasad Queen as we see fit. ”

“We don’t even have enough soldiers to spare,” Bayoum said, and thus arose the third—and most grating—school of thought.

Years of practice kept Arin’s expression smooth and unreactive. Bayoum’s proposal seemed simple on its face. Reinstitute mandatory conscription across Nizahl, including in the lower villages, and eliminate the middle two tiers of training so the soldiers graduated faster.

Ham-fisted, lazy, and full of flaws. Just like every other idea Bayoum had proposed.

Under Nizahlan law, Arin couldn’t remove a previous appointee to the council without cause.

The rule allowed council members to speak truthfully on divisive matters without fearing the loss of their position or wasting time with flattery of the next Commander.

Ordinarily, Arin would find the rule useful.

Since it guaranteed the continued presence of Bayoum in the council room, he hated it.

Faheem cleared his throat. New as he was to his role, he hadn’t quite found his footing among his new colleagues. “We can’t risk what would happen if news of the Jasad Heir’s existence spread.”

Bayoum groaned. Dishwater-brown hair curved over and behind the counselor’s head like a peeled banana, as slippery as his ever-shifting eyes and too-ready smile.

“As I’ve repeated, the news will spread eventually.

If not today, then tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after.

The Urabi did not risk their necks breaking into the Citadel to abduct her so they could tuck her away and let her go to waste. ”

“We still don’t know it was an abduction. She probably snuck them onto the Citadel’s grounds before the third trial and gave them the signal to attack during the ball,” Sama interjected. She firmly believed the Victor and the Urabi had been in communication the entire time.

Arin’s fingers curled instinctively, his gloves sparing his fingernails from splintering against the table.

It wasn’t the first time Sama had shared her theory. In fact, she wasn’t even the first person to entertain the possibility that the Urabi and the Heir had been colluding throughout the Alcalah.

The Jasad Heir had been lying to him since the beginning. It would make perfect sense that she’d been lying about more than just her identity.

Except, Arin didn’t see the use of it. He didn’t see what she stood to gain from enduring the Alcalah and risking her life in each trial if she was merely waiting for the right moment to join the Urabi.

If escape had been her goal all along, she would have taken it when he offered.

Run. Take a horse and get as far away as you can.

Be free.

Faheem cleared his throat, reclaiming Arin’s attention. “If we conscript half the lower villages, they’ll find out about her much sooner than if we let nature take its course.”

“It’s not nature that’ll decide!” Bayoum threw his arms into the air, and the conversation promptly devolved.

Arin counted the table’s ridges.

Five years ago, Arin’s elimination of non-wartime conscription in the lower villages had been met with outrage. He had explained it just once: nobody should be wearing Nizahl’s uniform or lifting a sword in its name who did not wish to.

Bayoum had made a career of attempting to reverse every policy Arin implemented. The existence of the Jasad Heir had given him a perfect opportunity to take aim at conscription.

As long as Arin remained Nizahl’s Commander, his word on all military dictates reigned.

No amount of impassioned arm-waving from Bayoum could change the simple fact that unless Arin died, appointed his offspring as successor, or was found guilty of treason against Nizahl, the forces of this kingdom answered to him, and him alone.

The only other way to remove a sitting Commander was to hold a Nitraus Vote.

The legal mechanism had been put into place in 930 A.E.

in response to the actions of a particularly maniacal Commander, and it had been used exactly three times throughout history.

The Nitraus Vote allowed the council, with the support of the Supreme, to override a Commander in order to instigate or end a war.

A Nitraus Vote meant all faith had been lost in the authority and judgment of the Commander.

The Nitraus Vote was a relic. A few paltry lines among thousands in Nizahl’s legal texts. Arin had forced himself to consider the option—to unravel that particular future within his mind’s eye—until he felt comfortable setting it aside.

To his right, Layla yawned just as she caught Arin’s eye. She blushed a bright red and straightened in her seat.

She turned back to the squabbling with an attentiveness bordering on comical, clearly embarrassed.

Not as though Arin blamed her for losing interest, but Layla took immense pride in her work.

Most people were surprised when Arin introduced Layla as the inter-kingdom emissary, since everything about her radiated guilelessness.

Her round, heart-shaped face and wide eyes.

The golden hair drifting around her shoulders like a cloud of sunshine, left loose to give her the opportunity to demurely tuck the strands behind her ears.

The impression of softness and vulnerability was one she had wielded with expert skill across a variety of scheming courts.

Her subtle approach had taken Arin longer than usual to recognize.

She did not assert her opinions or forcefully impress her will upon a higher authority.

Instead, Layla would press against their resolve, over and over, a gentle wave eroding the most unyielding rock.

The style required a patience and stability of temperament Arin admired.

Layla glanced at Arin again, and he remembered to avert his eyes too late. Her flush deepened, prodding at a tension Arin would rather leave forgotten.

Arin had known Layla since childhood, and any romantic interest Arin may have contemplated faded soon after it sparked.

For as expertly as Layla navigated the twisted games of royalty, Arin had the sense she had never crossed the line into experiencing the true savagery leashed at its core.

Hers was a high-collared life of perfume politics and deals struck over lavish meals in gilded manors.

If I were a sensible woman, I would slit your throat while you slept.

Arin thrust the memory aside with an impatient hand. He did not need to scour his own mind to understand that a certain kind of violence appealed to him—that the Jasad Heir’s oceans of wrath had called to Arin like a poisoned fountain to a parched man.

With a strained smile, Faheem interrupted the latest round of bickering to suggest, “With Your Highness’s leave, let us disperse and reconvene later in the day. After sunset, perhaps, if it should please the council.”

When Arin gave a short nod, Faheem melted into his chair.

“Sunset, then,” the new High Counselor said.