Page 20 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER TWELVE

MAREK

M arek’s lifelong trouble was this: unless someone stopped him, he was liable to find himself on track to be expeditiously murdered.

He turned on the cot, mindful of jostling the soldier sleeping in the bunk below him.

Finding himself on the wrong side of a sleep-deprived Nizahl soldier had taught him how to dodge a punch better than any formal training could.

His brothers had taken swings at him more times than Marek could count before his parents finally let him have his own bedroom.

Years of stealth informed Marek’s movements as he climbed down the ladder at the end of the bunk. The soldier—Zaid? Zain?—didn’t stir as Marek gathered his shoes from the pile by the door and slipped into the hall.

Marek closed the door behind him and released his breath. He tugged on his shoes.

As he strode past rows of closed doors, vigilant of the sleeping soldiers stacked into rooms that hadn’t known the pleasure of a mop since the dawn of the Awaleen, Marek thought of his family.

Amira, Hani, Binyar, Darin—all of Marek’s older siblings had slept in a clustered, morbid compound just like this one.

Amira died at twenty-one while stopping a riot in Nizahl’s lower villages.

Most of Marek’s memories of his sister were foggy, but oh, did he remember her smile.

A smile not even their humorless mother could ignore.

Despite the two crooked bottom teeth Hani would mercilessly tease her about, Amira never let her smile shrink.

“You’re jealous your teeth are plain and boring,” she’d toss back.

Marek’s chubby five-year-old fingers often dove toward her mouth in a childish attempt to straighten her teeth and shut Hani up.

How dare Hani mock her smile , Marek would think.

When I get big and strong, I’ll make all of Hani’s teeth crooked so he can never be mean to Amira again.

Amira never got to see Marek get big and strong. They buried her after Marek’s sixth birthday, and it wouldn’t have mattered if Marek had knocked all of Hani’s teeth out right then, because Hani left his smiles in the grave next to their sister.

Marek walked faster, his chest growing tight. The ghosts of his siblings were everywhere in Nizahl, especially in these Awaleen-damned training compounds. He glanced down at his stolen uniform and felt ill.

The guards stationed at the front of the compound nodded to Marek as he exited into the chilly night. “Water’s hot if you’re angling to beat them to the bath,” one of them said, gesturing across the field to the squat, single-story building surrounded by clotheslines. “Sun’s up in twenty.”

“Twenty minutes?!” He’d overslept! Tombs-damned Zaid/Zain and his unnaturally quiet breathing. Marek usually roused to the sound of Sefa’s predawn snores.

Change of plans. Marek would walk far enough to get out of their line of sight and then get to the fence.

His paranoia proved unnecessary—the guards didn’t watch as he moved in the direction of the baths.

Like the other soldiers, their trust had been easily won.

Marek possessed the right kind of confidence, his accent held a trace of Nizahlan upper society, and his familiarity with military procedures had only aided in helping him blend in.

In Omal, he’d needed to fight to keep his Nizahlan accent from slipping through.

About a week ago, Marek had materialized in a storage closet deep inside the Nizahlan military’s training compounds.

He’d still been in the middle of reaching for Sefa, intent on knocking her out of the falling boulder’s way, and he’d wasted an embarrassing number of minutes panicking in the closet.

Sefa was gone, a gold- and silver-eyed Sylvia had waved her hand and apparently transported him across Nizahl, and he had no idea what he would find when he opened the door.

When Marek finished gathering his wits, he’d swiped an oversize uniform from the wash basket and slipped out. Every glance had felt like an accusation, and Marek’s sweat could have refilled Hirun twice over.

Luckily, too many new recruits passed through the compounds for his arrival to trigger any alarms. Entry into this sector of Nizahl was heavily screened, nearly impossible to breach, so nobody doubted his presence.

Marek lifted his head to the breeze, relishing the fresh earthiness of it. In Mahair, he’d be lucky to find a single spot in the village untainted by the scent of manure from Yuli’s farm. He’d forgotten what it was like to wake up and smell something other than excrement.

Nobody intercepted Marek on his way to the farthest corner of the gate.

Marek wasn’t sure where in Nizahl Sylvia had dropped him.

The kingdom had at least sixteen compound communities just like this one for new recruits, and more for each subsequent level of training.

Maintaining the most skilled army in the kingdoms certainly ate up the acres.

If he had to guess, Marek would say this compound was somewhere east. Remote enough to grant them privacy, but not more than four or five days’ ride to the nearest village.

By the time he reached the fence, Marek’s nose was running from the cold. He checked over his shoulder for the hundredth time. Nobody had followed him.

Marek’s heart catapulted into his throat as he knelt, palms slipping against the grooves in the fence.

A few feet from the bottom, a hole the size of his thumbnail punctured the hard metal.

Marek had found it after days of scouring for a means of escape.

Three times a day, Marek came to this spot and pressed his eye to the fence.

The only thing waiting for him on the other side was the same gnarled tree. Tears of disappointment sprang into Marek’s eyes too fast to counter. He let them fall.

Rationally, he knew Sefa wouldn’t find him here. Sylvia’s magic had been whipping around the Victor’s Ball without any measure of premeditation, and she could have sent Sefa anywhere in the kingdoms.

He leaned back on his haunches, staring unseeingly at the fence. He hadn’t left Sefa’s side since they were twelve years old, and now Sefa was out there alone. Marek wanted to ram himself against the fence until either it broke, or he did.

Light crawled under Marek’s bent knees. It stretched over his uniform and began its steady and unstoppable climb over the compound.

His knees cracked as he stood. The frost had seeped into his pants, but he hardly felt it.

At the sight of soldiers spewing over the field like ants, Marek sloughed off his bitter sorrow and cast it aside. He was going to escape from this compound and find Sefa. The minute the opportunity to leave presented itself, Marek would be gone, leaving behind nothing more than a dazzling memory.

If they caught up to him, he would be executed for a bevy of different crimes, not the least of which was desertion, but what good plan didn’t involve at least some risk of beheading?

The halls strained with the cacophony of disgruntled shouts, creaking floors, and wet feet slapping their way back from the baths. Someone rammed into Marek, nearly sending him to the ground. “Sorry,” the soldier mumbled, his wet hair plastered to the sides of his head like a second skin.

Marek shrugged affably. “What’s your hurry?”

“Didn’t you hear? One of the Commander’s personal guardsmen is visiting. We need to be in formation at Fareed Mill in ten minutes.”

The blood drained from Marek’s face.

The fresh-faced recruit rushed around Marek, eager to meet one of Arin of Nizahl’s personal guardsmen. Why wouldn’t he be? Only four highly qualified men in the world held the coveted role.

No, not four. The quiet one had gotten an arrow through the eye during the Meridian Pass ambush. So just three men who would take one look at his face and either cut him down on the spot or drag him to the Citadel, where their Commander would do much worse.

Marek didn’t think before he started running. Their superior officer would be furious with Marek for missing the guardsman’s visit, but his wrath paled against the risk of encountering one of the Heir’s trained murderers.

He dove into the first empty room he came across and slammed the door shut. Twisting like a sheet on an unstable clothesline, Marek searched for a window. But without knowing which part of the fence the guardsman’s cavalry would enter through, he couldn’t risk hiding outside.

Marek dropped to the floor and squeezed under the bunk. It was a good day not to have the brawn and barrel chests of the other soldiers. He sipped the air, trying not to jostle the bedframe with the rise and fall of his chest.

Eventually, the scurry in the hall went quiet.

Marek breathed, and he waited.

While his body lay trapped, Marek’s mind wandered.

The flurry of new recruits, the visit from the Commander’s guardsman…

it had to be about Sylvia. The creature she’d conjured at the Victor’s Ball had featured in Marek’s nightmares more than once already.

If the gold wings and black eyes hadn’t clued Marek in, the horns on either side of its enormous skull would have (Marek may not have paid much attention in school, but even he recognized the symbol of Jasad).

He could hardly bring himself to believe that a kitmer the size of a building had been animated by the same Sylvia he’d seen blow her nose in a dirty tunic (“It’s going to be washed anyway!

”), hide loaves of aish feeno in her waistband, swear and swing at moths that flew too close to her head, and rant about frogs until Marek begged her to stop.

In the hall, a leather boot creaked.

The bottom of Marek’s stomach dropped. He scooted away from the side of the bed facing the door, pressing his back to the wall.

Through the crack of the door, the light dispersed around a shadow. It lingered long enough for the spit to dry in his mouth. Before he’d done more than bunch his muscles in preparation, the shadow moved.

Away from the door.

Marek went loose-limbed with relief. Thank the Awaleen.

Marek didn’t intend to stick around for the shadow’s encore. He pulled himself out from under the bed and stood, wincing at the painful pull in his lower back. He was only twenty-three years old, but his back felt every one of those years.

Pressing his ear to the door, Marek listened for any sign of movement. Silence met him when he cracked open the door. He cast a quick glance through the part of the hall he could see. Still nothing.

Relief slackened his shoulders. Just an absent-minded recruit.

Marek opened the door the rest of the way and stepped outside. Maybe he’d try hiding under Diran’s bed; Marek had heard Diran’s parents regularly sent him the best food, and Marek doubted the kitchen had saved him a plate at breakfast.

Before he had taken more than a step forward, a tanned hand materialized from his right and grabbed his collar. The world blurred as Marek flew back into the room. He slammed his knee against the bedpost and swore so loudly, it nearly masked the click of the door shutting behind him.

Marek whipped around, raising his arms to bar any further grabbing, and went still.

“Uh-oh,” Marek said. His heart pounded. “The Commander’s good little boy is far from home, isn’t he?”