Page 37 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

SEFA

N othing good could come out of joining the Sultana in a midnight excursion through the streets of Lukub, yet here Sefa was—fully dressed and incredibly disturbed.

The chill nipped at Sefa’s bare cheeks. The stories of Lukub’s nocturnal proclivities had clearly been exaggerated.

The street stretched empty before them, devoid of any signs of movement beyond the lanternlight dripping its shadows over the pale stone roads.

Domed two-story buildings lined the sides of the street, reminding Sefa of eggs arranged in a basket.

They passed one dome with red stripes, the bottom faded into strips of paint peeling onto the grass.

Emerald tiles swirled across the sides of the dome beside it.

Vaida strolled along the empty road in a tight cotton sheath, her fingers curled around the sides of her white cloak. The hood was pulled over her braids and drawn low over her forehead. Without her signature ruby-red lip paint and kohl, the Sultana looked startlingly young.

She had taken off all her rings except one. The one. The ring Sefa had begun to fixate on with worrying regularity, the ring that never left Vaida’s finger no matter how frequently Sefa checked.

The Sultana’s ensemble had clearly been chosen with anonymity in mind, and Sefa fought to stifle her amusement. A lion would have more luck masquerading as a ladybug. If someone took one good look at Vaida’s face, the ruse would be over in an instant.

“You never mentioned you were a seamstress,” Vaida said, speaking for the first time since she’d had a servant wake Sefa in the dead of night and summon her to the carriage.

Sefa nearly tripped over her own boots. Fear breathed fire over her skin, and she itched to press the backs of her hands against her cheeks to push back the blood rising to her face.

“Your Majesty?” was all Sefa could think to squeak.

“My servants speak of the gowns you’ve been working on in your chambers. Are they for me?”

The half-finished gowns in her room. Relief slackened the muscles in Sefa’s stomach. “They are not worthy of you, Sultana,” Sefa said. “Just a silly task I busy myself with when sleep fails me. A distraction.”

“I see. Has serving me been so awful that you need a daily distraction?” The Sultana’s bottom lip quivered.

“Of course not!”

“Good.” Like the tide sweeping away letters spelled into the sand, her pout faded into boredom. “What do you need distracting from, then?”

Baira’s blessed beauty. Every hair on Sefa’s body stood on end.

Emotions weren’t meant to be so… fleeting. They didn’t have clean lines and discernible edges. But the Sultana tried on emotions like hats, modeling them for the occasion, and cast them aside with an ease that chilled Sefa to her bones.

“My own head,” Sefa answered. She could hardly reveal how much the servants loathed her.

How they went quiet when she entered the room or plated her food on dirty dishes.

Given Sefa’s entire role in the Ivory Palace was to gather information for the Sultana, the animosity of the staff wasn’t a mark in Sefa’s favor.

“Hmm,” Vaida said. The noncommittal sound stoppered any further discussion, and Sefa gratefully sank into the silence.

Over the past several weeks, Sefa had thought she was getting better at predicting Vaida.

Giggling could either mean someone’s imminent destruction was upon them, or she had just made a joke only a ten-year-old would find amusing.

If her sigh lasted longer than five seconds, anyone in her immediate vicinity needed to evacuate.

The most consistent habit was the Sultana’s fixation with her appearance. She spent several hours a day under the attention of experts; Sefa had witnessed everything from leeches to hot wax entering the Sultana’s chambers.

At first blush, it came across as extreme vanity.

But Sefa had watched Vaida as she watched herself in the mirror.

The intensity of it had been an unpleasant reminder of the days following Sylvia’s stabbing in the Ivory Palace.

After Sylvia had woken, she asked Wes for the knife they’d pulled out of her chest. When the reluctant guard handed it over, Sylvia had wiped the blade against her pants and traced her thumb over the sharp end before tucking it into her boot.

Vaida regarded her reflection with the same cold determination Sylvia had for the knife that almost killed her.

Sefa hurried to keep up with Vaida’s long stride. “Sultana, are you certain this is safe? I can catch the driver and ask him to summon your guards.”

The narrow-eyed look Vaida shot her invited Sefa to shut her mouth.

They turned the corner, and Sefa gasped as the Sultana grabbed her arm. “Watch where you walk,” Vaida hissed.

Sefa had nearly stepped onto the lawn of one of the dome houses, where several tall bushes with… were those arms?

Vaida, once again demonstrating a disturbing affinity for reading Sefa’s mind, offered, “Lafa Souda. See those vines? Each has its own spine keeping it upright. They trap any trespassers within reach and hold them until the owner arrives.”

“How do they know not to trap the owner?” Sefa studied the turgid vines warily.

“The gardener mixes a quart of the owner’s blood into the watering pot while the Lafa Souda is growing. It won’t trap what it recognizes.”

Sefa shuddered. The plants in Raya’s garden may have been unremarkable and overwatered, but they’d been a source of joy. Sefa couldn’t imagine growing a living thing out of anything but love.

They walked until Sefa could feel the pulse in her legs.

“Would you like me to intervene?”

Vaida posed the question like they were in the middle of a conversation Sefa had forgotten to take part in.

“Intervene?”

Vaida gestured above her neck. “Your head. The distractions . Would you like me to intervene?”

An arched brow confirmed Sefa’s suspicion. Vaida knew the truth. Somehow, she had figured out the staff were making her miserable. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Sefa’s very presence in the Ivory Palace was evidence of Vaida’s unrelenting surveillance.

Sefa imagined what would happen if she answered yes . If the staff disliked her now, they would positively despise her for tattling to the Sultana. The antics wouldn’t stop; they would only get more discreet and creative.

Sefa shook her head. “I can take care of it myself.”

“Good.” A wan smile played at the Lukub ruler’s mouth. “A bit of advice, darling. You have no talent for deception, and my staff has no tolerance for weakness.”

Vaida’s gaze drifted over the tapestry of stars stitched over the night sky.

“Do you know that before Rovial unleashed his madness on the kingdoms, it was Baira who was the most hated of the Awaleen? Her illusions terrified them. She could create worlds within our minds, and her enemies were bound to whatever reality she spun for them. What they loved, what they feared, what they hated… she would thread it all through the eye of her magic. Some even think her beauty itself was an illusion, shifting to appeal to whichever eyes beheld her.”

Sefa stared at Vaida. A claim so egregious could get someone killed in certain parts of the kingdoms. To hear it coming from Baira’s descendant herself…

“Do you?” Sefa heard herself ask. “Think her beauty was an illusion, I mean.”

The light from the string of lanterns swaying between the domes flickered in Vaida’s dark eyes like trapped flames.

“I think knowing what is real is beyond the reach of mortals and Awaleen alike.”

They veered into a tight alley, forcing Sefa to fall a step behind the Sultana. The walls lengthened, curving around them like a steadily closing jaw. Rocks rolled forward as the clean white stones gave way to pebbled dirt.

At the end of the alley, a hooded figure stepped out of the shadows. Startled, Sefa caught Vaida’s sleeve, tugging her back. Vaida peeled her fingers off. “Don’t grab , Zahra. It’s uncouth. Come, you can meet a friend of mine.”

Tempted to engage in further uncouth behavior and sprint out of the alley, Sefa forced herself to follow the Sultana to the hooded figure.

The lanky man bowed deeply, sweeping down his hood. A crop of reddish-brown hair sat above a hawkish face. Grayish-green eyes momentarily swept over Sefa before returning to the Sultana. “Your Majesty.”

“Did you find it?”

“Not yet. I came to ask your permission to expand the search east.”

“I already gave you permission to claim whatever you want.” Impatience punctuated the sentence. “Essam is uncontested territory.”

“There is a Nizahl holding at the nexus of these coordinates, Your Majesty. If Lukub claims the territory, it would mean laying claim to the holding, as well.”

Vaida ran her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip. “It would certainly get Arin’s attention. The question is, is now the best time for it?”

Sefa had heard the whispers about this even before she came to Lukub.

Vaida had been steadily expanding into Essam for years, claiming more and more territory for Lukub as she did.

Nobody had stopped her—who would waste soldiers to protect the woods?

—but it had not gone unnoticed. So long as she didn’t impede on a trade route or compromise access to Hirun, the rulers did not seem inclined to curb the Sultana’s ill-advised expansion.

Why had Vaida brought her along for this?

“You are confident in these coordinates, Bausit?” Vaida narrowed her eyes. “Or will I need to come down here in another three weeks to grant you further leave to waste my time and claim more useless land for my kingdom?”

Bausit wrung his hands together. “Kera traced seventeen disappearances to that location in Essam, Your Majesty. He saw the links of their life chain wind through Essam and sever within ten miles of the holding.”

Sefa’s heart, which had not enjoyed a moment’s respite this entire night, broke into a gallop. Surely she couldn’t be hearing what she thought she was hearing.

“You have my leave to capture the territory Kera wants,” Vaida said. “Try to stay as far away from the holding as you can, but if you must claim it under our flag, do so without violence. Capturing the land around a Nizahl holding is one thing, but Arin will not ignore a slaughter of his soldiers.”

“Understood, Your Majesty.” Bausit bowed, and as suddenly as he had appeared, the tall man melted into the shadows once again.

Vaida chewed on her lip for a second, deep in thought. Then, “Should we have the driver fetch us halawa? I prefer it with pistachios, but we can get a plain square for you, if you object.”

Maybe Sefa should have walked into a Lafa Souda, just to confirm this wasn’t a terrible dream. It certainly seemed like one, with the Sultana musing about a breakfast treat in a dark alley while a hooded man ran off to potentially trigger an act of war.

“The man he mentioned, Kera…” Sefa’s imagination had never been anything impressive, and she simply lacked the creativity to have dreamed this night. Which meant it was horribly, jarringly real. “Is he Jasadi?”

“Half.” Vaida tightened her cloak around her frame and strolled in the direction from which they’d entered. “Jasadi father, Lukubi mother. Fascinating magic. Terrible taste in hats.”

“He uses his magic for you?” Sefa hurried to catch up, wary of the darkness collecting at the other end of the alley.

“Who else would he use it for?”

“I don’t understand. Magic is forbidden.”

“Then you should probably stop talking about it, dear. You wouldn’t want someone to get the wrong idea.”

The next words died on Sefa’s tongue. Vaida’s tone had shifted ever so slightly. Sefa was pushing against the fragile barrier between Vaida’s good humor and the wrath responsible for throwing people into wells.

After a stretch of climbing, Sefa cleared her throat.

“I like pistachios.”