Page 40 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SYLVIA

I didn’t flinch, the tree and its dried sap the only witnesses to my tired smile. “What gave me away?”

“Turn around.”

I rolled my eyes. At least he had graced me with speech this time. I wasn’t sure I could tolerate another wordlessly spiteful interaction. “Care to remove your sword? I will not rotate at the end of it like a pig on a spit.”

After a second, the pinch between my shoulders disappeared.

I took a breath meant to fortify me, but it landed awkwardly behind my ribs, refusing to dissipate.

I was still in the throes of the panic that had brought me here, and any air I tried to draw floated in my chest like oil poured over water.

Gathering the blanket closer, I faced the grim Commander, raising a sardonic brow. “Did they not teach you greeting etiquette in little Heir school? Perhaps instead of pinning me to walls or introducing me to your plethora of blades, you could try saying hello.”

I would have had more satisfying results taunting a rock.

The sword still raised between us, Arin studied me, eyes raking over my exposed legs and the red-and-black wool blanket strung around my bare body.

Winter-blue eyes met mine and held them fast. My heart, already operating at an accelerated rhythm, began to pound.

Arin had always possessed an uncanny ability to see straight through me, no matter how practiced the lie or polished the performance.

I was not in the mood to be known today.

I returned the attention in kind. Silver hair was tied back behind his head, the fine strands sliding from their captivity to curve like crescent moons around his cheekbones.

The bruise on his temple had gone from blue and black to a mild yellow, and my gaze drifted over the perfectly laced column of his vest to where the gashes I’d dug my fingers into had bled.

Had those healed enough for him to ride a horse to Orban?

He wore his infamous black coat, the tiny ravens stitched in violet embroidered on the sleeves and the hem skimming near the top of his boots.

The very image of power and self-assuredness. Every detail crafted to immaculate perfection. The kind of leader that lived in legends.

My hands curled into the blanket. Maybe my magic hadn’t brought me here to listen in on Arin’s conversation with Rawain.

Maybe it wanted to prove to me how low my measure fell against the Nizahl Heir; his lifetime of standing straight beneath his responsibilities held up like a mirror to reflect my own bent back.

Busy sinking into the whirlpool of my head, it took me a second to realize Arin was speaking.

“What. Happened.” The question—if one could call it that—came torn from between his teeth.

“What happened with what?” He probably wanted to know how much I had overheard or how I found him. Would he find it aggravating if I said, My magic decided to bring me here , or would he find it as terrifying as I did?

The sword plunged into the dirt beside me. So quick was the strike, it took me an entire twenty seconds to notice the hilt vibrating inches to my right.

A shiver worked down my neck. All my training, all my years with Hanim. Pointless.

If Arin and I fought—truly fought—I would not emerge the victor. He had never shown me the full range of his skill, never exerted the limits of his strength in my presence.

I probably would have tried harder to kill him if he had.

It became clear why Arin had disarmed himself when he took a step closer. “Your eyes are bloodshot and your breathing is shallow. You can track what I say, but your mind is straying.” His lips pressed together. “I have seen you like this before.”

Impossible. I would never have let him witness me at my most vulnerable, especially not in those early days. Maybe afterward, but during—

The Nizahl Heir’s gaze found me through the dim of the hall. How long had he been there?

“Have you returned?” he asked.

“I never left.” Hoarse, as though I had been screaming instead of sitting silently on the ground.

“Yes, you did.”

Right. I exhaled on a bitter chuckle. I had forgotten about my fit in the hallway after discovering one of the trials would take place in Nizahl.

Arin had seen me break so many times, in so many different ways.

If he wished, the Nizahl Heir could pull at a single stitch and unravel me.

I had given my enemy the designs to my destruction.

“It will pass,” I replied. “It always does.” Even if it took more of me with it each time.

My shoulders tensed, prepared for him to ask what had caused it. Prepared to lie and prevaricate and launch us out of the first conversation we had had without the embers of rage lying between our feet, threatening to blaze.

I had been away too long. The singularity of Arin’s attention, his unwavering focus, discomfited me nearly as much as it had those first weeks in the tunnels.

“Why are you naked?”

I glanced down at the blanket, taken aback. Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation struck me, and I had to bite my lip to restrain my laugh. My magic had really dropped me, naked and barreling toward a veritable meltdown, into Essam Woods. Into Arin’s path.

“Did someone—” Arin paused, and my flash of humor dissolved. I could rarely recall seeing the Nizahl Heir struggle for words. He closed his eyes. When they reopened, icy shards of deadly intent pierced through me. “Are you naked of your own will, or of someone else’s?”

It took me longer than it should have to understand. Arin had taken my nakedness and mental state and pieced together a horrible conclusion. I extricated a hand from the blanket to wave it in vehement denial. “No, no! Nobody tried to force me to do anything. I am naked of my own volition.”

Relief melted the rigid contours of his face. He released a heavy breath, while I flushed at the potential double meaning of my words.

“To clarify,” I added, feeling unbelievably absurd, “I was not engaged in any activity where nakedness is expected or customary. Not that you must be naked to take part in those, uh, activities. In any event, I wasn’t. Taking part, I mean. In any activities.”

“But there were activities?” Arin asked, straight-faced.

“No, no activities! I was alone and fully intending to stay that way. I—why are you smiling?”

The corners of Arin’s mouth had curved upward. The humor in his smile, though invoked at my expense, spread through me like warm honey. I hadn’t thought I would see it again.

“You lied to your father,” I blurted.

Why enjoy a moment when I was just so good at ruining them?

As much as I hated the resurgence of caution wiping Arin’s features clean, I would have hated it more if my magic swept me back without an opportunity to understand what I had witnessed between the Heir and the Supreme.

“What did the Mufsid say to you?” I pressed. “They were executed the day after Galim’s Bend, so if you saw him the night before his execution, then you must have visited him right after I saw you. Did you ask him about the fortress?”

Arin didn’t retreat, even when I bridged the gap between us. This close, his beauty hit me like a blow to the gut. The aftershock of it rippled into an unpleasant awareness of my own disheveled appearance.

It made my tone sharper than necessary. “Tell me, Arin of Nizahl. How does it feel to doubt?”

Fury flashed over Arin, splitting his carefully placid features like a clap of lightning through the clear blue sky. “Do you think doubt is new to me?”

I opened my mouth and came up empty. The answer must have been clear on my face, because a muscle in Arin’s jaw clenched.

“For all the horrors you have lived through, Essiya of Jasad , you understand nothing of what it means to lead. All I do is doubt. Myself, others, the very reality we occupy. Every day, I take the facts as I understand them, and I make a choice. When those facts change, I make a different choice. Doubt forces me to confront what I know and reassess it as the circumstances demand. The day I stop doubting, the moment I submit myself to convenience over clarity, I pray my crown rusts in my hands.”

It was the second time I had ever heard Arin speak so much in a single fell swoop. Our gazes collided and held fast. Two swords locked on the battlefield, neither willing to yield.

“You say ‘facts’ as though the word means something. I’ve told you before, my liege—life is not an equation you can calculate over and over again.

Every choice won’t be perfect, but you still have to make it.

” I shook my head. “If you’ve allowed doubt to become indecision, your crown has already rusted. ”

Arin’s eyes narrowed, but I held firm. We’d flung our daggers, and there was little left to do but stand there and bleed.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that no amount of injury could force Arin still. “Who is Hanim?”

I blinked, breath catching in my lungs. Oh, but it almost worked. Hanim’s name was almost sufficient to destroy the trajectory of my thoughts, to leave me off-kilter and bewildered.

It would have worked had I not just witnessed him play the very same tactic against his father.

“What a chatty Mufsid you found.” I leaned back against the tree, the blanket tightening around my body as I crossed my arms over my chest. “I doubt he recalled her very fondly. Hanim was their leader for a time, you know. Before her exile for conspiring with your father against the Jasad crown, though I imagine you haven’t stumbled across those records.

Supreme Munqual went to great lengths to cover up Rawain’s misdeeds when he was Commander. ”

His silence lengthened. It was another of his tactics, inviting the other person to keep speaking until he had what he needed or they incriminated themselves. Historically, it worked with embarrassing success against me.

Several strands had escaped my braid, curls frizzing near my ears and tickling my neck. I tried to tuck them away and nearly dropped the blanket.