Page 44 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

Curiously, I didn’t have to fake for long.

I breathed the comforting stink of rotten eggs and moss wafting from Hirun; listened to the chirps of crickets buried in winter-eaten tree trunks and self-assured frogs who no longer had a reason to fear a hooded chemist’s apprentice ruining their night. The lullabies of my youth.

Soon, my act became reality, and I slipped into the best sleep I’d had in weeks.

I roused to the sound of hushed voices.

“There is no point telling her.” Still mired in the fog of sleep, I grimaced at the unwelcome intrusion of Efra’s voice. “We don’t have the time or the ability to do anything about it.”

“What do you think she will do if she finds out we knew and withheld it from her?” Namsa hissed.

I opened my eyes without moving a limb, mapping the sound of their voices.

The fire had burned down to crackling embers and ash.

Medhat and Kenzie slept curled near each other, hands and knees almost touching.

I raised myself onto my elbows and quietly crawled away from the campsite.

“Namsa is right.” Maia. They were on the other side of the perimeter, where the edge of the woods flattened into the desert. “It is bad enough we didn’t tell her in the mountain.”

A mournful sigh that could only belong to Lateef. “We didn’t tell her because it’s entirely too dangerous. You know what she will do.”

“What will I do, Lateef?” I stepped around the trees, enjoying the fissure of shock traveling through their secret circle. “Enlighten me.”

Perhaps sensing the aggression skating beneath my skin, Namsa pushed forward, her tunic stretching tight around her defined arms as she elbowed the men aside.

“Mawlati—”

“You’re making a mistake,” Efra sighed.

“ Mawlati ,” Namsa persisted, louder. “When the informant came to us in the Gibal, she told us of the Omal Heir’s raids upon the lower villages. In the last two weeks, Felix’s soldiers have destroyed Gahre and Alyub as retaliation for the uprisings in the lower villages.”

“Yes, I know,” I said impatiently.

“We believe the Omalian offensive is targeting Mahair next.”

The world halted, teetering on the brink of a great fall.

Lateef twisted his hands together. “Mawlati, you must understand our position. We can’t allow you to put yourself in harm’s way for a battle that doesn’t pertain to us.

” A distressed palm swiped over the crown of his bald head.

“This is not the first time the Omal throne has suppressed dissent with violence.”

“ Allow me?” Rage vibrated between each letter like the chords of an oud.

My magic responded, surging with an eagerness I would have found daunting in any other circumstance.

I barely recognized the ragged sound of my voice.

Sefa and Marek might be in Mahair. Fairel, Rory, Raya.

The girls in the keep. “Am I here by force, then? Has this been an elaborate trap from the start?”

“Essiya—” Maia reached for me. I smacked her hand aside. If she touched me, I would incinerate her where she stood.

“Malika Essiya,” I snarled. I rounded on them, the pressure of my magic turning painful.

“If there was a grain of worth to that title, you wouldn’t have hidden this from me.

I am not some tool you can pick up and point when it suits you.

You can take whatever you want from me, but not this.

Not them. What I want matters .” To my horror, there was a sob caught in my throat.

“Of course it does!” Maia appeared on the brink of tears.

“Mahair is mine. It’s mine, Felix knows it’s mine—” I put a white-knuckled fist to my breastbone. Dread trailed icy fingers over my insides. “This is his revenge. Arin stopped him from killing me time and time again, and now he plans to claim the blood he feels owed from Mahair.”

“Be that as it may, we cannot lose this opportunity to reach Queen Hanan. We are running out of time, Essiya. If we fail, we will have no recourse but to raise the fortress during Nuzret Kamel.” The sympathy in Lateef’s gaze, as though his truth was absolute and beyond reproach, infuriated me nearly more than his pitying tone.

“There is no ‘we.’” I stormed to the campsite, ripping my coat from the branch I had hung it on to dry. “How long until the Omalian soldiers reach the village?”

“We didn’t think you would care,” Efra said, and I went still. “You have not established a reputation for being someone who runs toward a fight.”

Gold and silver flooded my eyes. The restraint it took not to impale Efra against the highest branch of a tree was more than I thought myself capable of. The gold vein on my palm glowed, reminding me what would happen if I used my magic.

What I might see.

“Get out of my sight,” Lateef snapped, shoving Efra away from the campsite. “Go collect our bags while you ruminate over the hardships of being an imbecile.”

Medhat stirred, propping himself up on an elbow. “What’s happening?”

I shoved my arms through the coat and collected my boots.

“Apparently, the lot of you have no qualms asking me to beg for an army from the woman who rejected me and my mother, sent her soldiers to destroy Jasad, and lives in permanent supplication to her useless nephew. If she rejects me again, why, the only other reasonable option is that I should cast an enchantment to raise the fortress that, if I am lucky, will burn me alive before I have finished the first recital!”

Namsa, who had heard this from me already, glanced away.

The rest of the Urabi blanched, and their surprise felt like its own insult.

“You are worse actors than you are liars. Every one of you knows what will happen if I raise the fortress on Nuzret Kamel. You knew what asking me to raise the fortress meant. You have no trouble asking me to die. No trouble demanding my magic and my mind. Yet if I asked you to fight on my behalf—”

“Ask us.” Namsa shoved between the throng, shoulders squared and chin raised. “Ask us, Essiya.”

My chest heaved with the effort of barring my magic. I searched her for signs of duplicity. Namsa was my weak spot; Dawoud’s niece had managed to sell me on the quality of her character, and now I had to work twice as hard to think ill of her.

Behind me, Kenzie and Medhat had risen, glancing at each other in mutual bewilderment. Efra sighed, clearly opposed to Namsa but resigned to her course of action.

I pushed out the question before it could curdle on my tongue. “I am going to Mahair. Will you come and fight with me?”

Namsa smiled, revealing three of her chipped teeth. “Even better.” She reached for my arm, and I held still this time. She squeezed my elbow once. “We will come and win for you.”

As soon as the decision settled, the campsite was cleared and our belongings gathered. Medhat and Kenzie crouched around a map of Hirun, with Medhat pointing out where our original path would need to divert into Mahair.

Lateef appeared beside me, clad in a heavy beige overcoat that would probably drown him in seconds if he fell off his crocodile.

We stared at the others in silence.

“His route to Orban is not far,” Lateef said. The wind picked up, and he folded his hands under his armpits. “He will have heard about Mahair. He will come for you.”

The veins pulsed.

“Yes.”

“If he captures you, we are lost.”

I smiled. “He won’t.”

Let Arin bring his strongest men. His best maps.

Let him come, and I would show him what it meant to hunt Essam’s favorite monster.