Page 50 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

SYLVIA

D eath arrived at dawn, dressed in the blue and white of the Omalian flag.

The ground rumbled with the pounding of hundreds of horses. Light dispersed in front of the woods as a horde of Omalian soldiers rode toward the wall at full speed.

In the main road, the villagers had crowded together, their weapons pressed dangerously close to the backs of those in front of them.

Terror itself could not have found a more fitting homage to its name; from eldest man to youngest child, it ravaged the Omalians.

They stood beneath the fading painting of the Awaleen, the siblings regarding the proceedings from the side of the building with their usual indifference.

The older villagers pressed their hands to the painting of Kapastra, the Awala of Omal, for strength.

As if Kapastra would lift a single finger to help anyone in this village. I gave her my back.

“Do you think it will work?” Namsa murmured.

I belatedly noticed the grip she had on my sleeve, the whiteness of her pinched lips.

Namsa might have killed before, but I doubted she had seen serious combat.

There was a reason Arin had been chasing them across the kingdoms for years: the Urabi were experts at avoiding capture, and their reliance on those survival skills had prevented them from cultivating others.

On my other side, Efra grimaced. Unlike the others, I had not given him any instructions on when to use his magic. I watched his hands tremble with the urge to ease the buildup of emotion pressing in on him from the Omalians.

I needed Efra’s magic at full strength. I couldn’t express that if what I feared came to pass, his power might be the only thing to save us.

As one, we held our breaths as the first riders raced through the gap in the wall. This was it. The fate of Mahair, hinging on a single minute.

Shouts rang out as soldiers tumbled from their horses. Hooves strained to free themselves from the netting hidden beneath mounds of mud at the wall’s entrance. The snap of frenzied reins struck a chord of relief through us, music to our ears.

I shared a triumphant grin with Namsa. We had just enough time and netting to put a small bank of mud around the perimeter of the wall.

I had reassured the village the mud would hide the netting, and felling the riders at the front would give us a precious advantage. I didn’t need the surge to fall back.

I just needed them to slow.

As the fallen set of soldiers tried to push their horses from the net, the next dozen rode in at full speed and collided with the stuck soldiers. They flew from their saddles, taking one another down in the impact. Horses huffed, stomping on the underfoot men.

“Go over the wall!” shouted one of the soldiers. “One at a time!”

Horses began to leap over the wall, clearing it in a single bound. The village shook as they landed.

“Medhat, now!” I bellowed.

Medhat stepped away from the crowd. He touched the inside of his wrist to the other, the tips of his fingers kissing as flames gathered in the space between his palms.

The Omalians watched him, spellbound, while I watched them. A revived Jasad would not last long without allies. One day, we would need them, just as today they needed us.

Medhat crouched, cords of fire linking his separating hands and pulsing between them. He turned his palms outward and hurled .

Howls saturated the air as fire erupted at the top of the wall, racing along the perimeter.

A horse screamed as it cleared the wall and found its underside scorched, landing on its knees and sending its rider pitching forward.

The crack of his skull against the earth echoed over the burning soldiers’ screams.

I lifted my sword and signaled Fairel, who had taken cover at the top of the building bearing the painting of the Awaleen. An arrow sliced the air, and a soldier staggering to his feet crumpled as it buried itself in his heart.

At the signal, motion finally burst in the crowd. They rushed at the soldiers, every weapon we’d scrounged lifted high, along with some pans and wicker carpet dusters.

“Medhat, can you hold it?” I asked. Rivulets of molten red flowed in the cracks of his hands.

As long as Medhat prevented them from leaping over the wall, they could only enter through the front opening.

At most, it fit five riders at a time. Without the benefit of their numbers, we could pick them off as they came.

He blew me a kiss. “Anything for you, Malika. I am but your humble subject.”

“I’m telling Kenzie you said that.”

“Wait, wait—”

Spear aloft, I bolted toward the fighting. The others had their instructions, and I had to hold faith they wouldn’t choose such a precarious moment to defy me. Even Efra.

More soldiers poured through the opening, and swords collided in an ear-piercing howl of metal behind me.

Screams rang out from our side of the wall. My stomach churned as I cut down a soldier running toward the keep. If I had miscalculated… if it would have been better for everyone to hide…

I couldn’t think about it.

A soldier rode directly for me, his sword swinging toward my neck.

I ducked, the tip of my dagger slicing through the ropes of his saddle.

He pitched to the side as his own momentum betrayed him, and I dragged him the rest of the way to the ground and rammed my knife through his throat.

I had left the axes and spears—anything with a longer range—to the less experienced among the villagers, which meant the deaths I delivered today would be nice and close.

I yanked the sword from the soldier’s slack grip and stepped over him. Grabbing a handful of his horse’s mane, I pulled myself onto its back. Rovial’s tainted tomb, but I had missed riding astride an animal without scales.

Most of the fighting had concentrated close to the entrance.

Mud churned beneath racing feet. Cries shot through the fighting, their origins lost in the crush of swords and horses.

My heart thumped painfully, and I checked to ensure Fairel hadn’t left her post on the building.

She had wanted to join us on the ground, but I told her we needed someone to raise the alarm and shoot if the soldiers found the other entrance to Mahair, since they would come up behind us.

I steered the horse toward the fray and held tight to the reins with one hand as it galloped.

Wind brushed my neck, frosted my lashes, but I felt none of the cold.

I blocked blows with my stolen sword and sliced through the fools who came close.

Exhilaration carried away my earthly worries, drowning them beneath the beat of my heart and my coursing blood.

No Emre, no Palia or Niyar, no twisted magic. Just the ache in my muscles, the soreness of my thighs gripping the horse’s sliding flank, the tackiness of the blood soaking in my clothes.

My magic heated me from the inside, eager to join the fight, but I didn’t need it. Not for this.

My sword clashed with the one swinging toward Lateef’s head. I lunged forward, yanking the soldier from his horse onto mine and plunging the dagger strapped to my waist into his chest.

I threw the body to the ground as Raya called my name, but as I slashed and shouted warnings, I was Essiya and I was Sylvia. I was both and none, the perfect Heir and the brutal orphan, the living and the dead. I was two imperfect wholes melding into one.

Soaked in blood, brimming with magic, the severity of the disservice I had done myself dawned. How terribly I had minimized the enormity of all I contained. How much I had feared everything I could become.

You have the potential and power to be worse than any who have come before you.

I wasn’t bound to be the person Soraya feared. Her fears would not be my fate. What if that potential and power meant I could be better than those who came before me?

A bloodcurdling scream rent the air, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

I turned the horse, knuckles white around the reins. Daleel and three other girls from the keep were lowering Raya to the ground as she gasped for air, clutching her chest. I leapt off my horse, casting my sword aside as I ran.

Why was she outside the keep? I had told her to stay put!

I hurled to my knees beside Raya, shoving aside the other girls. The seamstress’s skin had taken on a grayish cast. White lines traced the ridges of her colorless lips, parted for her shallow breathing. Her eyes were half-lidded, flickering with movement.

“Is she going to die?” wailed one of the girls. I didn’t know this one. She must have arrived recently.

“Get Rory,” I ordered. “Go!”

A wide gash stretched over Raya’s right shoulder, slanting over her collarbone and chest. Blood had soaked into her undershirt.

My body went cold. I had seen these kinds of injuries.

I knew what they meant.

“You can’t die,” I gasped. “Who will take in these girls if you die? Nobody else will tolerate them. Nobody else knows how to love difficult girls. They’ll be vagrants. They will all become vagrants because you couldn’t listen to me for once and just stay inside the keep!”

I was in Dar al Mansi, and Dawoud was dying in my arms.

A cane tapped my shoulder. “Move aside, child,” Rory murmured. “Let me see.”

Daleel helped lower Rory into a kneel beside Raya. He examined the wound, palpating the bloated edges. Two fingers went under her chin, finding her pulse.

For all the years I had known him, Rory’s hands had always kept busy. Swinging his cane, shaking his fist, or assassinating the frogs I brought him for his potions and ointments. Even when he fell asleep over his table, his fingers would twitch toward an invisible target.

When he withdrew from Raya, his hands lying still in his lap, I shook my head before he could say a word. “No.”

“Essiya—”

“No!” Who did he think he was speaking to? I could fix her—

—I couldn’t save them—

I could make her whole.

—they did this—