Page 68 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

SEFA

M ove, you stupid girl!” An elbow caught Sefa in the shoulder, shoving her out of the way.

The kitchen moved at a jarring speed, trays whizzing over heads while the pile of dirty dishes accumulating on the counter grew to staggering heights.

Dried stains covered Birta, caking her in the evidence of her long and ardent labor.

“There are near a thousand Nizahl soldiers outside our gates for Sedain. Make yourself useful and start carrying out the bowls of bissara while I prepare the goulash.”

Sefa obeyed without thought, reaching for the first bowl of green soup she saw.

“That’s the molokhia, you imbecile!” Birta howled. “Get out!”

“Sorry!” Sefa swiped the knife lying beside a pile of diced potatoes—the only reason she had stopped by the kitchen in the first place—and left.

Servants scurried along the halls, silver trays stacked with empty plates balanced on their shoulders. Complaints flew between them as frequently as commands.

Sefa glided through the pandemonium without slowing.

“Zahra!” Salwa appeared at her elbow, streaks of dirt on her forehead and her round cheeks. “Aren’t you going to come outside? The Nizahl regiment is here. Some of the soldiers are so handsome, but they don’t speak much. We heard the Commander is here, too—apparently, he’s been in Lukub for days!”

Arin of Nizahl was in Lukub? He was here ?

“Good,” Sefa murmured, mostly to herself. “He’ll stop her if I fail.”

If. Still so foolishly optimistic.

There was not a world where Sefa managed to steal Vaida’s ring and escape Lukub unscathed. The best she could hope was to destroy the ring before they caught and killed her.

“I will be out soon, Salwa.” Sefa cupped the younger girl’s cheek and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Thank you for always being so kind to me.”

The young servant blinked, but Sefa was already walking.

The guards stationed on either side of the short hall didn’t react when Sefa walked past them. She was the Sultana’s personal attendant—who would question her presence in the Sultana’s chambers? Who would think to search her for a weapon?

Sefa closed the door behind her and leaned heavily against it. When she could catch her breath again, she settled on Vaida’s dressing room chair.

Sefa didn’t want to do this.

My palace was built by an Awala who crafted illusions more perfect and persuasive than any reality… If you wish to last in the Ivory Palace, I suggest you fiercely guard that heart of yours. Its softness is an irresistible temptation to those of us with teeth.

Vaida had been taught what it took to last in the Ivory Palace. Maybe there was an age before the Sultana counted herself among those with teeth, when she had just been another girl with a soft heart.

Sefa picked up the chair and moved it behind the door. If she moved fast, she could knock out the Sultana as soon as she walked in. She would remove the ring and run, even if the tombs-damned thing burned through her skin and bones. Vigilance was the key to leaving this chamber alive.

Ignoring the weight of the knife, Sefa waited.

The scent of flowers startled Sefa from her nap.

Inches away, richly lashed dark eyes studied Sefa with languid curiosity. “You shouldn’t be here, Zahra,” Vaida said. “The other servants haven’t sat down in hours. They will think I am giving you preferential treatment again.”

Candlelight flickered around the room, shadows dancing cheerily across the walls. Candles Sefa had most assuredly not lit. When did Vaida enter the room?

Sefa had fallen asleep . Awaleen below, it was almost a mercy knowing she’d never see Sylvia again.

Her friend was the Victor of the Alcalah, a survivor of the Blood Summit, a fugitive Queen.

Meanwhile, Sefa had worked herself into such a fit about swinging a chair at Vaida that her body had shut down.

“I—” Sefa hadn’t counted on speaking. She didn’t have a good explanation for her presence. “Birta wanted me out of the kitchen. I couldn’t keep pace with the rest of them.”

Vaida’s eyes narrowed. “What did she say?”

“Nothing important.” Frustrating as Birta’s behavior had been throughout Sefa’s stay, Sefa was not about to unleash Vaida’s ire against the older woman. “She was exhausted, is all.”

“Hmm.” Vaida wandered toward her bureau and extracted a silk shawl from the top of the drawer. “For a moment, I thought you might be hiding from the Nizahl soldiers.”

“The soldiers? No, I only learned today they were here.” Distracted, Sefa got up from her chair and edged away from the door. If a scuffle ensued, she didn’t want the guards to hear. Given how disastrously this robbery attempt had already progressed, Sefa wasn’t going to take any chances.

When Vaida’s comment caught up with her, Sefa stopped. “Why would I hide from the Nizahl soldiers? Are they planning something?”

Maybe Sefa wouldn’t have to take the ring after all.

If the Nizahl Heir had come to quarrel with Vaida about the holding she had swept under Lukub’s border, Sefa could find him and warn him about the Mirayah.

Arin would listen. He would also have her arrested, but imprisonment would be a blessed fate compared to what Vaida would do if she caught her with the ring.

It glinted against her finger as she approached Sefa, the shawl dangling from her loose grip.

Sefa stiffened as Vaida drew the ends of the shawl around Sefa, tucking it around her shoulders.

It constrained her arms as Vaida pulled on the ends, tugging Sefa a step forward. “Do you trust me, darling?”

Sefa had to strain to look up at the Sultana. Viscerally aware of the ring’s proximity, she struggled not to give away her nerves. Vaida was in a strange mood—a mood Sefa couldn’t pin down despite the patterns she had learned to keep watch for.

“The last time I mentioned trust, you said, ‘If you’re going to say something that silly, save it for a stage.’”

“So I did.” Lips painted berry red parted in a smile. “You have an excellent memory. I do, too.”

Vaida’s grip on the shawl tightened, drawing Sefa another step closer. “I kept waiting for you to betray me. To lie or cheat or even complain about the other servants. But you couldn’t make it easy for me, could you?”

Sefa’s confusion ripened into pure bewilderment. “Make what easy, Sultana?”

A light perfume overwhelmed Sefa as Vaida yanked the shawl again, bringing Sefa close as she bent to murmur in her ear. “I recognized you from the very first minute you walked into this room, Sefa. Or do you prefer Sayali?”

Sefa’s blood ran cold. She tried to recoil, but Vaida had the ends of the shawl in a choke hold, trapping Sefa against her.

“The other rulers wouldn’t have known you.

Felix and Sorn can barely recognize the shape of the nose at the end of their face.

Your glamor at the Victor’s Ball was excellent.

It hid your true form well.” Vaida’s breath ghosted over the top of Sefa’s hair, and Sefa trembled as the Sultana rested her forehead against hers.

“Don’t blame yourself. If Arin had thought there was a chance you would cross my path in that glamor, he might have warned you I can see through them as well as he can.

I am the descendant of Baira. Did you think there was any illusion powerful enough to fool me? ”

Vaida had known. She had known who Sefa was the entire time.

Just as terror threatened to stop her heart, a startling wave of peace crested over Sefa. Why was she surprised? She should have known better than to make herself a pawn on this twisted royal board. Their schemes weren’t her, and they never would be.

“You didn’t kill me, but you were never planning to let me go,” Sefa realized.

Vaida had taken her along to the meeting in the alley because she’d known Sefa was never leaving the Ivory Palace alive.

Her secret would be safe, and her own vanity would be fed.

“You struck a false bargain to keep me around as a contingency in case you didn’t find the Mirayah. ”

Vaida laughed. “I had so hoped you would understand. Ah, the Mirayah. I have been searching for years, Sefa. Expanding my borders into Essam mile by mile, recruiting and executing so many incompetent Jasadi men who made me false promises about finding it. And then Bausit found Kera, and Kera found me the Mirayah. He picked up a trail near Mahair, of all places. He chased the Mirayah to its next location.”

Had someone in Mahair gotten swept into the Mirayah?

A slim shoulder rose beneath Vaida’s lacy gown.

“If Kera had failed, I would have needed a way to prove Nizahl broke the Zinish Accords. The daughter of Nizahl’s late High Counselor infiltrating my palace and posing as my attendant?

Spying on me on the Commander’s orders? It might have been enough. ”

“Stepdaughter.”

“Pardon?”

“I was not his daughter,” Sefa said thinly. Vaida gave her a look like Sefa had done a somersault in the middle of a funeral.

“The distinction wouldn’t have mattered.

Posing under a false identity to enter my service while you had ties to the Supreme?

It would have galvanized most of my nobles to whip open those gaudy purses of theirs,” Vaida said.

“The other kingdoms would have had no choice but to throw their support behind me.”

Another question resolved itself in the mist of Sefa’s dawning comprehension.

The visits to the nobles, the trips around Lukub—Vaida had been parading her around to ensure everyone saw how closely embedded Sefa was to the Sultana.

When the time came to scream spy , there would be countless noble witnesses.

“Arin of Nizahl is a frustrating man,” Vaida said, giving Sefa her back as she strode to the window.

“When we were seven, I tore apart his chambers as a jest—flung around his clothes, spilled ink on his maps, set fire to his drawings. Nothing serious. You must understand, he was impossible to crack. He wouldn’t anger if Sorn insulted him, wouldn’t react when Felix followed him around like a stray cat.

I wanted to know what it would take to finally crack the ice around that baffling, beautiful boy, but alas.

He walked in, took one look at what I had done, and said, ‘I have more maps in the antechamber if you run out of things to burn,’ before he left. Awaleen below, I wanted to scream .”

Vaida leaned against the window, observing the frenzy of activity beyond the obelisk.

“Then one day, a Jasadi girl destroys a wing of the Citadel. And when I taunt him about her, Arin of Nizahl nearly kills me. He would have done it, too—I saw it in his eyes. He would have dropped my body at his feet and stepped over it without a second thought.”

She traced a shape in the thin layer of frost coating the window. The candles cast twisting shapes over her body. “It was euphoria. After all these years, I was proven right. The calm, calculated Commander is just as vicious as I am—just as destructive over what belongs to him.”

With all her strength, Sefa lifted the chair and slammed it against the side of Vaida’s head.