Page 70 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

MAREK

S everal hundred pounds of soldier sat on Marek’s back, holding him to the ground while he thrashed.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Zane flipped Marek around, revealing a ring of bewildered Nizahl soldiers hovering over him.

The tree trunk of a recruit kept Marek pinned like he was little more than a disagreeable kitten.

“Attacking Lukubi guards where everyone can see! The Commander is at his holding a mere mile away—if he hears about this, he’ll throw you into a cell! ”

“Get off me!” Marek growled. Hadn’t they seen the guards picking up Sefa? Cutting at her skirts until a finger fell out? Marek had no idea what she had gotten herself involved in, but he knew where they would be taking her. “I need to go to the Traitors’ Wells!”

“If you free one of the Sultana’s prisoners, you will be executed!” A scrawny recruit crouched beside Marek. The Almerour boy. “The Commander will have no choice but to hand you to the Sultana to punish as she sees fit.”

“I don’t care ! I don’t care about the Sultana or the Commander or any of these tombs-damned royals! Get off me, Zane, or I swear on Sirauk—”

The giant rolled off of him immediately. Wearing a Nizahlan uniform hadn’t culled the superstitious lower villager in Zane.

“Go get help,” Zane clipped to Almerour, but Marek was already sprinting in the direction he’d seen the guards carry Sefa.

What had Sefa been thinking, taking the Sultana’s ring?

As for the severed finger—it couldn’t have been Sefa.

Not his Sefa, who had followed stray cats into barns to feed them despite being a vagrant herself, who’d thrown up the first time she saw a butcher slit a chicken’s neck and drop the thrashing body into a barrel.

None of the Lukubi guards paid Marek much attention as he shoved his way through the gates, but the other Nizahl soldiers cast him various irritated and questioning glances.

As guests of Lukub, they were meant to be on their best behavior.

Sedain was tomorrow, and despite the closure of Orban’s trade routes, thousands upon thousands of visitors from the other kingdoms had arrived to celebrate.

The last thing anyone wanted was a fresh Nizahl recruit making a spectacle of himself.

Marek gripped the hilt of the sword buckled at his waist and wished he could discard it. Running with it strapped to his hip would only slow him down, but he might need it against whichever guards were tasked with overseeing the Traitors’ Wells.

The din of the festivities faded behind Marek as he jogged away from the glaring eye of the ruby obelisk. He steered himself into Essam to avoid running along the side of the heavily trafficked road.

A little over a mile later, Marek heard it. The special symphony of Vaida’s reign.

Wailing from the Traitors’ Wells.

Marek veered toward the sound and immediately tripped over a rotted log. The woods blurred as he rolled down a short hill, brambles and spindly roots crunching beneath him.

A pained groan tore out of him when he finally came to a stop. Before Marek could convince himself to rise, a knee pressed to the center of his back.

“Don’t move,” Jeru murmured. “Wait.”

A pair of voices drifted over the hill, accompanied by the unmistakable clomping of hooves. “She didn’t tell anyone when she would be back?”

The other rider scoffed. “No, but how long could she be gone? Sedain is tomorrow. She’ll return before morning.”

“What about the Awaleen-forsaken horde of Nizahl soldiers camping on our neck?”

Their grumbling faded between the trees, and the point of pressure on Marek’s spine eased. Marek flipped around, angrily swiping at the dirt clotted on the side of his face. At the sight of Jeru’s scowl above him, Marek smothered his aggravation before it could shriek out of him.

“How did you find me?” he bit out.

Jeru glowered, rising from his crouch and grabbing Marek’s shoulder, hauling him to his feet.

“You should be grateful it was me your fellow recruits decided to find instead of someone else. What do you think will happen if you try to pull Sefa out of the Traitors’ Wells, Marek?

There are Lukubi guards crawling all over these grounds. ”

Damn Zane and Almerour to the tombs. Marek yanked his elbow out of Jeru’s grip and pushed past the guardsman. “I don’t care.”

“Clearly! About yourself or Sefa.”

Marek slowed, hesitated. “I can get her out before the guards catch me.”

“You can’t. Even if you had a rope, you don’t have the time. Every guard within half a mile will swarm you as soon as you reach the wells.”

Marek spun around. “Then I will kill as many of them as I can! What do you want me to do, Jeru? Leave her to rot down there while we sit around and exchange ideas?”

Jeru pursed his lips and glanced away. “It’s complicated. She is half-Nizahlan, but we cannot claim her without also claiming what she’s done to the Sultana. The attack would be a breach of the Zinish Accords. The Heir has every reason not to save her.”

“Did you think I would go ask the Heir for help?” Marek sneered. He started walking again. “I would have better luck appealing to the well.”

“Marek, wait.” Jeru’s voice changed, became urgent. “Do you hear—”

A point of a sword came to rest at Marek’s chest. A row of Nizahl soldiers materialized from the trees, swords aimed at him and Jeru. More soldiers arrived, closing around Marek and Jeru in a large ring. None were from the Ravening compound; these were actual soldiers, not fresh-faced recruits.

“You were right, Vaun.”

Marek whirled around.

Standing at the top of the hill, gloved hands tucked behind his back, was Arin of Nizahl.

Light seared Marek’s eyes as the sack was torn off his head.

He was on his knees in a cabin, his hands bound tightly in front of him. On his left, Jeru kept his head bent as the sack was ripped off, eyes closed as if he couldn’t bear to open them.

At the other end of the cabin, Vaun watched Jeru with such profound malice that Marek impulsively tried to scoot closer to the bound guardsman. The Heir stood by the hearth, a pretty young woman to his right and a scowling man with hair slicked like a banana to his left.

The Commander wasn’t looking at any of them. He watched the flames crackle in the hearth with a vacant look in his eyes, a detachment so thorough it chilled Marek more than the frost seeping through the floorboards.

“—collaborating with a wanted fugitive and risking a centuries-old treaty!” The banana-haired man paused for breath while rattling off Jeru’s crimes.

“Do you comprehend what would have happened if you’d been caught by Lukub’s forces?

If the Sultana’s guards had caught one of the Heir’s personal guardsmen trying to rescue Vaida’s assailant from the wells? ”

The doe-eyed woman crouched next to Jeru, pressing a tentative hand to his shoulder. “Were you threatened, Jeru? Were you forced to assist him under some kind of duress?”

“Enough prevaricating, Layla. What kind of threat could he ”—the banana man stabbed a thumb in Marek’s direction—“have leveraged against the Heir’s guardsman? Jeru could have cut him into ribbons at any time.”

“I did threaten him.” The lie punched out of him, hoarse, his voice roughened from a steady stream of cursing over the last half hour.

Marek doubted he’d be leaving this cabin alive, but Jeru might.

Jeru would keep Sefa safe—he’d given Marek his word.

“He didn’t betray his Heir. I forced him to help me. He had no choice.”

Jeru’s head finally lifted, offering Marek a dumbfounded stare. “He is lying.”

“I am not .” Marek scowled. Even minutes away from bidding goodbye to the union between his head and neck, Jeru wanted to try his hand at honor.

“The traitor visited the Ravening compound a month ago, and he made no report of finding the fugitive masquerading as a Nizahl recruit. During his last visit, he murdered the section leader and, again, made no report of the fugitive,” Vaun said.

“Sulor chose a trial of Fortune by Four instead of arrest,” Marek protested. “He lost. Under Nizahl’s laws, it isn’t murder.”

“The Heir outlawed the Fortune by Four years ago,” Banana Man snapped, seeming revolted at the necessity of addressing Marek. “The guardsman had no right to deprive the courts of finding justice.”

Outlawed? No wonder Jeru had looked ill after killing Sulor.

Marek couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “They would never have found Sulor guilty! He was taking bribes from royal families, families that pay members of the courts! Rerouting patrols, falsifying records, and conscripting non-eligible children from the lower villages—”

“We are not here to litigate the matter of the section leader’s death,” Layla said gently. She crossed to Arin, who had yet to blink away from the hearth. “My liege, would you like us to have them both sent back to Nizahl to await trial?”

Marek’s heart stopped. If they tossed both of them in a wagon headed for Nizahl, Sefa would die. She would die alone in the dirt, the wails of her fellow prisoners the last sound in her ears. “You can’t. No, please, please —”

“Untie the boy,” the Heir said, the order as disconnected as the rest of him. “Let him try to rescue his friend.”

Banana Man’s expression cracked with outrage, but he managed to hold his tongue. Vaun looked like he had swallowed a nest of wasps, but he swiped his dagger through Marek’s ropes.

Marek rose, rubbing his wrists. “What about Jeru?”

“You should go,” Layla said, and her patronizing tone annoyed Marek more than Vaun’s glare and Banana Man’s catty remarks. “The Heir has granted you your freedom. Don’t squander it.”

Marek ignored her. “Are you listening to me, you silver-haired bastard? What about Jeru?”

Vaun’s fist crashing into Marek’s jaw—expected. The furious outbursts from the Heir’s advisors and sycophants—also expected.

The sudden burst of laughter from the Heir? Most assuredly not expected.