Page 78 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

“You make a mockery of the gift I went to the ends of the earth to give you. The magic you drain from these oh-so-poor Jasadis, do you think I hoard it for my own pleasure? Do you think I wish to possess it?” The end of the scepter pressed into Arin’s neck, keeping him down.

“Unlike the Jasadis you draw it from, the magic I wield doesn’t run in my veins.

It holds no chance of corrupting me, and I can prevent others from using it for evil.

I can use it to make Nizahl strong—to make this family strong.

If it weren’t for me, you would have died at sixteen, slaughtered at the hands of that Jasadi murderer you allowed into your bedroom. ”

Rawain’s speech, delivered with ire and put-upon frustration, barely penetrated the buzzing in Arin’s ears. Blood matted the side of his head. Pain pounded between his temples, but at least he didn’t feel any fractures.

With an edge of a humor he thought Essiya might appreciate, Arin noted that at this point, he probably had more bumps and craters on his skull than the roads of Mahair.

Arin’s jaw popped when he opened his mouth to speak, mellifluous and calm.

“Slaughtering nearly everyone at the Blood Summit with magic I stole for you, blaming Niyar and Palia, and then using the bloodshed as an impetus to rally the other kingdoms into destroying Jasad? My lord, forgive my skepticism, but what corruption might magic offer to a soul that has never known anything else?”

The weight of the scepter vanished from the back of Arin’s neck. He raised his head. Rawain had the scepter raised high as he stared at Arin with a coldness Arin could never, if he lived a thousand years, manage to replicate.

“I always feared you would become like your true mother,” Rawain said. “I stayed vigilant for what you might have inherited from Hanim. In my worst nightmares, I never thought you would take after Isra. As weak and—”

“Weak is not a mother who throws herself between a boy with none of her blood and the wrath of the man who made him.” Arin wiped the blood dripping onto his lashes. “Weak is a ruler who holds a match to the world and then blames it for burning.”

The scepter swung. With the height of the swing and the speed, the blow would surely knock Arin unconscious.

So this time, Arin caught it.

Rawain inhaled sharply, trying and failing to yank the scepter from his grasp as Arin stood.

“I could have stopped you at any time. I could have stopped you a decade ago,” Arin said. It was hollow. Exhausted. “I should have known you would never stop yourself.”

Footsteps rang out before Rawain could answer. A shadow in uniform emerged from the corridor, stepping into the small study.

“Arrest the Heir,” Rawain commanded. “Magic has taken him.”

“Is it ready?” Arin asked Jeru.

Jeru nodded.

“Hold him.”

As soon as they grabbed Rawain, he began to struggle. A gag went between Rawain’s teeth, and Jeru wrapped his arms around Rawain from behind, pinning his father’s elbows to his sides.

“My guardsman,” Arin said. “The one you kindly deposited on my map table. He sent me a message before you ordered Vaun to execute him.”

Arin pulled out a scrap of parchment no larger than his palm and lifted it for Rawain to see.

No mines. The scepter.

“He found you out, didn’t he?” Arin murmured. “He saw you use magic from the scepter.”

The hateful beady eyes of the raven glared at Arin.

For two decades, the scepter had symbolized Rawain’s power, but it had always been Arin’s magic behind it.

Arin’s magic anchoring everything he drained into his father’s scepter.

Arin’s magic facilitating every horror they were oathbound to prevent.

Rawain’s grip on the scepter refused to budge, no matter how hard Arin pulled or how tightly Jeru held.

“Wait.” Arin gestured at Rawain’s robe. “Lift his sleeve.”

Looking faintly ill, Jeru drew back Rawain’s billowing sleeve.

At the sight of a thick metal cuff around Rawain’s wrist, welding him to the scepter, Arin laughed. “Clever.”

“There is no clasp or latch of any kind,” Jeru said, distressed. “It cannot be removed.”

“Of course it can,” Arin said. “Take out your sword.”

The scepter went taut as Rawain began struggling in earnest. Jeru strained to hold on to the Supreme.

Arin dragged the scepter forward, drawing his father’s hand flat to the desk. The cuff around his wrist scraped the wood.

The moment Rawain registered Arin’s intent, it happened.

A spark lit in the glass orb behind the raven. The ember swirled faster, growing into streaks of gold and silver. Rings of light spun around the head of the scepter, the brightness forcing Jeru to look away.

Arin was transfixed. There it was—the truth. The root of every darkness that had scourged the kingdoms over the last twenty-three years.

Arin’s magic.

Arin laid his hand atop Jeru’s flagging grip on his father’s arm, pinning it down. As the scepter’s magic expanded to a searing peak, Arin swung.

Blood landed on Jeru in thick splatters, spraying across the desk. His father screamed behind the gag. A touch dramatically, in Arin’s opinion. It was a conservative cut; he’d only taken Rawain’s hand.

Arin steadied his shaking fingers over the scepter. It was his father who had lost a hand, yet Arin’s heart reacted as though he had given up something, too.

The Supreme staggered back, grasping the desk for balance. He’d lost all color, and his wild eyes weren’t on his missing limb, but on the scepter. He tore the gag from his mouth. “It can’t be reversed,” Rawain spat. “You will never regain your magic.”

Arin lifted the scepter, the Supreme’s hand still clenched within the cuff. “Regain?” How painfully predictable for his father to assume Arin wanted the scepter to bolster his own power. “I have no use for this magic, my liege. But I know someone who might.”

A fist pounded against the desk as soon as Arin turned around.

“Do you think your precious Jasad Heir is any different from those who came before her?” Rawain snarled.

“Do you honestly believe she won’t resume magic mining as soon as she reestablishes her kingdom?

And what will happen to us if she does, Arin?

She won’t trade with us, and without my scepter, without the magic you draw, we will have nothing! ”

Arin thought of the girl he’d met crouched over a dead Jasadi’s body, mumbling death rites with a vexed expression.

The girl who’d exposed her magic to him by throwing a dagger at Felix’s thigh after he hurt the little orphan girl.

The magic she’d spilled every time Sefa or the boy were in danger.

The same girl and the same magic that had stopped the Ruby Hound before it could shred Arin apart.

“She is nothing like them.” Arin glanced at the blood coating his gloves. He couldn’t tell if it belonged to Vaun or to his father. “Nothing like us.”

“You would choose her over your own kingdom? Over your own family?” Rawain sounded stunned.

Jeru opened the door, and Arin spared his father one last look before he walked through it. Blood slicked the surface of the desk, dripping onto the carpet. Rawain had wrapped the end of his robe around his bleeding limb, but his eyes were glassy, his skin the color of wax.

“Yes,” Arin said. “I choose her.”

One last task.

The oars slipped into the water. Night had deepened, and the moon hid its face behind the trees.

Essam Woods bordered the river, trailing branches skimming the surface of Hirun as the trees shivered with the rising wind.

Hirun wound through the woods like a dark ribbon, its current gently rocking their boat.

They had been rowing for close to three hours before Jeru finally spoke.

“What happens now, my lord?”

Arin set his knees apart as he leaned forward, the ends of the oars tucked under his arms. The long bundle between his and Jeru’s feet seemed more ominous than the shadows flitting between the trees.

“I am not your lord anymore,” Arin said. “I will be stripped of my titles under guilt of treason. My armies will become my father’s.”

Jeru paled. The boat slowed as the guardsman’s grip on the oars went slack. “But—but your father will send your armies to Jasad. It will be a slaughter.”

“No,” Arin said. “He needs magic to sustain his own hold on power, and the Jasadis have the last of it. But even if he wants to, his attentions will be soon diverted toward the attack from Lukub. It will buy us time.”

“Attack from Lukub?” Jeru looked bewildered and embarrassed, as though Arin had caught him in the middle of failing a test he should have studied for.

“The Mirayah never stays in the same place for very long. Every report of it our soldiers have brought back indicates it rotates between five places in Essam. Depending on the latest location, it would take Vaida twelve to twenty days to reach it. She has been gone for seven.”

Jeru’s eyes were the size of saucers. “I thought the rumors about the Mirayah were just superstition. How long have you known it was real?”

“Long enough,” Arin said tersely. “Vaida would never have surrendered the Ivory Palace unless she knew it was temporary. Unless she had a greater plan in motion.”

Between the war with Lukub, the rebellions raging across Omal, and Orban’s khawaga protecting Jasadis on the trade routes, his father’s armies would have no choice but to separate.

Even if he did send regiments south, he would not be able to spare enough to battle the volume of Jasadis Essiya’s kitmers had likely galvanized toward their kingdom.

Arin picked up the oars and pushed, the soreness in his arms barely registering. He was dimly aware he hadn’t eaten or slept in days.

Numb wasn’t the right word for it. Arin just felt… distant. As though most of him had stepped into another room, and the sounds coming from behind the door were too muffled to make out.

“Your Highness—” Jeru murmured.

“I am not your Heir.” Arin turned the oar. His last task would only take three days, if the winds favored. Three days until he reached the mountains. Three days until he reached her.

“I am nothing.”