Page 79 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

ESSIYA

D reams passed over me in gentle waves.

I stand on Sirauk, my old cloak billowing around me.

“You came back,” the mist says.

I swing my legs over the side of the bridge, observing the great nothing below. Deep in the darkness, they watch me. Waiting.

“I shouldn’t have.”

I pluck a red burss from the ground and stroke my thumb over its curling tail. It will be nice to have company again.

Niphran pats my curls with a contented sigh. I sit in her lap, playing with the dolls Dawoud had attempted to confiscate.

“How was your day, ya umri?”

“Soraya wouldn’t take me into town. I tried to sneak into her carriage, but she caught me,” I whine. I twist the doll’s twine hair into a series of miniature braids. “She always catches me.”

“You should listen to Soraya.”

I pause, digging my nails into the doll’s tummy.

This wasn’t right. It hadn’t happened like this.

I turn my head to stare up at Niphran. “Soraya came after the poison made you mad. You should be in Bakir Tower.”

Niphran smiles, but it isn’t Niphran anymore. Her skin churns, eyes liquefying into ruby pools; she whispers, “It’s time to come home, darling.”

Two shadows rise behind her, their arms outstretched.

I scream.

Water splashed over the side of the bucket as Efra forced my head deeper into the water.

I clutched the edges of the bucket and strained against his hold until my vision dimmed. When he released me, I flopped back onto the carpet, sputtering. Water poured out of my nose and mouth, and I hacked with a force that might’ve broken a rib.

When my demise no longer seemed as imminent, I sat up, wiping my face with the dry parts of my sleeves. Efra crossed his arms over his chest.

“Thank you,” I muttered.

“Don’t thank me,” Efra said. “Holding your head underwater three times a day? The privilege itself is a gift.”

“Then you’re welcome, and get out.” The water was still sloshing inside the bucket. I’d need to refill it again.

It was late, and I did not want to risk anyone seeing Efra leave my chambers at this hour.

Bad enough I had had to kick Marek and Sefa into their own room, but how could I explain Efra’s comings and goings?

I couldn’t offer an excuse without explaining that the symptoms of my magic-madness had begun to arise with alarming regularity, and only Efra could sense it in time to burst into my room and dunk my head beneath the water.

“Is it just the visions?” Efra asked, crouching in front of me. There was genuine, if reluctant, interest pooled in his green eyes. “Does it interfere in any other way?”

“I told you about the veins already.” The vulture had caught me at a low point, shaken from another unexplainable vision. Besides, the only reason to hide the veins was to hide the encroaching madness, and Efra was all too aware of that already.

Efra just waited, watching me drip water onto the carpet and attempt not to shiver. He was remarkably bold for someone in the proximity of a woman with seemingly bottomless magic and a tenuous grasp on her mind.

“There are impulses,” I said flatly. What did it matter? Maybe once I was dead, they could use my symptoms as a guide to managing this condition if Arin was wrong and it occurred again. “They don’t feel like mine.”

“Whose do they feel like?”

“Your mother’s,” I snapped. “How should I know?”

To my surprise, Efra remained somber, lips pressed tightly together.

“If your madness consumes you before Nuzret Kamel, we are lost.”

“It won’t.” I hoped. “I can last for ten more days.”

“We won’t be strong enough to kill you if you succumb,” he reminded me, as if I needed reminding. As if half the visions weren’t devoted to the myriad of ways my hands had maimed and murdered in realities I shouldn’t exist in.

“Get out, Efra,” I said tiredly. “Or I might not wait until I’m magic-mad to kill you.”

Still looking thoughtful, Efra left. I squeezed the tunic around the ends of my hair and used the last of my energy to crawl back into bed.

I had been expecting the world to end. Preparing for it, in fact.

I just hadn’t expected it to end the very next morning.

Maia burst into the Aada room where I had absconded after breakfast, her ponytail askew and cheeks flushed.

“Mawlati,” Maia choked out. “There is, uh… Nawar rode ahead to let us know—that is, we need to prepare for an arrival. Two arrivals, in fact.”

Lateef and I glanced at each other, equally mystified. “Arrivals.” I straightened, dropping the missive I had been reading onto the maps laid open across the table. A nebulous dread formed a knot at the base of my spine.

“What arrivals, Maia?” Lateef demanded.

Eyes brimming with guilt and uncertainty found mine, and I went stiff.

No. It wasn’t possible. I had told them hundreds of times they were never to bring him into the mountains. Maia and Lateef startled as the table’s ledge cracked beneath my hands. My veins were rigid inside my skin, glowing with my fury.

I might kill them. I might truly kill them.

“He’s here?” I forced out, my throat raw from the effort of swallowing down the shriek I wanted to unleash. “They brought him here.”

“Nawar only told us he’d been captured at the mountain’s edge with one of his guardsmen. I don’t know any more,” Maia said, and she sounded genuinely sorry for it. “I came to tell you right away.”

I was too furious to be grateful. Maia moved out of my way as I stormed out of the room, and I raced through the corridors.

He was here. He was here, he was here, he was here .

My blue abaya fluttered behind me, falling open around my black pants. A bottleneck of bodies choked off the entrance to the enclave, shoulders bumping against one another as people craned for a glimpse of the door.

Unbelievable. Disobeying my most important order wasn’t enough; they needed to be here for the evidence.

“All of you—out!” I roared. Heads spun, finding me at the rear of the crowd. My fists shook at my sides, nails biting into my palms to restrain my magic. “Go to your rooms and close the doors. Nobody leaves until I have given my permission.”

For a long minute, nothing happened. I wasn’t backed by Lateef or ringed by Namsa and Maia. This time, it was my word—my authority—on its own.

You could force them to listen. The whisper curled like steam from a kettle around my anger, cooling it into sharp crystals and shredding me from the inside. We could make them regret the day they made a mockery of you.

Nausea swelled through me as my magic showed me precisely what could be done to the Urabi gathered in the enclave.

How I could bring the roof crashing down above them with a single flick of my hand.

How I could press my palms to the wall and encircle them in flames, watching as they screamed and rammed into one another like ants in a hole.

I pressed my back to the wall. The cool stone seeped into my overheated skin, and with great effort, I shoved the images to the back of my head.

“By your leave, Mawlati,” the head Visionist said, offering me a short bow. She moved past me, the rest of her cohort slinking close behind.

One by one, the corridor emptied, until only Maia, Sefa, Marek, and Lateef remained.

Two large hands captured my shoulders. Marek held me at arm’s length, expression unreadable. “This is your dominion, Malika Essiya. Whatever you wish to happen will happen.”

“I—” I was going to be sick. I didn’t know what to do. Why, why had Arin come here?

The door rattled, silencing us. The knock came: three hard raps, followed by two quick ones.

“Essiya?” Maia prompted. “Do you want to get it?”

I couldn’t move. My heart accelerated to a feverish pace, battering itself against my ribs.

When my petrified stillness continued, Lateef wrenched the door open, shielding his face as a vicious cold front swept in.

Namsa came in first, rubbing her hands together. The wind had slapped a red flush on her cheeks, and I wished I could slap another one. I would, if I could just regain control over my limbs.

Guilt-ridden eyes immediately slid to me, and Namsa spoke fast. “Mawlati, I understand you wanted to keep the Commander away from the Gibal. We intended to honor your wishes, but… he had compelling evidence for why we should bring him to you alive. He wasn’t followed.

We checked. We left Asim and George in Essam to ensure nobody tries to track him to us. ”

She flinched at my bitter laugh. “Yes, because the Nizahl Heir, a man who knows every tree, squirrel, and puddle in Essam, suddenly wandered right in front of our perimeter without any reinforcements. What evidence could be compelling enough for you to bring him here against my orders?” I pried my teeth apart with difficulty.

“You call him the Silver Serpent, for Sirauk’s sake.

How frequently does a serpent sidle right into a hunter’s net? ”

Namsa’s mouth opened and closed. My neck prickled. The air in the room shifted, and I sensed him before I heard him. The world narrowed down to the tall shadow shifting into the enclave.

“I don’t believe serpents are much for sidling,” a smooth, achingly familiar voice said from behind Namsa. “We much prefer to slither.”