Page 83 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

Red clouded my vision. Between one blink and the next, every vein in my body lit into an inferno. But the men only saw the magic swirling in my eyes before they found themselves hurled back into the wall, their bodies pinned by an invisible force against the gray stone.

I dropped to my knees beside him. My hands hovered uselessly, trying to assess the damage. They’d broken his right arm. Certainly cracked his ribs, if his rattling breath was any indication. His face—his beautiful, barely healed face—had been battered into a mess.

I gently peeled a lock of hair from a gash on his forehead. Arin could have disassembled every man in this cell blindfolded with a hand tied behind his back. I’d watched him cut down a swarm of magic-rotted Omalian soldiers like he was brushing his hair.

“He didn’t fight back,” I whispered. It echoed in my head, bouncing across the edges of my shock until it became a roar. My magic clawed for release, and I did not resist it. The rush of power quieted the grief howling in my chest.

He didn’t fight back.

I stood slowly, palms open at my sides. The pinned men squirmed against the wall.

Helpless. Pathetic. “You attacked a hostage in his cell. Seven against one. When you saw he wasn’t fighting back, you thought what?

You’d have a nice story about cornering the Nizahl Heir to carry back to your wives?

I recognize how difficult it must be for you to excite your women in bed, but this story doesn’t end well for you. In fact, this story ends you.”

I placed two fingers on the throat of the first man. His eyes bugged, limbs jerking unnaturally. “Hmm.” I tilted my head, the glow from my eyes casting light over his paling features. “How long does it take a tongue to melt? Let us find out together.”

The red-haired man’s screams filled the cell until they petered into a guttural groan. His head lolled forward as he fainted, blood pouring from between his parted lips.

The next man started screaming before I even touched him. My brows rose. “Now, now. No need for theatrics.” I tapped his nose. His skin began to undulate, his flesh stretching into grotesque bubbles under his skin.

The bubbles popped, and ants poured from the seeping wounds into the man’s eyes, nose, and ears. He choked on them as he tried to scream. “How many ants does it take to chew from skin to bone? So many questions we’re answering today.”

I had just shifted in front of the third when a strong arm wound around my stomach. Arin had drawn himself up from the ground, his chest heavy against my back. He yanked me away from the man. “Stop it.” Haggard, barely audible.

“But we are having such fun,” I insisted. “Right, gentlemen?”

The second man screamed again, and the ants seized the opportunity to flood his mouth a second time. Tsk. What did I tell him about theatrics?

“Suraira. Enough.”

Arin staggered, the arm around my stomach tightening for a different reason. I caught his waist, immediately forgetting anything other than the injured Heir in my arms. “Arin?”

I held him tight to keep his head from skimming the wall as we collapsed to the ground. The arm around me never went slack, keeping me firmly pressed to his side. We landed in a heap.

“You didn’t fight back,” I said, and it came out small and childlike. “Why?”

“Their magic was drained… as soon as their skin came into contact… with mine.” He swallowed, his throat working to gather his words. “Their magic went to the scepter.

“Let them…” He stopped to breathe, the same horrible rattling sound accompanying the action. “Go.”

I seethed. They did not deserve to leave this cell whole and intact.

“They drained their magic when they hit you—fine. What does it matter?” I recoiled as a sudden thought occurred to me.

“Please don’t say you allowed them to attack you out of a sense of fairness .

Arin, they would have been at a disadvantage with or without their tombs-damned magic! ”

Arin raised his brows silently, not ceding any ground. “Let them go.”

We glared at each other. Finally, I swung my head toward the pinned men, my glare hot upon them. “Remember this. This is the mercy of the man you brutalized. It is because of him your lives will not end in this cell.”

I waved, releasing them from their holds. They sprinted out, shoving one another in their hurry. One of them stopped to haul the unconscious first man over his shoulder.

“At least the one with the ants lost a decent layer of skin,” I said sullenly.

Arin coughed, but he might’ve been trying to laugh. “How much tongue does the first one have left?”

I sniffed. “Just the root, I hope.”

Agonizing minutes passed while Arin caught his next breath. “You can’t harm a Jasadi on my behalf. They will lose faith…” Another long moment. It hurt to watch him try to draw air. “In your impartiality. In your leadership.”

He’d prevented me from filleting the men who did this for my protection?

That did it. Tears I hadn’t noticed building spilled onto my cheeks. I covered my face, embarrassed to be the one crying when Arin had about half an inch of unbruised skin left.

“You should not spend your tears on me.”

“They are yours anyway, you idiot,” I sobbed.

Months of fear and loneliness poured out of me, ruptured by the sight of Arin lying still in pools of his own blood.

“Why did you come here? I was ready to die. I was ready to be honorable and brave and self-sacrificing for the first time in my miserable life. I had made my peace. I would restore Jasad, burst into flames, and enter history as a savior instead of a coward. Simple.”

“You are not going to die.”

“Of course I am! I was always going to die—my time has been borrowed ever since the Blood Summit. I’ve been trying to be brave about it.

To be like you . But then you come here, and you make me want to be selfish.

You make me want to be a coward.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “You make me think I have a choice.”

“Look at me, Suraira.”

I raised my puffy eyes. His gaze seared through me, focused and intent. Finally Arin , and not whatever listless creature Efra had brought in.

“I could spend the rest of my existence apologizing to you, but I will never be sorry that you survive. Not for a single… second.”

As soon as he finished his last labored sentence, his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

I caught him as he slumped to the side. With as minimal disruption to his wounds as possible, I pulled him against me.

His blood had soaked through my tunic and coated my arms. The puddles of it on the cell floor hadn’t dried.

“What does it take to make the Nizahl Heir finally faint?” I traced the bridge of his nose, following it to a silver brow. “Just losing four times the blood of an average man.”

I inhaled as far as his weight against my chest would allow, then screamed for Namsa.

I crossed my legs on the bed, watching his chest rise and fall.

The healer’s magic had passed right through him, so we’d had to include nonmagical remedies.

The sight of Arin with his arm strapped to his chest, black-and-blue bruising covering him from temple to chin, a plethora of bandages over his body—it tore at me.

I wanted to rewind time and finish what I started with his assailants.

Assailants who were, in a delightful little twist of irony, now in the cells themselves.

Efra had begrudgingly agreed to place them down there in punishment.

I personally thought it was a generous deal.

They stayed in the cells until we left for Jasad, and I would refrain from skinning them with a potato knife.

I also won Jeru in the bargain. The Nizahl guardsman had been relocated to a room next to Marek and Sefa’s. Easier on the sentries, I’d argued.

My hands twisted restlessly in my lap. The bandages the healer had placed on him were suffused with enough magic to heal an army. The hope being that in his current condition, he would drain it slowly enough that the magic would have a chance to heal him before it disappeared.

I wouldn’t do either of us any good by sitting and fretting.

I padded across the room, slipping a billowy black abaya over my shoulders.

I shut the door behind me and patted Niseeba’s head.

They had found her screeching outside the mountain, hopping around the door Arin had entered through, and she hadn’t settled until I brought her to him.

“Keep him safe for me,” I murmured.

The guard at Jeru’s door stepped aside as soon as he saw me, which was an excellent reminder that I needed to find Shawky and have him thrown into the cells with his worthless friends.

I cracked the door open, relieved to find Jeru wide awake. He was sitting in bed, his back braced against the wall with one leg straight and the other drawn to his chest. His dinner tray remained untouched by the door, and I picked it up as I entered.

The rest of the room came into view, and I heaved a giant sigh as I spotted Marek and Sefa watching me sheepishly.

“You two aren’t supposed to leave your room! How did you get past the guard?”

Sefa pointed at Marek immediately. “He told them you sent us to keep an eye on Jeru.”

Ignoring the betrayed frown Marek shot Sefa, I approached a silent Jeru.

“Existential agony is much more effective on a full stomach,” I advised, sliding the tray next to him. I perched on the edge of the bed. “Besides, you have about twenty seconds before Marek tries to steal it.”

“Make it ten,” Marek said.

Jeru didn’t say a word. Goodness, I had had about my limit of morose, moody men.

“He had to listen to the men beating Arin to a pulp,” I told Sefa and Marek. “They’ve been punished, but apparently Jeru isn’t quite finished punishing himself.”

Jeru exhaled, the end of it curling into a defeated laugh. It raised the hair on the back of my neck. “He didn’t fight back.”

My brows furrowed. “I know.”

“You don’t know. You don’t know anything.” Jeru tugged on the ends of his curls, which had already been pestered into a tangled frizz. “He came here planning not to fight back. He came here ready not to fight back.”

I stared at Jeru, something dangerous shivering in the back of my head. He couldn’t mean what I thought he meant.

“He came here to restore his magic,” I said, and even as I said it, I heard how foolish it sounded.

Arin didn’t just distrust magic—he despised it. He had led a life premised around magic creating unspeakable horrors wherever it went.

I wanted to cover my ears as Jeru opened his mouth. I wanted to knock his teeth down his throat. I wanted to do anything but sit still, frozen, racked with horror.

“The Heir came here to die.”