Page 88 of The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne #2)

I pressed the tip of my index finger to a crack in the ground. Fire burst like a gushing river and raced toward Arin’s boots. The Jasadis cheered as Arin twisted out of the fire’s path. It leapt, hopping in the fractures of the dried ground, molten veins winding tighter around him.

A screech sent the Jasadis to the ground as Niseeba swooped low, the flap of her wings extinguishing half of the flames.

Her shadow crossed Arin like a protective caress, and I scowled at the kitmer as she rejoined her younger siblings in the sky.

Perhaps favoring Arin was her revenge for being named disaster .

With magic at the helm, the fight raced toward its inevitable finish. I could have snapped Arin’s bones like a stick of bosomat. I could have melted his tongue into a thick syrup down his throat.

For the first time, I understood how he could look at magic and see more than another tool. What sword could have stopped me? What mortal weapon might have slowed me down?

I pressed the tip of my sword to his throat.

“Don’t move.”

The fire snaked in fluid lines around us. Even with his chin tilted back and a knife digging into the delicate skin of his throat, Arin’s composure never faltered.

Cold blue eyes met mine in a challenge. This was the Arin I met in Essam, the Arin who hunted me in Mahair. The famed Commander of Nizahl, trapped against my blade.

“On your knees.”

Not a single person dared breathe.

“Get on your knees, Commander,” I repeated harshly.

For an awful second, I thought he wouldn’t move.

I thought he would knock the sword out of my hand and cut me down in front of the watching Jasadis, done with the facade.

This would be where he drew the line: the last frontier he would not surrender.

Efra was right, and Arin had been toying with me all along.

The Silver Serpent had infused his venom into me, and I was nothing more than another in a long line to fall prey to—

In a sinuous motion, Arin knelt.

Shock reverberated from our audience, so strong it threatened to shake the very mountain itself. I didn’t dare move beyond keeping the sword aimed. The beginnings of a tremor worked through my arm.

All of Nizahl’s power knelt before me. All of Rawain’s strength and might. The strongest Commander in centuries, gazing up at me with utter tranquility.

“Arin of Nizahl. For ten years, you have been the enemy of magic. You have hunted us. Harmed us. Done your best to break us. In the service of the Supreme, you have perpetuated the lie he fabricated ten years ago to justify our annihilation. Magic-madness, they said. A disease. An inevitability. A death sentence.”

The air changed, threaded with a dangerous pulse. If I wasn’t careful, righteous anger would fall way to vengeance.

What secret irony it was that Arin had been right. Partially right, as I had been partially wrong. Magic-madness did exist, and he was looking at it. He had seen my veins, suffocated beneath my magic, but nobody knew about my magic’s voice. About the hallucinations, the shifting figures.

The figures who now stood in a ring around me and Arin, holding vigil to the truth. Dozens of them, some faces I’d seen before and others I hadn’t, invisible to every eye but mine.

“The innocent blood on your hands does not care for what cause you shed it, Commander. For what you have done, death would be a just consequence.”

I didn’t dare look at Jeru.

“But you carry the magic of Jasad in your veins. You are of us, and we are of you. Today, we show you mercy. We offer you a choice.”

Arin’s words from the cabin, offered so long ago, came to life between us.

I offer you a new life.

“Swear yourself to the throne of Jasad. Swear your loyalty to magic and to those born with it. Swear yourself to us, and you can live.”

Please want to live , I didn’t add. Please want to stay.

“No.”

My lungs collapsed.

Murmurs broke out immediately, followed by the shuffle of dirt as everyone shoved in for a closer look.

“Thrones fall. Magic fades.” Arin’s level voice cut through the din. “I will swear my loyalty, but not to Jasad’s throne, nor to its magic.” A black gloved hand pressed against the tip of the sword, lowering it to aim at his heart.

“I swear my loyalty to Jasad’s Malika.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Everything I have is hers to command. What she wills, I will create. What she hates, I will destroy. I am the weapon of the Malika, and it is her alone I pledge myself to.”

Speechless, I stared at Arin.

I’d had a plan—a good plan, damn him. I didn’t know what to do with this. What game was he playing, suggesting something so ludicrous? I’d offered him a pledge everyone would consider reasonable, but who would believe Arin of Nizahl had vowed himself to the Malika of Jasad?

Unless it wasn’t a game.

I stepped back. Arin simply watched me. Sword pointed at his heart, on his knees, and terrifyingly sincere.

What was he thinking? Arin of Nizahl, subject to my will? My whims? It was stupidly dangerous. He knew about the veins. He knew what would happen if I survived raising the fortress.

“Do you accept?” Arin asked.

“I—I—”

The figures shifted around us, their silhouettes blending into a shroud of darkness whirling around me and Arin, separating us from the Jasadis. They wanted this. They wanted to claim the Heir as they had claimed Raya.

I lowered the sword and exhaled.

“I accept.”