“They’re—they have not changed. Not a hint of gold or silver.” He peered closer. “Where is the magic in your darling kitmer eyes?”
“The cuffs,” I spat. “My magic flows through the cuffs, not my body. Dawoud, you have to run. Please. I cannot hold it much longer, and the patrol will be closing in on Dar al Mansi.”
Dawoud went deathly white. He staggered away, looking at my wrists with more terror than he spared Al Anqa’a. Had the effects of expending so much magic caught up with him?
“How can they still be there? How?” he gasped. “Oh, my dear Essiya, oh no. What has happened to you?”
You have the potential and power to be worse than any who have come before you.
“Dawoud,” I set my feet as Al Anqa’a bashed itself against the barrier. I slid backward with each blow to my magic. “Did I ever burn your favorite quilt?”
A peculiar look flashed over Usr Jasad’s head of staff. It was the look of someone who believed one wrong pull of the ropes would bring the sky crashing down. A look I recognized from my childhood. His thick brows furrowed. “I should have let you take it to the courtyard,” he said.
Soraya was right.
Mirrors. My memories were fragments, reflections of what I needed them to be to survive. Dawoud’s pained admission cracked open the day I burned his quilt. The shatter echoed into my body, ringing in my bones.
Essiya was no better than Sylvia. I had always been this broken. This selfish.
Sylvia was just a reflection of the worst parts of a girl I had buried.
In a burst of fury, Al Anqa’a surged past the barrier of my magic. Sparks fell like gold rain from the breached barrier. Its talons closed around my body, and I swore as my feet left the ground.
Its grip faltered when I kicked out. A single talon pierced the back of my tunic like a hook. I dangled downward, the fabric of my tunic slowly ripping. Al Anqa’a’s wings thrashed, struggling to lift us against my magic’s wall.
On the ground, Dawoud picked up the dagger. He stared at me, tears tracking down the face that had once been more beloved to me than my own mother’s.
Dawoud’s mouth moved, and I realized what he meant to do a split second before he plunged the dagger into his heart.
“No!” I screamed. Al Anqa’a cried out as the barrier broke in a sky-shaking tremor. Gold sparks shot through the air like falling stars. Dawoud crumpled, and I lifted my arms, sliding out of my tunic and crashing to the ground. The dagger had slid into Dawoud in the same place Soraya stabbed me. Al Anqa’a flapped to the east, abandoning prey that had become more trouble than it was worth.
“Your Gedo Niyar would be so proud of you,” Dawoud said when I skidded to my knees next to him. I pressed my trembling hands to his wound, and he groaned. “I should have believed them when they said you were alive. I didn’t dare to. The thought of you alone for so long, while we—” He coughed, red droplets splattering on his chin. “Your cuffs were never meant to last this long. No one is meant to be alone for so long.”
“Then don’t leave me.” Desperation turned the words into a plea.
Blood gushed between my fingers, and my cuffs heated as I called on every ounce of magic I had. My magic had to act somehow. Dawoud would not die in the dirt in Dar al Mansi. He would not be another Jasadi claimed by this village.
“I should have never stopped searching for you.” His hand came to rest over mine, his calloused palm cool over my knuckles. I flinched at the touch, and Dawoud’s sharp eyes narrowed. “What happened to you, Essiya? Where were you?”
My magic tore uselessly around us. “Hanim,” I ground out. I would speak, if only to keep the stubborn man from doing so himself. “She kept me in Essam for five years.”
My goal to talk him into relaxation failed miserably, because he tried to lurch upward. Blood poured down his front. “Qayida Hanim?” The remaining color leached from his face, leaving him gray and aghast. “That miserable traitor. She took you? She—she ruined us all. Soraya, Essiya, do you know about Soraya?”
“Dawoud, please, stay still,” I begged.
“Hanim brought her into the palace. Into our home. Hanim recommended her to your grandparents, because—” It seemed sheer spite kept Dawoud awake. His eyes rolled wildly. “They planned it all. But Hanim…” He shuddered in what might have been a laugh. “Soraya should have known better than to rely on the fidelity of traitors.”
“I don’t care about them,” I urged. “Lie still.”
Dawoud’s smiled with white lips. “My determined little Essiya,” he breathed. “To die knowing you are alive is all I could have wished for.”
I lost the battle against my heart. “Please stay. Please. I have so much to tell you. I apprenticed with a man named Rory. A chemist. I could hardly tolerate the subject with my tutors, remember? But he taught me about how to heal the body from the inside and out. He took me to a woman named Raya. She reminded me of you, except more rigid. I became her ward, and she treated me kindly.” My teeth were chattering, shaking along with the rest of my body. Dawoud’s breaths slowed beneath me. My magic’s assault on Dar al Mansi evaporated.
Dawoud was dying.
Wiping the blood from my hands, I slid behind him, pulling his head into my lap. I combed my fingers through his hair, raking them into his scalp the way he used to do for me after a nightmare. “I am here. I won’t go,” I said, and I repeated the words long after Dawoud’s chest stilled and his body went cold.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Night loomed over Dar al Mansi. I eased out from beneath Dawoud’s body. Once night fell, hordes of patrolling guards would attack the remaining creatures in Dar al Mansi.
I stared down at Dawoud’s still face. Supreme Rawain did this. He threw Dawoud into Dar al Mansi for me to slaughter. We were animals to him, playthings to use and dispose of.
And I was his Champion.
The rage cooled the howling grief in my chest. I bent down, and even without months of training, I wouldn’t have struggled to lift Dawoud in my arms. Though starved and tortured, Dawoud never bowed to Nizahl. Proud until his end, dying like every Jasadi in Dar al Mansi.
But unlike them, he would not dwell in the home of the forgotten.
I carried Dawoud through the stretch of Essam Woods separating Dar al Mansi from the rest of Omal. Lantern light and movement flickered between the trees. The marching patrol.
Essam cleared, and a commotion greeted my entry. The audience seethed on two opposite slopes, craning for a view of the narrow landing between them. They cheered as I walked onto the path, although the ones at the bottom quieted at the sight of the dead man in my arms.
The announcer’s expression scrunched with confusion as I approached. I glanced behind him. Supreme Rawain and the other royals lounged at the front, ringed with guards. I carefully kept my gaze away from Supreme Rawain or his son.