“The Malik and Malika of Jasad were magic miners.”
We both froze. I pressed the tips of my fingers to my lips, not daring to believe they had shaped themselves around such horrible words. Words that could get me gagged and imprisoned almost as fast as my magic.
“Your magic is powerful, Essiya. Gedo Niyar and Teta Palia might try to take some of it. Tell them no. Fight them if you must.” Niphran smoothed my curls away from my face, heaving with the effort of being out of bed. “I am going to tell you a long-lost story, but you cannot ever share it with anyone. Not Dawoud. Not Soraya.”
Magic mining was a myth. A story so dangerous, so potent with the potential to unleash chaos, that even uttering the words was once cause for punishment. Time had washed it from importance, made it so the only ones who recalled the myth were long dead and forgotten. Or insane women locked in Bakir Tower.
My nails cut into my palms. The mirrors in my head were shattering. Unlocking my memories in pieces, disjointed shards I would bloody myself putting together. Fairel broke the first one, and they had not stopped since. How many more were left?
I muffled my gasp as Arin yanked me into him. My arms went around his back. He was shaking.
“You little liar,” he whispered. Choked and low. “You maddening Jasadi girl, I cherish your tongue too much to see it cut out of your head. Never speak those words to me or anyone else again. Do you understand?”
He pulled me away and shook my arms. My teeth clacked together. Urgency hardened in his voice. “Tell me you understand!”
My eyes were wide. I had singlehandedly sent the least reactive man in the kingdoms into a panic.
“I understand.”
He released me. I sat back on my heels, putting distance between us. Dawoud hung over my thoughts like a black shroud. I couldn’t think past him long enough to study the pieces of the mirror that had propelled Arin into such a state.
We stared at each other for a charged moment. I wanted to press for answers, but the vehemence of his reaction had rattled me. What did Arin know?
I had a fondness for my tongue, so my investigation would be done far away from the Nizahl Heir.
I spoke too loudly, eager to scrub the shaken look off Arin’s face. “They haven’t attacked yet. The Mufsids or Urabi, even Soraya. What if they bide their time until after the Alcalah, after your soldiers are gone?”
Arin closed his eyes for the briefest second. When he opened them, any evidence of uncertainty or tension was gone. “About that.” Arin helped me to my feet, and I glanced around the wreckage of the room. No mortal strength alone could have wrought such damage, and everything was too fractured to be put together again. It reeked of magic.
Arin came to the same conclusion. He kicked a merrily flaming splinter of the wardrobe into the fallen pillows. They ignited, fire leaping to the mattress. He would probably alert the Omalian servants after the ash clouds hid the debris. He might say a lantern or candle fell over, and the servants would believe him, because he was Arin of Nizahl, and the Commander did not set fires in foreign rooms.
“Another theory?”
“Better.” Arin found a salvageable tunic from the wardrobe and passed it to me. “A plan.”
A fleet of carriages painted in a spectrum of colors surrounded the Omal palace in the new morning’s dawn. The exodus to Nizahl for the third trial had begun, with several contingents leaving directly after the second trial. Among them Vaun and Supreme Rawain, the latter of whom needed to greet the Citadel’s guests as they entered Nizahl.
In the spiteful cold, I hopped from foot to foot beside two tan carriages. Sorn, the Orban Heir, had patted his vivid green and brown carriage and asked Arin if Nizahl’s colors did not suit his taste. To which Arin had responded, “If I am to be ambushed on the road, it will not be because of the paint on my carriage.” Even Diya had suppressed a smirk at Sorn’s embarrassment.
“There is a market coming up soon,” I said. My breath puffed out in wisps of white. I drew my cloak closer. Sefa scowled at the moth-eaten collar. I had been given dozens of luxurious cloaks to wear, and she did not like how I still clung to my raggedy one. “Help Rory set up a booth. Make sure it’s by the fountain, or he will pitch a fit.”
“Ah.” Sefa glanced at Marek.
He sighed. “Sylvia, we are coming with you.”
I squinted, waiting for his expression to fracture with humor. “What a peculiar jest.”
“It is not a jest. We’re coming. His Highness caught us outside yesterday, before we had even entered the palace,” Sefa said. “We waited for you to ask us to go with you. Why haven’t you?”
“Why?” I sputtered. “Dania’s sacred skirts, have your wits tumbled free of your heads? The High Counselor is in Nizahl. Marek is wanted for assault and avoiding conscription. Under no circumstances are you entering Nizahl!”
“Actually,” Marek said. “We are.”
I spun around, checking we were in front of the Omal palace and not in some bizarre dream. “Marek, you have been fighting this since the beginning! I know His Highness can be extremely persuasive, but we can accomplish what we need without you. If this is about last night’s… episode, it is unlikely to repeat itself, and you needn’t—”
“Damn it to the tombs, Sylvia, you do not need to bear everything alone!” Marek ran a hand through his hair. “Why is it so unbelievable that we would come without being dragged by the ear?”
“You reckless fools. We can execute Arin’s plan without you! I will be all right.”
“We go back to Mahair with you or not at all,” Sefa snapped. She lowered her voice, glancing around surreptitiously. “We bought glamors from a vagrant in Orban who says he paid a Jasadi to enchant them.”
I threw my arms up. “Glamors will not hold long against people closely acquainted with your true faces.” The High Counselor, for example.
“Which is why the Commander’s instructions are to send us into the lower villages. Marek is from the military towns and my mother is a noble, so there will not be a risk of recognition in Nizahl’s southern provinces.”
Arin exited the palace, his guards in tow. He nodded at Felix and exchanged a few words with Queen Hanan. My cousin and paternal grandmother watched him walk toward us. Felix’s dark glare delighted me. He had been effectively neutered. He would not attack me in Arin’s own kingdom, and after the debacle with the dolls, Vaida would not trust Felix to pour water into a cup. All his hopes for retribution rested on the outcome of the third trial.
My gaze crossed Queen Hanan’s. I searched for the features of a father I had never known in the older woman’s face. The perpetually weary look in the Omal Queen’s eyes flickered. Her brows furrowed. I quickly looked away.