“We will load his body into the wagon,” the barrel-chested soldier said. Blood soaked his upper right thigh. Adel had thrown him hard. “When we return, we expect full cooperation in locating his children. Any resistance will earn you a trip to Nizahl.”
The shorter soldier glanced dubiously at the other man’s leg. It could barely support its owner’s weight. They murmured briefly to one another before turning back to us. “I will remain here to ensure none of you attempt to protect the Jasadi’s children. We need a volunteer to help carry the body to the wagon.”
No one spoke. Only someone of astoundingly poor intelligence would volunteer to walk into the woods with a Nizahl soldier and the brutalized body of his victim.
“I can carry him.”
Heads swiveled toward me. My mouth closed with a snap. What had I just done?
The uninjured soldier took in my build and height. He pressed his lips together, and I almost laughed. He didn’t want to choose me. I was taller than him and broad-shouldered. If a conflict ensued, I would make a fiercer opponent than an elderly baker.
As reliable as the rising and setting of the sun, the hubris of men was a winning bet. “Fine. Take his head.”
For once, moving away from the crowd failed to bring relief. I wondered if Sefa and Marek were watching, silently screaming at me for my foolhardiness. They didn’t understand. They thought I belonged in the crowd of onlookers.
Hanim wanted me to feel guilty for Adel’s death, to shake with righteous rage and a thirst for revenge, but all I felt was despair. More than anything, I wanted to belong in the crowd of onlookers. I didn’t want to be here, sliding my hands under Adel’s shoulders and lifting him from the pool of his own blood. His head rolled onto my shoulder, leaving slick trails of red along my neck. The soldier faced the woods, holding Adel’s legs under one curled arm. We walked. I barely noticed when we passed the raven-marked trees. I carried Adel’s fragile body and tried to see nothing but the path ahead. The river babbled to our right, splashing gently against the boulders studding the small riverbank.
“Here,” the soldier said. I startled; I’d been staring at the back of his head and vividly imagining caving his skull in. We lowered Adel to the ground. “I’ll bring the horses. Stay by the body.” He shot me a warning glance before vanishing into the trees.
I crouched by Adel’s body and pressed two fingers against his eyelids, drawing them down. Sefa would cry. She was good with emotions. She welcomed them as they came, without allowing them to linger or deepen. Anger did not settle inside her like shards of glass, cutting her open on the way down. I wished I had her tears. Adel deserved them.
But Rovial’s tainted tomb, how had he been so stupid? He’d confessed his magic in seconds, used his precious little stores of it to seal his fate. At least if he’d let them capture him, he could have tried to escape during the trip to Nizahl.
I should just leave. I hadn’t known this man. His blood was not on my hands.
Of course you want to hide. That’s what you do best, Hanim sneered.
My teeth ground together. I needed her out of my head. What would satisfy her? What could I do for this Jasadi that would rid me of Hanim’s voice?
An idea struck. An idea twice as idiotic as volunteering to carry Adel’s body into the woods. But if it meant purging myself of Hanim…
I hurried to the riverbank. Kicking my sandals off, I picked my footing between the boulders. Hirun was a moody river. I had to trust it not to undercut my balance and pull me into its currents.
I debated how to carry water back. Any I scooped into my hands would slosh out while I climbed from the riverbank. Time was not on my side. The soldier could return at any minute.
Finally, I dipped the bottom of my skirt in the water, drenching an inch of the fabric thoroughly. I hurried to Adel’s side, lifting my skirt to keep the bottom from absorbing dirt.
My lessons with Hanim had covered Jasad’s funereal rituals. She had been so convinced she could mold me to rule a kingdom Nizahl had already wiped from existence. What a waste of her time and mine.
I wrung a length of the skirt. The water trickled over Adel’s hand. I moved to his other hand, then his feet. They had beaten him raw. Every drop slid away red.
I reached his face. I did not recoil from touching him. My aversion to physical contact was reserved exclusively for the living.
They’d ruptured his eyes; blood still trickled from under his eyelashes. His magic had barely supported pushing the soldier a single time. I had once sat in Essam, much like I did now, listening to Hanim rant about how Jasad’s magic was already weakening when Nizahl attacked. How in a few generations, our lands would be as barren as the other kingdoms, and Jasadi children would be born without any magic in their veins.
I dabbed water onto his cheeks and forehead. I had stomped out Hanim’s lies as soon as I was free of her, casting them to a dark corner of my mind. But looking at Adel’s thin face, the bones of his forehead crushed into his hair, it was hard not to believe her words held some measure of truth.
I squeezed the last drops from my skirt and used them to wipe the blood from Adel’s chin. “Min dam Rovial, min ra’ad al Awaleen,” I began in Resar. If we were in Jasad, someone would have placed a date pit on his tongue. A farewell to his finished body, and a sign of gratitude for all it had given. I dusted a pebble against my vest and pressed it into his mouth. “Irja’a ila makan al mawt wal haya, ila awal al Awaleen.” Return to the place of death and life. To the first of the Firsts.
I hoped Adel wouldn’t mind my performing a Jasadi ritual. He had spent his life largely in Omal. Jasad might not have meant anything to him. Hanim had not taught me the Omalian death rites, but I hoped they were somewhat similar.
“Ila al mawt niwada’ak, wa na’eesh haya bakya fi fikrak. Yikun ma’ak—” I paused. To death we leave you, and we shall live our remaining life in remembrance. Be with you… what? I closed my eyes, reciting the sentence again in search of the missing pieces.
“A’malak we ahbabak,” came the smooth, measured voice above me. “I believe those are the words you seek.”
I went still. I had forgotten to listen for approaching footsteps.
I opened my eyes to boots standing a few inches from Adel’s head. My gaze crawled higher. Over the violet ravens embroidered on the bottom of a long black coat. Over a lean, broad-shouldered body shrouded in a Nizahlan uniform finer than any I’d seen before. The infamous black gloves encased his hands. A thin scar reached from the bottom of his throat to his jaw. If all this still did not sway my recognition, his eyes would have rung the final bell: pale blue and wintry. I had seen their likeness only once before.
Arin of Nizahl stood above me, watching me administer Jasadi death rites to a slain man.
I am found.
The world flipped, leaving me spinning through emptiness. Nausea surged in my gut. I leapt to my feet, forgetting the heaviness of my skirt. How was he here? When did he arrive?
I opened my mouth. To explain, to lie, to scream. A puff of air passed my lips, and nothing else.