The shadows in the room silhouetted the Nizahl Heir. The lanterns flickered with the rush of wind accompanying his entrance. He shut the door behind him, removed his coat and lifted it to the hook. Ease in his movements, as though we were two companions meeting for a meal.
I was sweating to rival one of Felix’s overworked horses. I feared the slickness of my palm against the blade’s smooth handle.
This was not like the soldier in the woods. I could not assess him for weaknesses to exploit or avenues of attack. I was a bird flying into the heart of a windstorm, and the millisecond of surprise between my attack and his defense would decide the outcome of my flight.
When he finally glanced up, it was to look beyond me, closing in on the cracked opening in the war cabinet.
My blood beat in my ears.
The Nizahl Heir’s gaze met mine. Whatever he saw brought a cold smile to his lips. Relics of every kingdom’s gruesome history surrounded me, and only this man drove ice through my heart.
“There you are,” he said. “We meet at last.”
I closed the distance between us in a single bound. Terror churned in my veins, carrying the momentum of my swinging knife. Had my opponent been any other, my aim would have been true. I had acted fast, and I would have struck him at an angle from which there was no recovery. My greatest trouble should have been pulling the dagger from the stubborn clutch of his corpse.
But my opponent was not any other.
Arin caught my knuckles in a flash. Without a flicker of hesitation, he snapped my wrist to the side.
I choked on a scream at the crunch of bone. My limbs went lax in the bright bloom of pain. The dagger clattered, falling from my grip.
He pulled me closer, sliding his hand to my elbow. His breath touched my temple. From the outside, my body curving into his, it could have resembled a lover’s embrace.
“Is this all you have to offer me?” he whispered.
He hurled me back. I slammed into the cabinet, glass raining down around me. When I hit the ground, a few of the cabinet’s effects fell with me.
Among them, the axe.
Glass crunched under his boots. “Sylvia of Omal, I find you guilty of wielding magic against another.”
We were skipping the pretense of explanations, then. I turned onto my elbow with a groan and grabbed the axe. My shoulder, already aching, popped under the weapon’s weight. With a grunt, I swung at Arin’s legs.
He sidestepped, but not quite fast enough. Satisfaction surged through me at the slash of blood beading on his left thigh.
It lasted until he slammed his boot down on my hand. Agony blackened my senses, and the axe dropped from my limp grip.
But of course, he wasn’t done. Arin crouched by my head, and in my failing lucidity, he was death himself, arriving to reap my soul. To finish what the Supreme began and destroy the last of Jasad’s royal line. I clawed at him, a dying rabbit clasped in the vulture’s claws, heedless of the crushed glass embedding itself deeper into my skin.
The Commander threw a knee over my bucking body, pinning my mangled hands above my head.
I was held fast, helpless to resist as he raised a gloved hand to his mouth and caught the leather in his teeth. He tugged at each finger meticulously, and the glove slid loose. It dropped onto my chest, and my magic seethed forward, fracturing against my cuffs.
“There is nowhere left to hide,” he said softly, and curved his bare hand against the side of my face.
The bones of my splintered wrist imploded beneath the unbearable strain of my cuffs. I was eaten alive from the inside out as my magic beat against me, seeking an outlet that did not exist. Tears ran down my temples, pooling between the Arin’s fingers. What was he doing to my magic?
A ring of blue survived in eyes gone pitch-black. His lips parted, features awash in wonder. “How are you hiding this?” he said, voice low and accusatory. “I can feel—how can you—”
The door opened, almost hesitantly, and I glimpsed Jeru blanching before Arin snarled an order, and another surge of agony scattered my thoughts. He was flaying me alive with nothing more than a searing touch. What brand of cruelty was this? What manner of murder?
A soft touch against my forehead forced my eyes open again. Niphran smiled down at me.
“Can I come home?” I wept. “Please?”
Her skin was fragments of the sun, her shifting eyes stolen from the surface of the sea. “Fight.”
I twisted weakly. Arin’s hand dug deeper, curling into my hair. His eyes were blank, swallowed whole by darkness.
“I cannot!”
Did the Nizahl Heir have magic? How else could he be doing this?
“He is reacting to your magic, and it is stealing him from his right mind,” Niphran said. The sun inside her shone brighter, blinding me. “He will kill you if you do not resist.”
I sank into the raging froth of my magic. It battered against me, growing more enraged with each ineffectual attempt at gaining freedom. His touch drew at my magic without an avenue of release, leaving it shrieking just beneath my skin.
“Do not resist who you are,” Niphran murmured. The sun engulfed her, a white inferno bursting forth and flooding the room in an unbearable brilliance. “Essiya.”
They have taken enough. Nizahl will not destroy what is left of my family.
The ground shook beneath me. The cabinet rained debris as the maps on the wall fluttered wildly. I screamed with a thousand voices as something crumbled inside me. A whisper of relief eased the pressure on my cuffs, and Arin flew into the wall on the opposite side of the room. He caught himself before hitting the ground.
The earth rocked, tilting the cabinet forward.
It was not Niyar’s or Palia’s face I conjured as the cabinet groaned, but Rory’s scowl. Sefa’s musical laughter. Marek rubbing soot from his roasted peanuts and offering a handful to Fairel.
Alarm flashed across Arin’s expression, now devoid of its delirium. The cabinet yawned forward. I had enough time to close my eyes before something collided with the side of my body, hurling me into nothingness.
I swam circles in the velvet darkness of the lake. The creatures dancing down here were much more intriguing than anything waiting for me on the surface.
Wake up, said a disgruntled fish with six lavender tails. It used Rory’s voice.
I frowned and swam toward a large bolti with Dawoud’s stern nose. You cannot sleep any longer, Essiya.
Who was Essiya?
I started to tell the Dawoud bolti it was mistaken—my name was Sylvia, probably—but the water rushed into my mouth, choking me. I kicked up, reaching for the waning, shimmering surface of the water. Almost there. If I could just reach the sunlight…