With a litany of excuses ready on my lips, I cracked the door open. Silence. A peek in the hall confirmed my hope: the guards were gone.
I untied one of my torn sleeves from my bun and wrapped it around my knuckles. I hated not having my dagger. Still, anything could be a weapon in the right hands, and this length of sleeve would strangle a guard at least half as effectively as a rope.
I kept close to the walls. The stillness in the complex unnerved me. Decades of dust swirled in the stagnant air and tickled my nose. The back of my throat itched with a sneeze.
I raised two fingers and pressed them against the inner corners of my eyes. The urge to sneeze eased. Soraya had taught me the trick a few days after she became my attendant. She had caught me slipping out of the Usr, sugar-coated kahk shoved in my pockets and shoes abandoned to go play in Hirun. Instead of chastising me, Soraya had tucked my mane of curls behind my ears and said, with a conspiratorial smile, “Next time you try to sneak out of the Usr, take me with you.”
When the fortress fell, Soraya had burned in Usr Jasad. So had Dawoud.
And instead of rising from the ashes to save the rest of your people, you hid, Hanim goaded.
I pushed into the training center with more force than necessary. I studiously avoided the moving images of my grandparents and their palace on the walls. Why did I owe more to Jasad than Adel or anyone else? I couldn’t access the magic that marked us from the rest of the kingdoms. I had lived outside of Jasad longer than I had lived within it. They weren’t entitled to my protection or my life just because I’d been born to the wrong bloodline.
Halfway through crossing the mats, a glint in my peripheral vision stopped me in my tracks. An engraved wooden chest nearly the size of my bed occupied the left wall.
I glanced around the empty training center. Just a quick peek.
I braced my shoulder against the lid and heaved. With a soft click that sounded like a roar to my nervous ears, the chest opened. A veritable arsenal took up the space inside. Throwing spears, hunting spears, javelins, crossbows, three kinds of axes, and every type of sword and dagger known to man.
One similarity became clear the longer I perused. These weapons belonged to Jasad. All their handles bore some aspect of the kitmer, from its falcon head on the feline body to the golden wings. The Nizahl Heir meant to train me as Nizahl’s Champion using Jasadi weapons.
My cuffs tightened, and my nails curled into the wood at the sick comedy of it all. A normal Jasadi would balk at lifting a Jasadi-forged weapon in their enemy’s name, but the Heir of Jasad? Essiya would rather have died than demean her entire family so spectacularly.
I glanced at my cuffs and shook the specter of the Jasad Heir from my head. She had died, in every way that mattered.
Tucking two daggers into my boot, I left the weapons chest open and hurried to the silver door. Jeru and Wes had knocked on it at the same time. I rapped both knuckles against it and paused. The door did not react.
I threw my weight against it. The bottom scraped against stone, shrieking with each inch I shoved it open. Subtle.
I didn’t waste my advantage waiting to see if anyone heard. I slipped into the narrow hall and sprinted. Kapastra’s scaly throne, how had anyone willingly lived in this tomb?
You have grown soft in Mahair, Hanim scolded. Listen to you, panting from a little run!
I finally stumbled into the spot where we’d dropped into the complex. Light leaked from the edges of a circle in the dirt ceiling. Too high for jumping. I looked for a rope, a foothold, anything I could use to climb. Nothing but crumbling dirt.
Frustration howled the longer I searched. This is how they would catch me. Not dodging them with skill and cleverness in Essam, but in a dead end, like a rat with its head stuck in a hole. I pulled one of the daggers from my boot and hacked at the wall. He had trapped me in Essam just as Hanim had. Planned to use me, just as Hanim had. I wanted to laugh—who could have known the Nizahl Commander and the Qayida of Jasad had so much in common?
I hacked the wall with my dagger again. The blade wedged against stone, resisting my pull. Really? I almost used the second dagger to stab the first until inspiration hit me with the force of a rabid bull.
My fit of rage had lost me a dagger, but it also created a foothold.
I checked the firmness of the dagger in the wall and pulled my other blade from my boot. I backed up, evaluating the distance between the ground and the dagger. Then I ran forward and leapt.
My right boot caught the blade’s handle. I twisted my middle and swung with my other dagger, using my seconds of leverage to stab the center of the circle. The dirt crumbled. Moonlight flooded through the opening.
I hit the ground with a grin. Almost there.
I tucked my free dagger into my boot and took another running leap. This time, I didn’t turn. I reached back until my hands found the edge of the circle. I dangled in midair, grateful I had had the foresight to free my arms from the constraint of sleeves. Grunting, I clenched the muscles in my stomach and pulled my head and shoulders through the circle. I clawed at the ground, drawing the rest of my body out and onto solid earth.
With a triumphant huff, I kicked dirt into the opening. Escaping this accursed complex was as close to a birthing experience as I ever intended to get. The moon shone brightly, streaming past the naked branches rustling overhead. The only witness to my rather impressive feat.
The strange bubble of protection between the four symmetrical trees did not resist when I walked through it. As soon as I did, the unbearably cold wind battered me. Darkness unraveled in each direction I turned.
Every hair on Raya’s head would turn white if she saw me. Simply staring in the direction of the woods at night had spooked her, and here I was. Devoured by the dark.
I started jogging east. With each step, worry edged out my elation. If Arin hadn’t transported me across Hirun, then I would find myself running in the direction of the mountains. Otherwise, east was my best chance at locating the river.
I flexed my wrists and leapt over a pond the size of a cow. Why had my cuffs tightened in the training center? What had upset my magic? Nearly thirteen years with these cuffs, and I had yet to discern a recognizable pattern to my magic’s reactions. Before the incident with Fairel, I would have ignored it. My magic had a long history of disappointing me.