The sketches were divided by trial, then by year. I flipped through the images of the first trial, my curiosity morphing into apprehension with each new set of Champions. The number of Champions dropped from five to four suddenly, and I knew the bottom sketches had been done after the Blood Summit.
I traced the shaded drawings of the forested Orban canyon. The artist had used a knife to press ridges into the trees, the grim-faced Champions posed beneath its sinister branches. Ayume was an Orbanian forest where the first trial would be held, brimming with the horrors wrought by Dania’s ancient war magic. Dania was a master hunter, as austere in life as she was brutal in battle. Orbanians commemorated her with a trial testing physical endurance in the heart of the forest where she’d waged her most infamous battle.
A corner of the parchment chipped when I turned the page. Black chalk sliced across the cover, and the words Dar al Mansi titled the top. The second trial had changed in recent years. In the new one, Champions entered an abandoned village in Omal and fought off the magical creatures released within its borders. Not only did the Champions need to cross the village in one piece, they needed to acquire three trophies from their kills to proceed. The second trial served as a grisly celebration of Awala Kapastra and her vulgar pets, held in her home kingdom.
I followed the line of Al Anqa’a’s fiery glass wings with my thumbnail. The sketches depicted Champions in the second trial carried away by the massive bird as claws sharper than any sword closed around the helpless Champions. Those who evaded Al Anqa’a were torn apart and eaten by the nisnas, a ghoulish humanlike creature with lumbering limbs on one side and spikes of dangling flesh on the other. The artist outlined the other monsters lurking in the periphery, jealously watching the nisnas reach a Champion first.
What was he hoping I’d learn from this? I flipped away from the second trial, sickened, to the third. The third trial would be held between the final two Champions remaining. In honor of Awala Baira’s talent for illusions, the Champions would be given elixirs to bring visions springing up around them. In a pit of sinking sand, the Champion with the strongest will would parse through the real and the hallucinations before the sand swallowed them whole or the other Champion cut them down.
Ten minutes later, I stormed into the training center and threw the paintings on top of the weapons chest. Jeru and Wes paused their swordplay, wearing the fatigue of new parents taking their squalling child to the shop. “Where is he?” I demanded.
Wes pursed his lips. “Not here. Why?”
I gestured at the sketches. “If Lukub is hosting the Banquet, then the third trial will be in Nizahl.”
The guards exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Wes said slowly. “Baira’s trial will be held in Nizahl.”
Jeru’s thick brows drew together. “You are the Nizahl Champion; did you think you could avoid visiting the kingdom you’re competing for?”
The question circled in my head. In the whirl of change, I had not stopped to consider I would be meeting Supreme Rawain again. The man who slaughtered my family, who eviscerated Jasad, would be delivered glory by the very same Heir he had failed to kill.
I walked out without another word. My surroundings dipped in and out of focus. If I failed in the Alcalah, Felix’s ego would not rest until my head was mounted on Mahair’s flag post. If I did win, I would be granted a Victor’s immunity, but I would be spitting on the grave of every Jasadi cut down by a Nizahl sword. Which I could have borne, were it not for the fact that apparently, two groups of Jasadis probably suspected I was the Heir. Perhaps they were even stupid enough to want me at the helm of their pointless cause. What other reason could they have for chasing me? Certainly not the draw of my magic.
At some point, I had slid down the wall in the hallway. I wrapped my arms around my knees, and a part of me noted this fit could have been delayed for the ten steps it took to reach my room. I started to laugh.
If Arin knew the real reason the Mufsids and Urabi were competing, if he thought for even just one second that the Jasad Heir was alive and living two halls away from him—I laughed harder. They’d have to scrape what was left of me off the walls. He was not a man who played the odds, and the risk that the Mufsids or Urabi could capture me and lend legitimacy to their cause was too great.
Maybe they didn’t hope to recruit me. It was entirely possible they simply wanted to kill me themselves. Take their well-deserved revenge on the Heir who had forsaken them.
“Careful, sire,” came Vaun’s voice, but it seemed to emerge from a narrow tunnel. “Her kind lash out during outbursts.”
I trained you to lead Jasad, and he is training you to betray it. What freedom can you gain after this? Where can you go where Essiya won’t follow? Hanim’s words bled into my thoughts, until I could not distinguish what was mine and what was Hanim’s. I became vaguely aware of a shape settling in front of me in the hall. I cringed, drawing my knees closer. I hope you perish in the very first trial. Sylvia is worthless, and if you succeed as Nizahl’s Champion, Essiya will be, too.
How did they know where to find me? Why would they conjure Hanim’s rotting specter if they meant to recruit me? I could not guess where to begin to make sense of any of it. There was only one truth amidst the chaos.
I should never have stayed in Mahair so long. I would not have loved Fairel nor cared for Rory’s good opinion. Sefa and Marek would have remained untouched by the horrors of their past.
Everything you touch, you ruin, Hanim said.
When Hanim’s voice had grown hoarse, and the disjointed laughter trickled to a stop, I slowly settled into myself. My shattered thoughts knit together, their seams red with Hanim’s venom but mine once more. I unfurled from my pose, rubbing sensation into my tingling muscles. I was afraid of how much time might have passed.
The shadows shifted, and I nearly shrieked at the dark figure seated on a chair near the opposite wall. My vision adjusted to the dim light. I found myself staring into Arin’s impassive face.
“Have you returned?” he asked.
I leaned my head against the wall. Vaun was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered how long Arin had sat there. “I never left.”
He stood, the bottom of his coat rippling around his boots. “Yes, you did.”