He ignored me. “I propose a different trade. Tell me about the Jasadi by the river, and I will share my theory behind your attack in Essam.”
Oh, a fatal blow. I pulled at the frayed ends of my gown while I considered my options. Learning why he possessed a strange sensitivity to magic was important, but not urgent. It would not serve me unless he also mentioned how one could develop an immunity to his touch. But the person who attacked me in Essam knew me, knew my history with Hanim, and wanted to kill me for it.
A sigh escaped my lips. “I accept your trade.” And so he once again remained alone on the battlefield, my shadow of resistance chased to oblivion.
He knit his hands over his stomach. Leaned back. “Next time, you might have more to bargain with.”
“I don’t need your consolation.”
“Would you prefer my mockery?”
“Just your theory. Or your well-crafted lie. They are probably one and the same.”
Thunder cracked over his expression, bright and startlingly violent. Oh, I had pierced his granite layers, had I?
“I do not lie. Who do you think you are, that I would tarnish my integrity to fool you?”
“I am your Champion. Your student. You work hard to provoke my magic into existence.” This time, it was me who remained calm. “I have unfortunate news about your integrity, Commander.”
The ripple of anger dissolved as quickly as it appeared. His expression smoothed into the mask I had learned to approach with extreme caution, and Teta Palia’s old caution rang in my ear. A tree without roots is like a river without a current, Essiya. A sign of disrupted nature. Of chaos. If something is not made to bend, what can it do but break?
I did not think Arin of Nizahl could be broken. But I did think he could be pushed far enough to break everyone else.
When he spoke again, it was toneless. A recital of facts. “My theory concerns the number of Jasadis after you. The Urabi and the Mufsids maintain a general pattern. The Urabi recruit or abduct useful Jasadis. The Mufsids take the willing Jasadis away and slaughter the rest. On the few occasions in which they are after the same Jasadi, the identity of their target remains a mystery. You are the exception, because I reached you before they did.”
“Is your theory about why they are after me?”
Arin’s lips twisted wryly. “A theory is a possible answer to a posed question. I have an answer to why they are after you.”
“That I was a noble, or some important Jasadi figure? Do you truly suppose a noble could survive as a village peasant for years?” I shook my head, quickly changing the subject. “What is your theory?”
“Someone from the Mufsids or the Urabi has gone rogue,” Arin said.
I tugged the loose strands at the bottom of my braid free, curling them around my finger. “Rogue how?”
“The specter in the woods would have killed you if I had not been near. If the Mufsids and Urabi are attempting to recruit you, and you have not rejected them, why kill you? There must be a defector, most likely someone from the Mufsids. They must have a strong reason to want you dead if they are willing to go against their own group.”
The implication was clear. I looked the Nizahl Heir directly in the eye. “I do not belong to the nobles.”
He hummed. “So you say.”
I threw the scrutiny back at him. “Why not dangle me in Mahair and lie in wait until they attack? The Alcalah will be swarming with people.”
“The Alcalah will be heavily guarded, and there are weak points between trials where both groups will try to attack. Mahair leaves open too much room for mistakes. The Urabi send their most powerful Jasadis to recruit, and it only takes moments for them to subdue their target and whisk everyone away. If you become Victor, you will be constantly surrounded by guards, protected in upper-town homes. The Alcalah is their best chance to capture you.”
“What about the Champions’ Banquet? Would it be better for them to attack me at the Ivory Palace than during the Alcalah?”
“Enough questions. Tell me about the Jasadi.”
I folded my knees to my chest and wondered, not for the first time, if our souls had a shape. If they were like the sheep hanging from the butcher’s hook, and each decision I made hacked mine down to its dangling, bloody bones. But I refused to believe it was a failure to prioritize my own freedom, even if Hanim’s voice insisted to the contrary.
I opened my mouth and told Arin everything. How the Jasadi mentioned there had been dissent in their ranks regarding my recruitment. The lie I told her about leaving an opening for the Mufsids. I molded the story in the shape closest to the truth, slicing the pieces of Essiya and Mawlati like mold from a loaf of bread.
Arin had sat forward while I spoke, his elbows bracing on his knees. The eerie mask had dropped in favor of something I never thought I’d see: bewilderment.
“You chose to stay. Here, in this stone prison, training for a tournament that has a roughly two in three chances of killing you,” he said slowly, disbelieving. “The Mufsids have evaded me for years. They are your best chance of hiding from Felix and me. Why would you stay?”
I set my jaw. “I told you. I am here by choice. I chose my freedom, and you are my best chance at achieving it.”
“At the cost of your own people?”
“They are not my—” I caught my breath, horrified. Rovial’s tainted tomb, I had almost said it. Almost spoken a secret worse than Essiya, worse than Hanim. I ground my teeth, sudden tears of frustration pricking the back of my eyes. “Why should I owe them my life? Why is it acceptable for others to choose themselves, but it is selfish when I do it? I didn’t ask for this. I do not want it.”
Abruptly, I stood, aghast at revealing a sliver of my deepest doubts to the person most likely to use them against me. “You should go.”
“Sylvia.” The use of my name—his first time since Mahair—brought my reluctant gaze back to his. Arin regarded me with earnestness. A shadow of understanding. “Tell me who you are.”
Shock rendered me mute. I had an opening. I’d displayed honesty by recounting the Mufsid’s conversation and an accidental show of vulnerability—apparently the right balance of ingredients to appease Arin’s guarded mistrust by an inch. If I stumbled, if he caught a whiff of dishonesty, he would never lower it again.
“You will not believe me.”
He waited.
“My father was Waleed Rayan.” I packaged the name with a hint of longing, a dose of sadness, and a heap of reproach. The emotions of a betrayed but once-beloved daughter. At least, I hoped. I was never anyone’s daughter. My father vanished from the world with an arrow in his throat, and my grandparents hurled Niphran into Bakir Tower when she sought to follow him.