“One and the same. Rory, what’s wrong?”
I eased a wobbling Rory into his chair. He didn’t answer, clutching his cane in a white-knuckled grip. My concern grew. I fetched him a glass of water. Hanim’s reputation clearly preceded her.
After he drained the glass, he cleared his throat. “That woman loathed your family.”
I snorted. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“No, no, she—” He coughed hard, shoulders curving inward. I thumped his back until the rattling stopped. Rory’s poor heart must’ve been twice as strong before he met me.
He swatted my arm off. “Did she tell you why Niyar and Palia exiled her from Jasad?”
“She violated the tenets of war.” My voice rose at the end, pitching the statement into a question.
“Yes, most certainly, and she committed treason.”
I lifted my shoulder. Rory seemed to think this information should shatter my mind. I committed treason every day, merely by existing. The word had lost its sting. “How? The war crimes?”
“She was found guilty of conspiracy against the crown with an enemy party.”
I took the empty glass, setting it on the counter. My voice was flat. “Enemy party.”
“Supreme Rawain,” Rory confirmed. “When he was only an Heir, they found records indicating he and Hanim had plotted to overthrow your grandparents and seize Jasad.”
He must have been speaking in jest. If there was anyone Hanim hated more than my grandparents, it was Supreme Rawain. Why would she ever stoop to working with him against Jasad?
“I thought she hated Nizahl.”
“Not at first.” Rory grimaced. “Once she was discovered, Rawain and his father, Supreme Munqual, denounced her deceit. Your grandparents weren’t interested in war, so they accepted Rawain’s attempts at reconciliation. I imagine Qayida Hanim did not take kindly to losing her position and her home for naught.”
“How long did she conspire with him?”
“They had been in communication for years. Her betrayal was not a revelation for your grandparents. They had long known of Qayida Hanim’s disdain for the crown.”
I scrubbed at my hair, pulling curls from my braid. None of it made sense. I hadn’t thought twice about Arin calling Jasad the architect of its own ruin—he genuinely believed magic destroyed everything it touched. But the Mufsid woman describing the walls of Usr Jasad as corrupt?
Keeping on an untrustworthy Qayida was placing the entire kingdom at the knife’s point and hoping it did not tip over. For all their faults, I had always believed in my grandparents’ love for Jasad above all else. It had soothed the anguish of losing my magic as a child, knowing Niyar and Palia had cuffed my powers to protect our kingdom.
Rory read the confusion on my face. “I believe they were under the impression her role was superfluous. They were overly reliant on their magic and the fortress.”
“It’s the Qayida’s duty to reinforce the fortress!”
Nausea rolled in my stomach as my cuffs tightened. Grief. Rage. Fear.
“The fortress. Do you think she—could she have?”
The jars behind Rory rattled, and the bell over the door swung wildly. If Hanim had collaborated with the Supreme to bring down Niyar and Palia, it was entirely possible she had schemed with others inside the kingdom. They had all lied to me. My grandparents, Hanim, my mother. What else had they hidden about Jasad?
“Hanim is not why the fortress fell,” Rory said, prodding a jar of floating herbs with his cane. “Hanim was expelled from Jasad two years before the Blood Summit. The fortress was renewed annually. Renewing the fortress was always meant to be Niphran’s duty. Your grandparents decided as soon as their daughter was born to appoint their Heir as Qayida in the Nizahlan tradition. Hoping it would show the might of the royal blood. Many wilayahs disapproved of breaking from custom, believing it dishonored the memory of Qayida Hend. The problem resolved itself after—” Rory cleared his throat.
After an arrow tore open Emre’s throat and rendered Niphran incapable of leaving her bed, let alone serving as Jasad’s Qayida.
“The wilayahs disapproved.” I paced his shop, the pressure in my cuffs throbbing. “What else did they disapprove of?”
“I was not especially involved in Jasadi politics at the time, but your grandparents had a long history of causing uproars.”
What if the Mufsids had existed before the siege on Jasad? The Urabi? What if one or both had conspired against the Jasad crown long before the Blood Summit?
But why would they want the fortress to fall? They could not control a kingdom that did not exist, and there was no chance of victory against Nizahl’s armies without a fortress, a Qayida, or a single royal.
“Sylvia… why are you laughing?”
The irony, oh, delicious irony! All along, Hanim’s hatred for Nizahl was personal. She wanted a pawn in her fight to reclaim a land she considered rightfully hers. How it must have burned to watch Rawain rise over Jasad while she rotted in the woods! What had he promised her for her betrayal? What had he offered?
Rory prodded his cane into my side, looking as though he wasn’t sure whether to scold or soothe me.
“This is hardly a laughing matter. Hanim is not a forgiving woman. She’ll be searching for you,” he said. Adorable.
“She won’t be searching for me.” I wiped away the last of my tears. I needed a good laugh.
“You cannot know—”
“Hanim’s dead,” I said. “Although if anyone can exact earthly vengeance from beyond, it’s her.”
I returned Rory’s wide-eyed gaze evenly. Whatever he saw in my eyes drained the color from his face.
“Essiya,” he breathed, “what did you do?”
It flashed through my mind in an instant. A dagger slicing across a throat that never spoke a kind word. The slowing of a heart as broken and ugly as mine. A body shoved into a hole—a grave—painstakingly dug into the frozen ground.
How deep can you dig, Essiya?
Brushing crushed lavender from my cuffs, I smiled.
“I found you, Rory.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I could not bring myself to visit the keep. Raya would try to feed me ten meals’ worth of food and cluck over the state of my under-eye circles, the girls would beg for stories of the Heir and the training, and Fairel… Fairel would try to hide her pain so she didn’t inconvenience me. She might babble too much, as always, but maybe not. Maybe she would stare at the ceiling and pretend she was alone like she had seen me do when I fell into my darker moods. It was selfish and weak, but I just couldn’t bear to see how Felix had permanently altered Fairel. Not yet, at least.
My breath billowed in white clouds. I drew my cloak closer. Where were Wes and Jeru?
The horses’ clomping came from the opposite end of the road. I turned, shivering, an acerbic remark ready on my tongue.
Jeru and Wes weren’t the ones approaching with two horses in tow. Arin held out a set of reins, surveying the street behind me warily.