I suppressed a smile. Always searching for a threat. “Why are you here? Don’t say more business in Gahre.”
We mounted our horses. Arin scanned the trees, and I was sure his keen hearing strained for any odd noises. “Caution is an area where I am prone to excess,” Arin admitted. “My faith in my guards has taken a beating.”
“You? Paranoid? Steady me, sire, I may keel from my mount.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. A small victory. I wondered if I might someday see the Nizahl Heir smile without acting as though he’d be fined for it. “You should have sent Wes and Jeru. Seeing you scares the villagers.”
“I have done nothing to frighten them.”
I shot him a dry look. “You exist.”
“Despite your most accomplished efforts.”
I glanced over, surprised. The Nizahl Heir joked like a wary bird stretching its wings for first flight. Miracle of miracles.
The horse’s hoofbeats quieted as we passed the wall separating Mahair from Essam. I relaxed on my mare, holding the reins loosely on my thigh. Lanterns in white and blue dangled from the row of trees closest to the wall. Clay miniatures of Kapastra’s beloved rochelyas circled the bottoms of the trees. The blue-scaled protectors of Omal.
“Hazardous.” Arin eyed the curtain of dyed sheepskin draped over the lowest branches. MEHTI, spelled the letters sewed onto the sheepskin. The Omal Champion.
“Celebratory.”
“You are arguing with me again. You must be better.” Our horses had drifted closer at some point.
“I feel better.” Aside from the moment in Rory’s shop, the dizziness and nausea hadn’t made an appearance. Yesterday, I doubted I could have remained upright on this horse. “I won’t say you were right, only that you weren’t as wrong as usual.”
A gleam of laughter brightened Arin’s eyes. Being away from me for a few hours had apparently done wonders for his mood. “I’ll take your renewed enthusiasm for disrespect as a good sign.” My knee bumped into his before I straightened the reins, putting more space between our horses.
We wound past the spot where Hanim’s desiccated specter had sheared several years from my lifespan. The more distance we put between ourselves and Mahair, the more it felt like I would never return. The chances that I would perish in Orban’s Ayume Forest, during the very first trial, were incredibly high. My breath came fast, spilling in plumes of white. I would die in the Alcalah as the Nizahl Champion. Meet my fallen family wearing the enemy’s colors.
“I enjoyed architecture,” Arin said, rather abruptly. “In my youth. I memorized sketches of the Citadel and the other palaces.”
I flushed with embarrassment. The Heir kept his gaze forward. “Architecture?” A detail-oriented pursuit worthy of a man who once spent forty minutes whittling all the arrows in the chest to match one another.
“Usr Jasad was my favorite.” Arin steered his horse around a dead bird. “It was a marvel. Without magic, the southern wing would have collapsed.” He shook his head. “A shame, its loss.”
I could not believe my ears. “Breaking your cart’s wheel is a shame. Coming home to find the good fruit’s been eaten is a shame. What happened in Jasad was an atrocity.”
“What happened in Jasad was well deserved.” Spoken in a tight clip.
I drew on my horse’s reins, coming to a stop. “Deserved? Your father reveled in Jasad’s ruins. Razed what was left of the palace to the ground. You should have mentioned you were fond of it. Maybe he would have saved you a piece of the southern wing.” I drew the horse to a halt. Fury tightened my cuffs, digging barbed tips into my skull. Grief. Rage. Fear.
A dozen feet away, Arin pivoted his horse, his lips pursing with resignation. We dismounted at the same time.
A lone bird squawked above us, coasting on the winding breeze.
“You don’t have a clue what happened in Jasad.”
I clenched my fists. “Is that right? Enlighten me. Was there a second kingdom your father gutted?”
The darkest winter night could not match the frost in Arin’s voice. “I have allowed you to persist in your delusions of persecution long enough. We are not amoral executioners, and Jasadis are far from innocent.”
I had pushed too hard this time. The mild irritation he exhibited whenever I insulted his father or Nizahl finally spilled beyond its brim. “Did you know Malik Niyar led a raid through Essam into southern Lukub during a territory dispute and used magic to strangle young Lukubi soldiers sleeping in their tents? How much have you heard about the enchantment Malika Palia cast over Omalian fields to rot their crops and sicken their livestock? Entire villages starved to death.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Lying is beneath you.”
That only infuriated him more, and I had to quell the instinct to flinch away. “For hundreds of years, Jasad has bled its glory from the lives it ruined. One need only look as far as the last Malik and Malika, who killed their own daughter’s lover—the father of her child—because an alliance with Omal meant an end to their blood-soaked prosperity. They threw the Jasad Heir in a tower to silence her when she demanded they cease their mining operations in Jasad’s wilayahs. Jasadis worked in abysmal conditions, died in droves, and why? Because the king and queen wished for more gold and silver to furnish their palace. They hoarded magical artifacts and pitted the other courts against each other. No two more insidious royals have existed since them.”
Arin had never spoken so much in a single sweep. My pulse drummed in my temples, the pressure in my cuffs shifting to my head. He had to be lying. Like Hanim and the Mufsid woman. They were all cut from the same Jasad-hating cloth.
“Stop,” I repeated, more weakly. Somewhere, a lurking threat roused to life. I could feel its fingers tapping along my spine.
“Someone used magic to attack at the Blood Summit. Magic only a Jasadi could have wielded. Hundreds died. Magic inevitably leads to tyranny and abuse. It devours you at the core, and it cannot be allowed to flourish again. My father did not act alone in dismantling Jasad. Every kingdom sent soldiers to help ensure none could stake a legitimate claim to the Jasadi throne. Perceive his actions how you will, but I won’t have you laboring under an illusion of Jasadi purity.”
Agony scorched broad stripes in my head, fueled by my caged magic. Scrambling my vision in white. I could feel it, my body sending frantic pulses of warning. He mistook my silence and sighed.
“I understand your stance—”
“Arin,” I gasped. The first time his name had ever passed my lips. “Please stop.”
It worked. He tensed, tilting his head. His eyes went wide.
The creature blasted toward us, leaping directly for Arin. In the spare two seconds between its flight and landing, I assessed this new monster. Its body was beautiful, composed of sharp red crystals winking and gleaming in the dim light. A coat of rubies carved to deadly points covered it from the paws wider than my hips to its long ears. It was far too large to be a wolf.