A loud crash spurred me to my feet. The doors of the wardrobe smashed to the floor, and the muscles in Arin’s back went rigid as the ghaiba attacked the Heir. He doubled over, gripping a shelf in the wardrobe as his face contorted with agony.
A great shudder went through him. His knuckles whitened around the shelf. What doubts did Arin have that the ghaiba could feed on? What regrets?
I gripped his forearm, squeezing the stiff tendons. Touching him in this state was foolish, but I couldn’t stand how helpless I felt. Another endless moment crawled past, and Arin exhaled, eyes flying open.
He tore his arm from me, the white sheen on his face dissolving with anger. “Have your limited senses forsaken you? I can scarcely bear your touch under the best circumstances. It only takes seconds to lose control, seconds to snap your neck.”
“My limited senses? I am not the one absorbing ghaibas into myself! How did you even know your maneuver would succeed?”
Arin swept his hair from his forehead, pointedly ignoring my question.
I threw my arms up. “It was a theory, wasn’t it? You calculated the likelihood your ability to sense magic would attract the ghaiba enough to leave Marek and Sefa.”
“Close,” Arin said, and offered no clarification. He sat with his back to the wardrobe. “The stronger the mind, the greater the ghaiba’s challenge. I suppose it found me tempting.”
“Do not do it again.” The harshness of my tone took us both by surprise. I was still kneeling next to him, a persistent tremble working through me. The sight of Arin bowed in pain was not one I wanted to witness twice. “One day, you will miscalculate. You can’t test a theory using yourself, do you understand? You are an Heir, there are risks you simply cannot take! It is sheer madness, irresponsible—”
“Breathe.” With a wince, he reached for his abandoned gloves and put them on. His gloved hand covered the one latched to my knee.
“No.”
Birds had practiced their sweet songs for generations, but even their music did not compare to the sound of Arin’s laugh.
We stared at each other until the shadows in the room lengthened.
“Why do you keep trying to save me?” he said, and if I hadn’t been inches from him, I wouldn’t have heard it.
“Why do you keep needing to be saved?”
Oh, you foolish, foolish girl, Hanim groaned.
Arin seemed to realize his hand was still on top of mine. He straightened, clearing his throat. “You said there was a doll in your room?” Arin asked.
I shook myself, fumbling to withdraw the wrapped monstrosity from my cloak’s pocket. I passed it over, avoiding Arin’s eyes. He eased himself to his feet. I followed at a distance, moving to hover over Sefa and Marek.
“They haven’t stirred,” I said.
“They likely won’t wake until morning.” He nodded to their discarded bags. “The boy unwrapped the doll soon after entering the room.”
“He hates it when you call him the boy,” I said.
“Yes, he does,” Arin agreed. I rolled my eyes, tugging a quilt over the sleeping pair. Let it never be said the Commander was beyond pettiness.
“Felix will try again,” I said. “We cannot accuse him of sabotage outright, and he is a conniving little rat.”
Arin’s smile was a figment sprung from nightmares. “Leave that to me.”
The Omalian dining hall stole my breath as much as the rest of the opulent palace. A row of chandeliers twinkled along the middle of the ceiling, illuminating the long, luxurious dining table heaped with food. My mouth watered at the roasted ducks, the stuffed squash, the steaming bissara. Food meant to feed twenty here would have nourished the whole of Mahair.
Servants lined the walls around the lengthy table. I sat between Diya and Mehti in the middle. Queen Hanan dined at the head of the table, Felix to her left and Arin to her right.
She did not glance up from her food, and I took the opportunity to study my paternal grandmother. Though she and Palia were both queens, they differed in every respect. Long brown hair framed Queen Hanan’s thin face, curtaining her darting eyes. She did not command the room with a word like Palia had. Quite the opposite. The Omal ruler seemed determined to fold herself into the smallest pocket of space, unobtrusive and unnoticed. What might she say if she knew she shared a table with Emre’s daughter?
Diya elbowed me, nodding at Mehti when I glanced over. The Omal Champion chomped on yet another ring of golden mumbar. The fried intestine stuffed with rice, onion, and chickpeas was an Omalian favorite. “How many of those have you had?” I asked.
Mehti paused, regarding me with the uncertainty of one whose household cat begins to bark. “Do you want one?”
I made a face. “I helped prepare mumbar at my keep once. Cutting a hole in thin bags of flesh and stuffing them to bursting tends to ruin an appetite.”
The Omal Champion shrugged, unaffected by the description. “I have cut holes in humans without losing my appetite for battle.”
While no one understood why Diya was chosen as Orban’s Champion, the same could not be said for Mehti. Though born to wealth, Mehti lacked noble status, and his parents had rejected the crown’s offers to draw them into the fold. Arin had explained that choosing Mehti was a way to force the title of noble onto the recalcitrant family through a mask of a Champion’s honor. Should Mehti become Victor, he would be elevated to nobility, and his family with him.
“Have you had much practice cutting holes into humans?” Diya drawled.
Mehti snorted, lifting a bowl of soup to his lips and glugging. Omalian nobles at the end of the table watched him with bewilderment. “Not as much as you,” he said when he came up for breath. He wiped his greasy mouth.
Diya shrugged modestly. “I cut many holes into two people. Is it the quantity of holes or quantity of people we measure?”
“All right,” I interrupted loudly. “I would like to enjoy my meal, please.”
“No one is stopping you,” Diya said.
“I have been meaning to ask.” Mehti rested his elbow on the table and angled toward me. “Why did it take you so long to escape Ayume? I was at the far end of the lake from you. You did not see me, but we crossed at the same time.”
I clipped the bud of alarm before it could bloom. No one was near when I killed Timur. Mehti moved like a boar; I would have heard him miles away.
“A bush snagged my ankle,” I said. “It knocked my dagger out of reach.”
I blew on my chicken-and-orzo soup. They called it bird’s tongue soup in Mahair, which had alarmed me until Raya explained that it referred to the shape of the orzo, not the content of the soup. Marek, in his infinite maturity, spent months pointing at every bird we passed and asking if I was hungry.
The two Champions winced sympathetically at the lie. “One of the trees tried to sweep me up while I ran,” Diya offered. She rolled up her sleeve, exposing a thin, red scratch from wrist to elbow.