I stared down at Dawoud’s still face. Supreme Rawain did this. He threw Dawoud into Dar al Mansi for me to slaughter. We were animals to him, playthings to use and dispose of.
And I was his Champion.
The rage cooled the howling grief in my chest. I bent down, and even without months of training, I wouldn’t have struggled to lift Dawoud in my arms. Though starved and tortured, Dawoud never bowed to Nizahl. Proud until his end, dying like every Jasadi in Dar al Mansi.
But unlike them, he would not dwell in the home of the forgotten.
I carried Dawoud through the stretch of Essam Woods separating Dar al Mansi from the rest of Omal. Lantern light and movement flickered between the trees. The marching patrol.
Essam cleared, and a commotion greeted my entry. The audience seethed on two opposite slopes, craning for a view of the narrow landing between them. They cheered as I walked onto the path, although the ones at the bottom quieted at the sight of the dead man in my arms.
The announcer’s expression scrunched with confusion as I approached. I glanced behind him. Supreme Rawain and the other royals lounged at the front, ringed with guards. I carefully kept my gaze away from Supreme Rawain or his son.
Jeru and Wes broke from the outskirts as the announcer peered down at Dawoud and my state of undress. Al Anqa’a had taken my tunic in its talon, and a large white band covered my breasts, keeping my stomach and shoulders exposed. He cleared his throat. “Do you—uh—”
I gently laid Dawoud in Jeru and Wes’s arms without meeting either of their eyes. They would care for him. See he was taken somewhere the scavengers could not reach.
I tossed the nisnas’s finger to the ground and pulled the dulhath’s spidery limb from its binding around my thigh.
“A nisnas finger. A dulhath leg. A Jasadi. Three monsters. Three trophies.” I smiled, and the announcer took a step back. “Go ahead. Declare me.”
“Sylvia,” Jeru tried, voice hoarse. I looked at him, and the Nizahl soldier blanched.
The announcer whirled to the gathered masses. “The Nizahl Champion joins the Orban Champion to proceed to the third trial!”
I walked past him, past Jeru and Wes and the dead man in their arms, past the applauding royals. I did not stop to see the satisfaction in Rawain’s gaze or the irritation in Vaun’s. I entered the Champions’ carriage with Diya, and the wheels groaned as the carriage jerked into motion.
We stayed silent until we reached the palace. Diya pulled the quilt from around her shoulders and tossed it into my lap. “Give them nothing to see but the look in your eyes,” she said.
Numb, I pulled the quilt around my shoulders. No servant intercepted me as I entered the palace, and no guard asked questions. I floated up the stairs in a haze. In the stillness of my quarters, I let the quilt spill to the ground.
Does it hurt more when your failures have names? Hanim whispered. Does it hurt more to put a face to the people you have let down?
The drawers rattled in the bedside table, shooting into the opposite wall. My cuffs pulsed around raw wrists, but I did not feel the pain.
You could be faced with not a single obstacle and still find an excuse to turn away from your people, she said. Dawoud is dead, your family is dead. Soraya was never yours. Who do you have left?
The wardrobe flew into the divan, upending cases of meticulously packed gowns. Blankets tore, and the bedframe snapped, taking the bed to the ground. Flames danced over the rug, trailing up the wall.
Dawoud mouthed my name before he drove the dagger into his chest. A name I gagged and buried deep inside me, a name that should have burned to ash with the rest of Jasad.
For so long, I thought Essiya’s name brought death wherever it went. But hearing Dawoud speak it… I had forgotten what it meant to be real to someone. I had felt more whole in those few minutes than I had in eleven years. Even if I no longer knew who Essiya was.
The door opened as several pillows exploded, raining feathers on the dancing fire.
My neck prickled, and I turned to see the Nizahl Heir closing the door.
The fire licked over the mattress, casting the room in an orange glow. Something wet had been steadily dripping from my chin since I entered the palace, and I wiped my cheeks with detached wonder.
“Do you know that I can’t remember the last time I cried? Maybe six, seven years ago.” Cracks spidered in the mirror. The glass burst, raining shards over the destroyed wardrobe. I caught a tear from the corner of my eye and examined it thoughtfully. “They just keep coming.”
“Do you intend to bring down the Omal palace, then?” Arin asked conversationally, as though the objects hurtling around the room were nothing more consequential than overexcited dust motes.