I hurried to the riverbank. Kicking my sandals off, I picked my footing between the boulders. Hirun was a moody river. I had to trust it not to undercut my balance and pull me into its currents.
I debated how to carry water back. Any I scooped into my hands would slosh out while I climbed from the riverbank. Time was not on my side. The soldier could return at any minute.
Finally, I dipped the bottom of my skirt in the water, drenching an inch of the fabric thoroughly. I hurried to Adel’s side, lifting my skirt to keep the bottom from absorbing dirt.
My lessons with Hanim had covered Jasad’s funereal rituals. She had been so convinced she could mold me to rule a kingdom Nizahl had already wiped from existence. What a waste of her time and mine.
I wrung a length of the skirt. The water trickled over Adel’s hand. I moved to his other hand, then his feet. They had beaten him raw. Every drop slid away red.
I reached his face. I did not recoil from touching him. My aversion to physical contact was reserved exclusively for the living.
They’d ruptured his eyes; blood still trickled from under his eyelashes. His magic had barely supported pushing the soldier a single time. I had once sat in Essam, much like I did now, listening to Hanim rant about how Jasad’s magic was already weakening when Nizahl attacked. How in a few generations, our lands would be as barren as the other kingdoms, and Jasadi children would be born without any magic in their veins.
I dabbed water onto his cheeks and forehead. I had stomped out Hanim’s lies as soon as I was free of her, casting them to a dark corner of my mind. But looking at Adel’s thin face, the bones of his forehead crushed into his hair, it was hard not to believe her words held some measure of truth.
I squeezed the last drops from my skirt and used them to wipe the blood from Adel’s chin. “Min dam Rovial, min ra’ad al Awaleen,” I began in Resar. If we were in Jasad, someone would have placed a date pit on his tongue. A farewell to his finished body, and a sign of gratitude for all it had given. I dusted a pebble against my vest and pressed it into his mouth. “Irja’a ila makan al mawt wal haya, ila awal al Awaleen.” Return to the place of death and life. To the first of the Firsts.
I hoped Adel wouldn’t mind my performing a Jasadi ritual. He had spent his life largely in Omal. Jasad might not have meant anything to him. Hanim had not taught me the Omalian death rites, but I hoped they were somewhat similar.
“Ila al mawt niwada’ak, wa na’eesh haya bakya fi fikrak. Yikun ma’ak—” I paused. To death we leave you, and we shall live our remaining life in remembrance. Be with you… what? I closed my eyes, reciting the sentence again in search of the missing pieces.
“A’malak we ahbabak,” came the smooth, measured voice above me. “I believe those are the words you seek.”
I went still. I had forgotten to listen for approaching footsteps.
I opened my eyes to boots standing a few inches from Adel’s head. My gaze crawled higher. Over the violet ravens embroidered on the bottom of a long black coat. Over a lean, broad-shouldered body shrouded in a Nizahlan uniform finer than any I’d seen before. The infamous black gloves encased his hands. A thin scar reached from the bottom of his throat to his jaw. If all this still did not sway my recognition, his eyes would have rung the final bell: pale blue and wintry. I had seen their likeness only once before.
Arin of Nizahl stood above me, watching me administer Jasadi death rites to a slain man.
I am found.
The world flipped, leaving me spinning through emptiness. Nausea surged in my gut. I leapt to my feet, forgetting the heaviness of my skirt. How was he here? When did he arrive?
I opened my mouth. To explain, to lie, to scream. A puff of air passed my lips, and nothing else.
Steady, Essiya. Remember the first rule, Hanim murmured.
It was too late. The panic had already spread. I was numb with it.
When I died, would anyone perform the Jasadi rites over my body?
A soft neigh accompanied the appearance of two horses led by the other soldier. His eyes flew comically wide at the sight of his Commander. He hadn’t known he was coming. If the Nizahl patrol hadn’t anticipated the Heir’s arrival, then why was he here?
A pulse of pure terror shot through my bones. The dead soldier. What if they’d found his body?
The soldier dropped to a knee instantly, visibly nervous. “My liege.”
“I assume he is yours.” The Nizahl Heir gestured to Adel’s body.
The soldier swallowed. “He used magic to attack us. We had no choice.”