Arin arranged himself on a long-backed wooden chair, crossing his ankle over his knee. His gloved hand dangled loosely over his bent knee.
“Yes,” he said. Relief crashed through me, and I exhaled. I wanted to press further, inquire after her condition and recovery. But my affection for Fairel had plunged me into this disaster, and I could not move forward while she weighed on me.
She was alive. Raya and the other girls would not leave any of her needs unmet. The villagers would come to the keep with food and supplies. Despite their apathy concerning Adel, Mahair’s villagers knew how to support their own. If she had died at her own Heir’s hands, the village would never have recovered. The lower villages tolerated much from the Omal crown. Killing their children would be the torch to light resentment’s kindling.
Fairel would be taken care of. I could do nothing more for her.
“How am I alive?”
He tilted his head. The perfect polish of his expression had worn away, leaving faint distaste in its place. If his actions in the war room were any indication, few emotions were strong enough to overwhelm Arin of Nizahl’s command of his body. Which meant the look of faint distaste masked a much deeper hatred.
“Your magic saved you. Knitted you back together. You have slept for eleven hours.”
What a preposterous concept. My magic could not be convinced to dislodge a stone stuck in my boot, let alone repair broken bones and knit new skin.
I spoke without thinking. “My magic tried to kill me.”
A charged silence preempted his careful words. “You speak as though your magic has a will of its own.”
A fly buzzed over the corpse’s exposed insides. I was out of plans. If our roles were reversed, his silver tongue might bend this situation to his favor, weave glittering nets to evade his certain doom. But my own tongue was brutish, lacking fluency in the speech of serpents. I was versed in subterfuge and escape, and he had quite definitively proven I did not have a prayer of besting him at either.
I needed to change the direction of his questions. Exposing my cuffs and their hold over my magic might give the Heir momentary pause, but the law was clear: I possessed magic, and its presence would corrupt me regardless of its actual exercise.
You cannot mention your cuffs. Any information you give this man, no matter how inconsequential, will return to haunt you, Hanim warned.
For once, I agreed with her. No one had reason to believe Essiya of Jasad was alive. If Arin even suspected my true identity, he would slit my throat in the same time it took to blink.
“Why am I alive?”
“Good,” he said. “You have arrived at the right question.”
“You knew I was a Jasadi the moment you met me.”
“I do not make accusations indiscriminately.”
I picked at the quilt’s threading, keeping his glove hidden from my sight. I couldn’t forget the weight of it falling on my chest, the red pain of his bare hand. “Why not allow the Omal Heir’s guardsmen to kill me at the festival? It would have been justly earned, and your task completed in efficiency.”
A more perfect solution could not have presented itself. Yet he had blocked me before I had taken a step toward Felix. The price for magic was my head. What difference did it make which sword lopped it off?
“Your fate lies in my hands. Not in that wastrel’s fumbling guard,” he said. His level gaze found mine. “Not in yours.”
I burned blisteringly hot, then cold. He thought I brought the cabinet down on purpose? “Satisfy your hubris, then. You are my arbiter to the afterlife. End this cleanly.”
“Your infantile mastery of your emotions has done you no credit. I could have seen you dead a thousand times since I arrived, but there you sit, insolent as ever.”
I scooted to the opposite side of the cot. The thick scratch of vines beneath my feet was a welcome replacement for the soldier’s body, and I stood.
Arin did not react as I approached. Why should he? My hair fell down my back in unkempt knots, and I was lost in this sack of a gown. I was truly Niphran’s daughter. The madwoman in the tower births the madwoman of the woods. It would take less than nothing for him to block an attack. To plant his boot on my throat and press.
“You could have seen me dead a thousand times, but you haven’t.”
If I were the Nizahl Commander, what would keep me in an obscure Omalian village to hunt down one impotent Jasadi for this long? What benefit could I gain from preserving her life?
His was a deliberate game, removed of the incendiary trappings of emotion.