JASAD, the new map proclaimed, the letters bold and golden. A line weaved around the border where our impenetrable fortress had once loomed, barricading Jasad from Essam and any outside threats. The fortress was keyed to every Jasadi citizen’s magic to allow us to pass freely through the fortress, like it was nothing more than shining air. Anyone else was met with hard resistance.
I traced the lines of Usr Jasad, following it to the tiny letters pinning Bakir Tower. My home, then my mother’s. Down I went, through the borders of Jasad’s twelve wilayahs. An indescribable emotion rose in my chest. Jasad had existed. It had been real, once. More than Scorched Lands. It had been known for more than its fate.
“Read the names of the wilayahs,” Arin said.
I flinched, shrinking from the map. The Nizahl Heir would not show me this out of kindness. He had an ulterior motive. But what?
I thought fast. The wilayahs were named in Resar. Jasad’s dead language. He already knew I was literate in Resar thanks to the death rites I performed over Adel. What benefit could he derive from hearing me read the names of twelve vastly disparate wilayahs in Jasad?
Your accent is perfect.
Baira’s bountiful beauty, how could I have missed it? My accent—or lack thereof. The wilayahs had slight dialectal differences in their speech and small variations in their naming systems. If he knew which wilayah I belonged to, he’d begin to cull the list of possible important figures I could be.
An idea unfurled its petals.
“Har Adiween,” I began. I moved my finger along the wilayahs as I spoke. “Janub Aya, Eyn el Haswa, Kafr al Der, Ahr il Uboor.” I continued until the very last wilayah, tucked right next to Sirauk Bridge.
“How odd,” Arin said once I had finished. His hair fell like spools of silk between his fingers when he raked it from his face. “You seem to have developed an accent since you last spoke Resar.”
I widened my eyes and flared my nostrils. Nuanced, minuscule indicators of fear. I had spun lies around Mahair as skillfully as a halawany spun sugar, but they were not Arin of Nizahl. They did not have senses honed against falsehood. “I—I do not have an accent. I misspoke. You make me nervous.”
Arin tilted his head. “A sliver of truth in a stream of lies. But which is which?”
“I am not lying. I was nobody in Jasad.”
The steadiness of his conviction worked opposite my own, unraveling me at the seams. I wanted to lash out, force the specter of discovery and certain death into his bones until the shadows on the wall were indistinguishable from the ones in his nightmares. But Arin was not Hanim, or any other adversary I had gritted my teeth against and overcome.
He was my discovery. He was certain death.
My cuffs tightened almost beyond the point of tolerability. Arin stepped closer. If he touched me in that moment, my magic would overwhelm him, just as it had in the Relic Room. The incensed throb of it skimmed along my skin.
“I do wonder just what you’re capable of,” he murmured.
“Be patient, my liege,” I said. “You might yet find out.”
This time, when the Commander moved toward me, it was a strike of lightning. He spun me around, pinning my arms behind my back.
“Is that a promise?” His voice was the whisper of a practiced sword leaving its sheath, soft and deadly. “Tell me, Sylvia of Mahair, how does a ‘nobody in Jasad’ learn to read Nizahl’s old tongue?”
What?
He jerked my arms, pointing me toward the scroll pinned to the table. First Decrees of Arin of Nizahl, Commander in Power and Heir. Horror washed over me in thick waves.
The entire decree was written in a language Nizahl had not spoken in two hundred years.
I had been so distracted by the maps, I had forgotten to pretend I couldn’t understand it.
“The Citadel records all new decrees in Nizahl’s original tongue. I suppose they taught you a dead language in Ganub il Kul,” he murmured in my ear. His sardonic chuckle sent chills running along my spine.
Arin released my arms. “If you have any ambitions in the art of deceit, I suggest you plan more carefully. There are few things more disappointing than a careless crook.”
The dismissal was unmistakable. I had used a lifetime’s allotment of carelessness already, and I would not spend any more by ignoring him. I fled from the room, pausing at the door. I glanced once more at the Commander. I emblazoned him as he was in that moment, standing over the map of the world. Its towering conqueror.
If Jasadi bones could speak, they’d warn Arin of Nizahl that nothing stays untouchable forever.