The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne, #2)

by Sara Hashem

To the difficult girls who built their armor early.

Arin firmly believed an attempt on one’s life was the highest form of flattery.

I am a creative man, Counselor, with limited opportunities to properly express it.

Arin moved like an unfinished song, answering to a rhythm the rest of us couldn’t hear.

I wished I could look away, but in a room of beautiful things, Arin of Nizahl outshined them all.

To know Arin of Nizahl was to know the real force—and the real vulnerability—lived beyond his body.

Arin could watch her fight until weeds grew around his boots, and he had the sense he would never tire.

He had forgotten this feeling, this reckless abandon only she engendered—as though the rest of the world was nothing more than noise at the back of his head and true reality began and ended in the space she occupied.

“I am not one for pointless musings, Suraira, but I am starting to wonder if whoever built my skull built it for the express purpose of surviving you.”

“I swear my loyalty to Jasad’s Malika.” I couldn’t breathe. “Everything I have is hers to command. What she wills, I will create. What she hates, I will destroy. I am the weapon of the Malika, and it is her alone I pledge myself to.”

yours.” “I will never sit on the Jasad throne,” Arin said. “The Jasad crown will belong to my wife, and my wife alone.”

“Why should I take orders from someone who nearly killed himself kissing me? You can barely stand, Arin.” “I do not need to stand, Essiya,” Arin snarled. “Do you want me on my knees again? Do you want me to beg?”