The Jasad Crown (The Scorched Throne, #2)

by Sara Hashem

I couldn’t think about him. I couldn’t remember the way he’d looked at me before my cuffs fell away—the depths of the betrayal reflected in the eyes that only moments before had been gazing into mine as though they might never be convinced to look away.

Truth was little more than clay, molded and reshaped in the hands it passed through.

My smile, cold and bloodless, propelled the Jasadi a step back. Her well-meaning nonsense bothered me more than Efra’s barbs, sometimes. At least he did not dip his blade in honey before swinging it at my head.

The fear, once ignited, started dripping in the back of my mind. Staining each thought, bleeding my world red.

Arin had seen me break so many times, in so many different ways. If he wished, the Nizahl Heir could pull at a single stitch and unravel me. I had given my enemy the designs to my destruction.

Arin grabbed her wrist, holding firm as she tried to jerk free, and dragged her back against his chest. He twisted her arm so her own knife balanced at the underside of her throat. “Found you,” Arin murmured in her ear.

Arin did not have a hope of stopping his grin, any more than he could halt his lungs from drawing in the scent of her. She smelled terrible—like mud and river mold—but underneath it was the unmistakable sweetness of Sylvia. She was here. Not a ghost in his head or a magic-made apparition in his chambers.

In the meadow of the ancient realm, I knew my days of running were coming to a close. I could go anywhere I wanted, but my destination would always be him. He had made himself the threshold to a world where it might finally be safe to land. To stay.

“Thank you for making the present worth fearing the future.”

My restraint reached its limit, and I burrowed into Arin’s shoulder once more, eyes drifting shut. Sleep had been crawling over me, and its weight swiftly became too strong to resist—though I tried. What could it offer me when my waking hours had already woven me the sweetest of dreams?

You can spend your entire existence frozen in one spot, squinting into the future, or you can decide to move. Pick a path and never look back.