The Jasad Heir (The Scorched Throne #1)

by Sara Hashem

“Perhaps. But a temper that ignites as quickly as yours leaves ashes in its wake. I need only follow the trail.”

Suraira?

“You were fate’s choice, not mine. While I hunt the Jasadis who have slaughtered a legion of innocents from Orban to Lukub, they hunt you.”

I pushed the dagger against the hard plane of Arin’s stomach, tearing through his black vest. Arin glanced at the blade, then at me. He pursed his lips, looking vaguely annoyed.

I shoved the basin away. Qayida Hend burned for her bravery. One of Jasad’s foremost heroes. But if you asked me, Qayida Hend’s death was an amusement of fate. She burned to raise magic, and centuries later, Jasad would burn so they could tear it down. We mourn what history mocks.

A tree without roots is like a river without a current, Essiya. A sign of disrupted nature. Of chaos. If something is not made to bend, what can it do but break?

I had disliked her. She wouldn’t climb the date trees with me or chase my pet caracal through the gardens.

“What if you were wrong? What if you had miscalculated?” “Pointless questions are best left to the poets,” Arin said.

Arin of Nizahl was maddeningly elegant. I wanted to cut him open and compare our bones to understand why his gave him grace and mine gave me back pain.

And who are you? Hanim asked, disparaging. Do you think you can pluck yourself like a flower away from the garden that raised you, the roots that built you? The past is our sun, Essiya. Only by allowing it to shine can you bloom.

Your mind is a maze of mirrors, reflecting only the memories you choose to save.

We build our reality on the foundation our world sets for us.

I had worn a thousand faces in my twenty years. Fooled friends and enemies with my false names and empty smiles. But sometimes, like now, Arin gazed at me a certain way, and I thought he saw it. My true face, hidden beneath the debris. I wondered what it looked like. I wondered why in a world ripe with monsters and magic, only he could see me so clearly.

At the root of all chaos is reason.

Birds had practiced their sweet songs for generations, but even their music did not compare to the sound of Arin’s laugh.

I blew on my chicken-and-orzo soup. They called it bird’s tongue soup in Mahair, which had alarmed me until Raya explained that it referred to the shape of the orzo, not the content of the soup. Marek, in his infinite maturity, spent months pointing at every bird we passed and asking if I was hungry.

“Do not tell me what you should feel,” Sefa said. Brown eyes met mine without a trace of judgment. “Tell me what is true.”

“Choice,” Diya said. At my quizzical frown, she crossed her arms over her chest. “The ability to choose is what tips the scales. Monsters have no choice in their evil, but humans choose it deliberately.

You have the potential and power to be worse than any who have come before you.

Arin raised a brow. His silver hair was luminescent, a crown in its own right. “Why would I avoid recognition? The only people who do not wish to be known are the ones with something to be ashamed of.”

The way he looks you at sometimes. Like you are a cliff with a fatal fall, and each day you move him closer to its edge.

Love was not submission. It was not testing how far I could bend before I broke. Love was Sefa’s hand finding mine in the dark to reassure herself of my presence. Love was Marek entering the kingdom of his nightmares to help me. Raya’s squash soup on my birthday, Rory’s gruff smile when I named an herb correctly, Fairel’s giddy laugh. Dawoud turning the dagger onto himself. A table exploding in the Blood Summit. Love was Arin cradling my face in a burning room and telling me to run.