The Jasad Heir

Arin knew magic caused the soldier’s death because of the strangeness of his wounds. He also found a chunk of Sylvia’s hair in the soldier’s fist. Arin thinks Sylvia will make a good Champion, and he promises her that she’ll be free when she wins. Sylvia doesn’t trust him, but he insists he wouldn’t be able to harm or kill the winner of the Alcalah without weakening Nizahl’s public image. He tells Sylvia the decision is hers, but he threatens Sefa and Marek, revealing that their real names are Sayali and Caleb. Sayali is the daughter of the Citadel’s High Counselor, and Caleb belongs to a prominent Nizahli military family. According to Arin, the two violently robbed Sayali’s father before fleeing. Sylvia is sure Arin has this story wrong, but she agrees to be Champion to protect both herself and her two closest friends.

Vaun, Jeru, and a solder named Wes blindfold Sylvia and lead her out of the room and into the woods, where they drop into a series of complex tunnels. The tunnels lead into an ornate series of rooms with murals replicating the Usr Jasad, the palace of the Jasadi Kingdom. The murals are imbued with magic and ripple like mirages. Sylvia becomes emotional at the images of her grandparents. The soldiers show Sylvia to a bedroom that will be hers while she trains. Alone, she contemplates whether Arin will keep her alive for the weeks before the Alcalah. She fears that if he discovers an alternative means of hunting the Jasadis, he may kill her. She hopes Sefa and Marek have already fled and refuses to place trust in Arin. She changes clothes and waits.

After six hours of waiting, Sylvia sneaks out of her room and into the training center. She finds it full of Jasadi weapons; she knows a real Jasadi would never wield a Jasadi weapon in service of Nizahl, and she feels a separation between her current self and her past as Essiya. She takes two daggers and pushes through the stone door, leading to the entrance she and the soldiers fell through. She remembers climbing trees to sneak out of Usr Jasad as a child. When Soraya caught her, she offered to go with her next time. Soraya burned in the Blood Summit, like all the others Sylvia once loved. Sylvia uses the daggers to help climb out of the tunnels and finds herself in the dark of Essam Woods.

As she stumbles through the dark, Sylvia trips and falls next to a tree with the number 1,822 carved into it. She recognizes the tree as the marker of where she buried Hanim after 1,822 days of torture at her hands. Hanim appears, rotting, devoured by maggots, and with a slashed throat, and taunts Sylvia, who screams.

Sylvia opens her eyes, and the ghost of Hanim is gone. Death magic is long gone, so it wasn’t Hanim’s actual corpse. Someone knows exactly what Hanim looked like and how Sylvia killed her, which worries Sylvia. The Jasadi groups Arin is after could be using magic on Sylvia, but she doesn’t know why they’d target her. She hears a horse approaching and knows that Arin is after her. She runs from him and manages to climb halfway up a tree before Arin stabs her in the leg. He continues to launch daggers at her while she tries to climb away from him. Arin stabs her again in the arm, and the blood loss makes her woozy. She fears death, but she fears capture more after her years of entrapment with Hanim. Sylvia threatens to let herself fall over a cliff and onto sharp rocks that will likely kill her. Arin asks how he can earn her trust before telling her the truth about the Jasadi groups he’s pursuing. Two Jasadi groups have taken hundreds of people in the last few years, and 47 have been found dead, likely killed by the group called the Mufsids. The other group are the Urabi, who are less violent. Both groups compete to recruit Jasadis to their cause. The Mufsids kill those who refuse to join, while the Urabi secretly steal their targets. Arin thinks both groups are pursuing Sylvia. Sylvia tells Arin she believes him and collapses, and Arin runs to try to catch her before they both fall over the cliff.

The narrative shifts to Arin’s point of view. He survives the fall and finds Sylvia alive beside him. He worries that if she dies, he’ll lose his chance to lure the Mufsids and Urabi to the Alcalah. He takes his glove off and touches Sylvia, and he feels her magic again. It’s so powerful that he cannot believe no one in Mahair detected it. Sylvia’s magic heals her wounds before Vaun and Jeru find them. Sylvia wakes and fights as they try to take her back underground. Arin knocks her out.

Sylvia wakes to Ren, one of the Nizahl soldiers, placing a cold cloth on her swollen eye. She eats with the other soldiers, but she finds the food disgusting. She complains to Arin, and they discuss her magic. He knows something is holding her magic back. Arin can drain the magic from Jasadis, but he cannot drain Sylvia’s magic. Instead, his touch seems to ignite her magic, making it stronger. When he explains this to Sylvia, she questions what he means, and Arin explains that every Jasadi has a limited well of magic. When it runs out, they must wait for it to replenish. Arin can take the magic away.

He asks Sylvia about her magic, and she says she’s never been able to access her magic, powerful though it may be. She tells him about seeing Hanim’s specter in the woods, though she pretends she didn’t recognize the corpse, meaning the Mufsids or Urabi may be seeking her. He throws a knife at her chest, and she catches it easily, further adding to his suspicion.

Arin questions Sylvia’s real identity, but she doesn’t confess the truth. The Champion’s banquet is six weeks away, and Arin tells Sylvia she must train.

The first week of training is physically grueling. Sylvia doesn’t understand why until Jeru brings her a collection of drawings of the past Alcalah challenges to study. She sees sketches of the first challenge, an endurance challenge in the Ayume Forest of Orban that celebrates Awala Dania and her war magic. In the second challenge, which celebrates Awala Kapastra and her pets, Champions must fight off magical creatures in an abandoned village in Omal and acquire three trophies to pass. The remaining two Champions compete in the third and final trial to honor Awala Baira, in which they’re given elixirs that make them hallucinate in a sand pit, and the victor is whoever can parse reality before the sand swallows them or the other competitor kills them.

Sylvia confronts Arin, and he confirms that the final challenge occurs in Nizahl. Sylvia returns to her room and spirals in her thoughts. If she loses the Alcalah, Felix will kill her. If she wins, she’s betraying Jasad. She regrets staying in Mahair and forging connections with Fairel, Rory, Sefa, and Marek. She pulls herself together and notices Arin in her room, watching her. That night, Sylvia paces the underground tunnels, trying to memorize the layout. Vaun antagonizes her, hoping to get her in trouble with Arin, and she attacks him. Wes pulls her off, and Vaun drags her by her hair to Arin and accuses her of conspiring to harm him. Sylvia defends herself, and Arin sides with her, sending Vaun away. Sylvia looks around Arin’s room, seeing traditional Jasadi furniture. He shows her his intricate maps of all the kingdoms, including Jasad, which the map labels “the Scorched Lands” (173). She feels her magic pulsing beneath her cuffs at the thought of Jasad.

Sylvia asks Arin why he defended her, and he replies that he defended his new laws. He shows her his list of revisions to Nizahl law that prohibit soldiers from harming or killing Jasadis without due process. They argue about their perceptions of Jasad and its magic, as Arin adheres to the Nizahl belief that all Jasadis are dangerous, their magic prone to corruption, while Sylvia pushes him to question the beliefs he’s been taught. Arin shows her a new map, this one correctly labeled Jasad, and asks her to pronounce the names of the 12 wilayahs, seeking to identify which regional accent matches her voice to narrow down which important Jasadi figure she could be. Sylvia reads them, hiding her accent and claiming to be no one important. Arin asks her how an unimportant Jasadi can read Old Nizahl, and Sylvia realizes the Nizahl laws she read are in the old language, which the Citadel still uses in legal records. Arin tells her to be more cautious in her deceit.