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WHYYYYY

I listened to Jeru shouting for help as Arin shoved the guardsman out of his way and
stormed toward the bridge. The soldiers’ pounding footsteps, tackling their
Supreme to the ground in a number even Arin could not overcome.”
Warmth spread through me. I gripped the rope, leaning over the edge.
They would survive this. They would be all right.
I closed my eyes and tipped over the side of the bridge.

SOBBING

never mind ig.

Relief

Oh my god marek

Im bawling, and now she is gonna try die to protect the others! Arin I need u there

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

Wife that

Arin breathed. He waited.
He closed his eyes and thought of a shy smile curving against his
shoulder. He filled his ears with the sound of her laugh, the way it burst
uncontrolled from her chest and smothered itself behind her palm.
In the evening, I would come home to you.
Arin sat among his ghosts and dreamed of his future

Oh my god

“In the evening, I would come home to you.”
When sleep finally stole me away, it whispered its apology.

Any advantage
of experience I might have evaporates the minute you touch me, Suraira.”
His voice was firm. “Since it seems I have been less than clear: the
advantage is yours. You unravel me utterly.

WOW

I do not interact with the Heir any differently than
the others do. If you mean they will think I am too friendly, that I should be
calling him Silver Serpent or sauntering around like Efra—”
“Friendly? Awaleen below, I would give my left leg for friendly. I would
even accept affectionate. Essiya, it is impossible to watch you two and not
recognize how deeply in love you are.”

Oooh being called OUT

I yanked my incensed glare away from Efra. Arin pointedly lowered his
gaze to the veins glowing over my skin, pulsing in tune to my heart.
Arin’s ability to see the veins could not be more inconvenient.

This is so special and scary

Death meant I would atone for my past, but it also
meant I could never fail in the future. I would not need to sit on a throne I
hated or break beneath a crown I could not carry. This escape—this one
permanent escape—was the only place I could run where failure would not
trail behind me like a chain around my ankle.

SHAYLA

I stepped back. Arin simply watched me. Sword pointed at his heart, on
his knees, and terrifyingly sincere.
What was he thinking? Arin of Nizahl, subject to my will? My whims? It
was stupidly dangerous. He knew about the veins. He knew what would
happen if I survived raising the fortress.

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.”

Swear yourself to the throne of Jasad. Swear your loyalty to magic and to those born with it. Swear yourself to us, and you can live.”
“No.”
“Thrones fall. Magic fades. I will swear my loyalty, but not to Jasad’s throne, nor to its magic.” A black gloved hand pressed against the tip of the sword, lowering it to aim at his
heart.
“I swear my loyalty to Jasad’s Malika

And if we decide he is too great of a threat to be kept alive?” Efra
leaned back in his seat, arms crossed. “Would you abide by our decision to
execute him?”

Of course,” I said.
If they killed him, I would bury this mountain in the sea.

Efra grabbed my wrist and wrenched me away. “What do you think
you’re doing?”
I didn’t get a chance to respond. At the sound of my pained hiss, Arin—
who had remained perfectly still and serene until then—moved. Before I
could pull my wrist out of Efra’s grip, Arin kicked out the back of Efra’s
knee and slammed his bound hands into the side of the other man’s head.
Someone is a little bit protective

On this path, Arin realigns his world to match his father’s version of it.
He never has to confront what he’s done, because he no longer entertains a world where it matters.
On the other path, Arin drops his arm, and there is only darkness.He could only see as far as the first step before it plunged into millions of possibilities.
But on this path waits a girl, and maybe a man who deserves her.

Were you aware that he loves you?” Sefa asked, with the airiness of
one inquiring after the color of the sky. “Quite irreparably, it seems.”
I turned my head, positive I’d misheard. “What?”

There is no if you survive. There is no future where it is my hand
that ends your life.” This close, I could make out the austere lines of
anguish twining around his rage. “If your magic takes you, I will drag you
back. It cannot have you.”

I swear if this isn’t a HEA I will revolt

Tell me what you want, Suraira.”
I flushed, my grip on his vest tightening. “I want to pull your arrogant
head off your smug should—”
He kissed me

He kept it.
Arin of Nizahl, who did not tolerate a loose stitch or a crooked collar,
who inspected every grain of dust that dared settle over him, had been
wearing a cheap piece of Omalian jewelry under his punishing layers of
clothes. No eloquent words or theories or complex pieces of strategy could
explain it.
I never stood a chance.

Do not toy with me. This—this is the last piece of my heart I have
left, do you understand? I don’t know how to protect it once it is outside my
body. If I trust you and then you cast it into the dirt, it will be the death of
both of us. What is left of me will kill what is left of you.”

“I
wish I had a good reason for saving you. I wish it was logical or rational,
informed by any semblance of reason. I wish more than anything my first
thought when I emerged from the water was not of you, that I hadn’t been
prepared to tear through every grain of sand and burn every tree in this
damned place until I found you.”

but he didn’t care.
They do not get to take her from me.

she
leveled a dagger against Arin’s heart. “Not the rest of you?”
Arin dug his fingers in the dirt and reminded himself what would
happen if he twisted out from under her and pinned her to the earth. If he kissed the infuriating smirk off her face and let her tear into him a different
way, unravel him in pleasure instead of pain.
All of me is written in your name, he wanted to say.

The appearances to Arin—they
always happened near the peak of my panic. My magic had been whisking
me away to the one person who could pull me back from the edge.

The appearances to Arin—they
always happened near the peak of my panic. My magic had been whisking
me away to the one person who could pull me back from the edge.

The appearances to Arin—they
always happened near the peak of my panic. My magic had been whisking
me away to the one person who could pull me back from the edge.

I love that girl.”
Jeru paused his pacing to raise his brows. Marek rolled his eyes. “Like a
sister,” he snapped.
“Good,” Jeru muttered. Marek couldn’t be sure, but he could have sworn
he heard the guardsman grumble, “We don’t need to give him another
reason to kill you.”