Chapter Two

After midnight, Sylvia sneaks out of Raya’s keep with a basket of emergency supplies, slipping through Mahair’s crumbling perimeter into Essam Woods. As she moves past Nizahl-marked trees, she reflects on Jasad’s night culture, the monster purges that aided Nizahl’s anti-magic campaign, and her own sealed magic bound by silver cuffs.

Deeper in the woods, the Nizahl soldier who earlier scrutinized her appears and names her a Jasadi. Realizing denial is futile and capture means death, Sylvia commits to violence. A vicious fight follows: the soldier’s sword keeps distance while Sylvia presses with a dagger. He taunts her for not using magic; she counters that virtue is not her restraint—her cuffs are. He briefly gains the upper hand, but she reverses it, guts him, and then snaps his neck to end it swiftly.

As he dies, Sylvia reveals the truth meant to terrify him: according to Nizahl records, the Jasad Heir died in the Blood Summit; in reality, Sylvia survived, while the idealistic princess perished in spirit. She declares she is “excellent at staying alive,” affirming her hardened identity and rejection of old ideals.

With dawn approaching and a patrol change imminent, Sylvia calculates the fallout. If the body is found in the woods, Nizahl will scour Mahair. She hastily devises a plan to stage an accidental river death but lacks time and tools to move and disguise the corpse alone.

Choosing trust she has long resisted, Sylvia races back to the keep, climbs through Marek’s cracked window, and wakes Marek and a sleeping, drunken Sefa. Aware this choice could cost her Mahair if betrayed, she asks the essential question: how fast can they run?