Chapter Twenty: Arin

Before dawn, Arin descends into the Citadel’s damp prison, ordering Bul and two recruits to ready the execution grounds and keep everyone else away. Still battered from recent events, Arin steels himself, intent on learning how the Jasad fortress fell.

He confronts a long-imprisoned Mufsid whose body shows years of deprivation and madness. Announcing the dawn execution, Arin proposes a bargain: if the prisoner tells him how the fortress fell, Arin will not drain the prisoners’ magic tonight, letting them meet the gallows with whatever power they can gather.

After testing Arin’s resolve, the Mufsid demands Arin enter the cell to earn his “honor.” Arin accepts, reasoning the man’s magic cannot harm him. Inside, the Mufsid hints Arin’s ignorance: the Jasadi once included disciplines like Bone Spinners, Portalists, Visionists, Hayagan, and Sahir—suggesting complex arts used in the fortress’s fall and implying betrayal of the forger of their “favorite sword.”

As Arin reaches for his blade, the Mufsid’s eyes blaze gold and silver. Insisting they had a deal, the prisoner activates his power. Reality shifts—the cell itself disappears—pulling Arin into an unknown, likely visionary or transported state where the prisoner intends to show, not tell, how an “unassailable fortress” was destroyed.