He wondered briefly at her exhaustion before turning his attention to the new and unfamiliar sights around him. He took in the women walking with woven baskets on their heads; the men leaning against trees, munching on skewers of lamb; and the children darting behind stalls, giggling as they hid from each other.
The scene brought the briefest of smiles to his face before he realized he was meant to be Omar, and Omar would not gawk at such things. He pushed his horse forward, beating dust from his clothing as he followed after Aisha bint Louas, who had paused a short distance away. She had not said anything on the journey. In fact, she had not spoken to him at all, except to tell him to stand taller at the procession.
The silence between them persisted as they set up their tent. Loulie al-Nazari did not speak to them again for the rest of the night, though Mazen spotted her wandering the outpost stalls. She spent every waking moment with her bodyguard, who loomed behind her like a shadow. Every time Mazen thought about approaching her, the bodyguard—Mazen had overheard her call him Qadir—would frown at him from a distance. Mazen found his deadpan stare even more disconcerting than Aisha’s permanent scowl.
By the time midnight rolled around, Mazen had barely spoken to any of the travelers around the outpost, save for a few who recognized his face beneath his hood. It was a strange thing, to be recognized as his brother. An even stranger thing when people smiled at him with stars in their eyes and referred to him by titles that did not belong to him.
King of the Forty Thieves, they called him. Hero. But strangest was the third title, which he’d never heard before: the Stardust Thief. It was worse than the other titles because it was proof that everyone knew what Omar truly was: A man who stole jinn lives. A killer dressed in silver blood.
He was still thinking about the title when he fell asleep in his tent that night. It passed into his nightmares, a whisper on his lips when Omar approached with his black knife. Spare me, Stardust Thief. Spare me. But Omar, terrible, smirking Omar, had no mercy. He brought the knife down and—
Mazen awoke with his heart in his throat. At first, he couldn’t breathe, could only sit there in shock as he took in the unfamiliar cloth walls surrounding him. He was in a tent, he realized. Not his bedroom. Not the palace. He ran his hands shakily through his hair—only to realize his curls were gone, replaced with coarse, cropped strands.
“Something wrong, Prince?” Mazen looked up and saw Aisha stretched out on the bedroll across from him. She had propped herself up on an elbow and was frowning at him.
Gods, the fall of a feather could wake her.
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “Just a nightmare.”
Aisha raised a brow. “Need me to sing you a lullaby?”
Mazen blinked. This was the first time she had responded to something he’d said. Exhausted, he shook his head and stood. Aisha continued to watch him.
She was very pretty, Mazen thought, even if she was more than a little terrifying. She had alluring eyes that were a brown so dark they were nearly black. Her hair, which had been braided earlier, now fell in a silky curtain around her shoulders. Her face was all angles: sharp cheekbones and nose, slanted eyebrows, and a pointed chin. If the legends were true and humans had been made from the earth, then Aisha bint Louas had been sculpted from the toughest, harshest stone.
“I’m going to get some fresh air.”
He was on his way out when the thief said, “The nightmares are normal. I had them too when I first fought jinn. They’ll go away.” She eased herself back down onto her bedroll and turned away from him with a sigh. “Eventually.”
Mazen’s heart lifted at the reassurance, brusque as it was. “I’m relieved to hear it.”
Aisha didn’t respond, but he was unoffended. Now that the silence between them had broken, it no longer seemed so heavy. A smile touched his lips as he pushed open the tent flap. “Tesbaheen ala khair,” he murmured.
“Wa inta min ahlah,” came the grumbled response as he exited.
Earlier, the area outside had been lively, filled with visitors sharing food and gossip. Now it was quiet, the campfires had been put out, and the only light came from the distant torches surrounding the perimeter of the encampment. At first, the darkness was suffocating. It hissed and whispered, drawing Mazen back into his nightmares.
But then he saw the sky. There was no smoke, no trees, no buildings—just that infinite expanse of midnight blue, punctuated by scintillating stars.
He thought of Hakim, who, years ago, had taught him to see constellations. As a boy, Hakim had learned to navigate by them. Mazen had thought he’d be able to do the same once he left the city, but if the stars were a compass, they were one he did not yet know how to read.