“Did you have any trouble killing the ifrit in Sarasin?” Altair asked Nasir.
Nasir glanced at Zafira. “I didn’t kill him.”
Kifah gaped and Altair looked to Zafira with alarm. “You killed him?”
“I might have tarnished my pristine reputation, but I’m not some creature of habit,” Zafira said with a lift of her chin.
“The ifrit is alive,” Nasir said. “I’ve promised residence to ifritkind across Arawiya, and a caliphate of their own. They’ll cultivate the Wastes with aid from the crown and the Silver Witch.”
Altair’s eye widened in surprise, then softened in pride. “You, brother dearest, are quite the diplomat. I always knew you’d make a good sultan. Not as good as I would, of course, but good enough.”
Zafira watched as Nasir tried but failed to mask his pleasure at the acknowledgment. She had always assumed it was easy, being sultan—or king, as the Lion had now dubbed the title. For though the sultan ruled over the kingdom as a whole, he mostly presided over the caliphs and emirs, leaving day-to-day governance to the leaders themselves. It was clearly a misguided belief.
“I didn’t do it alone,” Nasir said, looking at Zafira.
Altair dipped his head at her, his gaze solemn. “And you would make a good queen.” His single eye flashed a wink. “Every leader has a healthy dose of blood on their hands.”
She wrinkled her nose, ignoring the weight of Nasir’s gaze. Negotiating with the ifrit had been thrilling enough, but it made her realize the difference between working with common folk and working with their leaders. How a calipha did for her people as she had done for her village.
“Oi, no time to stand around.” Kifah saluted with two fingers off her brow and jogged backward as she reprimanded them. “We’re counting on the Lion’s love of the written word, and we only have one shot. Yalla, zumra.”
Swords passed from hand to hand, and grinding stones clattered on the ground. Arrows thudded into quivers, and though Zafira felt the absence as acutely as their impending doom, she wasn’t about to be ousted from history simply because she couldn’t wield a bow. There was glory to be had in battle, victory as sharp-edged as her name.
We will be with you.
It was comforting, those words. Zafira and the Jawarat had come to an understanding, one she didn’t fully comprehend as yet. Laa, she could still barely believe the events that had unfolded in the shadows of the Sarasin palace. The peace she had ushered and Nasir had enacted.
An admirable team, the three of us.
She wanted to tease it, but a voice slipped from one of the second-story windows, freezing her in place.
It was impossible for the owner of that voice to be here in Sultan’s Keep and not far beyond these borders, beyond Sarasin, all the way back in the secure confines of the palace in Thalj.
Zafira hurried up the stairs to the open door, heart leaping, crashing, stilling.
Yasmine.
There she was, standing before Misk, her tiny figure holding its place against his taller, sullen one. His head hung in shame.
“We agreed to spend time apart, Misk!” she shouted, her voice cracking. “Not for you to sign your life away. To die in some battle that doesn’t even need you.”
She caught sight of Zafira.
“And you!” Yasmine cried, whirling.
Misk’s head shot up, and Zafira joined his side to make it easier for her friend to shout at them both.
“I’ve lost everyone, and there you are, running to where men are being blinded and women are being shot and buildings are burning and who knows what else is happening.”
“How did you get here?” Zafira asked, as if Yasmine hadn’t just upended the entire alphabet.
Yasmine glowered. “I left Thalj the moment Lana told me you’d left. And I was nearly kidnapped on the way, shukrun.”
Zafira held her gaze, fighting a wave of guilt. Yasmine collapsed with a sob, the fight rushing out of her. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Why?” she asked in a broken voice. “Why is everyone so eager to leave me?”
This was the heart of Yasmine’s fears, Zafira realized. She crouched in front of her and Yasmine gripped her hand, sliding her palm along hers until their smallest fingers intertwined. As if reminding her that though one Ra’ad sibling was gone, another still remained.
“I need to finish what I’ve started,” Zafira said just as softly. “I need to do this, or Deen’s death will have been for nothing. All of this will have been for nothing.”
“I’m not trying to stop you, Zafira. I only want to be important enough to be spoken to. To not be kept in the dark. Am I not worth saying goodbye to? Am I not worthy of an explanation? Of the truth?”
Zafira looked away. “You are. Of course you are. I—I’m sorry.”
Misk mumbled something similar.
Yasmine reached for Zafira’s hands. “Just—let’s stop fighting, all right? I know you have to go.” She offered Zafira a small smile, and then looked at Misk. He knelt beside her and she kissed his cheek, then the bridge of his nose. Forgiveness was spelled out in the tiny gestures, warming Zafira’s limbs. “I don’t want to lose you, too. So don’t die. Either of you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Zafira assured her.
Misk was far more eloquent.
“I am yours forevermore, in life and in death,” he murmured. He pulled her to his chest and touched his lips to her brow. “What, no words to torment me?”
“I was so angry, Misk, but when I saw you there, a sword in your hand and—” She broke off with anguish. “The heart cannot forget the one who lives in her soul.”
He smoothed back her hair, matching her tone. “Such finesse. Which book did you thieve that one from?”
She hit him square on the chest with a fractured laugh before he kissed her quiet. His hands enclosed her small form, while her fingers strayed to his hair. Zafira looked away, neck burning, and rushed down the stairs so she wouldn’t have to hear or see anything else that she wasn’t meant to.
She stumbled into Altair, who lifted an eyebrow at her fluster and glanced at the second floor with a studious frown.
“Are you hoping you’ll blend into the daylight?” Zafira asked, looking pointedly at his clothes.
He was more haggard than he’d ever been, weariness drawing a circle beneath his eye, but he was dressed as impeccably as always. Zafira hadn’t the slightest idea where the man found such clothes, or the time to maintain them. The entire ensemble was white and black, edged in gold, the filigree a nod to fashion. Laa, it was familiar.
A tribute—those were the colors Benyamin had worn.
Altair’s frown deepened. “It’s called fashion, Huntress.”
“‘Fashion’ and ‘ridiculous’ don’t mean the same,” Kifah said as both she and Nasir joined them. “You don’t have to be a scholar to know that.”
“Glory is an acquired taste, and one must dress the part.”
If Zafira knew anyone who would appreciate his mad sense of style, it was Yasmine.
Life thrives with irony, bint Iskandar. Indeed, it did.
“When all this is done, Altair, I’ll give you the perfect position in the palace so that you can lead the life you’ve always deserved,” Nasir said, sheathing his scimitar.