Altair rolled his eye, and Zafira withdrew the stolen black dagger and offered it to him, hilt first.
“Keep it,” he said with a soft laugh, his warm hand closing her fingers around the hilt. “That was always your part in this plan.”
She searched his gaze. Had he truly factored her into his scheme? Or was this a moment of improvisation? Before she could find the courage to ask, he was turning and gesturing to the two rows of buildings leading to the palace gates, pausing when Misk sprinted down the stairs.
His turban was nowhere to be seen, his hair disheveled in a way that was clear it wasn’t the wind that had rifled through it.
“Sultan’s teeth, Misk Khaldun. Have you no decency?” Altair exclaimed.
Misk grinned, his gaze bright. Nasir whispered something that sounded suspiciously like You’re one to talk.
“Station half your archers along those rooftops,” Altair told him. “The rest of us will spread out and regroup—”
The ground began to tremble. Altair and Nasir shared a look and hurried outside, and Zafira wondered if either of them knew just how much strength they drew from the other.
“Ifrit,” Kifah whispered. “We’re late. They weren’t supposed to come to us.”
“Zafira?” Yasmine asked from the upstairs balcony, her face flushed. “What’s happening?”
“Stay in the room. Lock the door,” Zafira ordered, unsure if that would make a difference. “Don’t leave.”
But Yasmine didn’t move from the balcony. She was watching her.
“It’s still new,” she said softly, “seeing you armed and uncloaked. Shoulders back, head high. The bearer of change. I can hear the bards already—‘she was a reed against the harrowing tides, the curve of the moon leading them to freedom.’”
Zafira bit back her smile, undeserving of that prideful delight. If only Yasmine knew what more she had done to bear that change. The sins she had committed because of their caliph’s bias. Yet the words stirred tears from a piece of her that awaited acknowledgment and praise from her dearest friend.
“I’m proud of you. Lana is, too. If I hadn’t threatened to lock her in the palace dungeons, she would have come.”
Zafira laughed through the trappings of her guilt, for Yasmine had protected her sibling in a way Zafira had failed Yasmine’s.
When she looked back up, Yasmine had fixed her gaze on Misk, who saluted her one last time before disappearing after the others. Fear filled her hazel eyes with tears, and she fled before they could fall, latching the door closed.
Live, Zafira demanded Misk. Amend your shortcomings. Love her.
Then only Kifah and she remained. Kifah, armed with her spear, gold-tipped and fierce. Zafira, with only Nasir’s jambiya in her hand, the black dagger tucked in her boot. No bow, no arrows.
“Oi,” Kifah snapped, startling her. “Don’t slouch. You overpowered the Jawarat, and that thing is as old as the Lion.”
That was exactly it, wasn’t it? Zafira gripped the satchel strapped to her side. “And as long as I’m connected to the Jawarat, I’ll be a risk. I feel like I’ve been made of glass.”
Kifah shook her shoulders. “No one walks into battle expecting to die, Huntress, and a book bound to your soul doesn’t make that any different. Now hold that dagger high and stick with me, glass girl. I’ll make sure you don’t shatter.”
CHAPTER 90
A dark haze bled into the afternoon light, chilling Zafira’s skin, and worry buzzed through Misk’s rebels when the streets erupted with screams and alarmed shouts. Smoke continued billowing to the skies, but this darkness was different.
This was the darkness that preceded ifrit in their natural form. They flooded the gates, staves flashing, shapeless guises shifting. Zafira locked the house doors. Altair breathed a curse.
Somehow, that made everything worse.
“This,” Nasir rounded on him, his voice hushed in anger, “is what happens when you leave anything to chance. People die.”
The men murmured among themselves, hope spiraling with the sun.
Altair glanced about sharply. “Don’t. You may not understand the workings of men, and you may not have been made for battle, but I will not let you destroy their hope.”
“I’m not destroying what never existed.”
“This battle banks on hope. Humanity banks on hope,” Altair seethed, throwing up his sword. His voice rose over the sudden howl of the wind. “Yalla! It won’t be long before the Lion hears of the fire.”
Hears of it? Skies, by now he would have to be smelling it, seeing it, feeling it. The world would know of it soon enough.
They’d barely made it past the gates before the ifrit converged, shrieks filling the air.
Zafira ducked when an ifrit made it past the ranks ahead and lunged for her. Her heart leaped to her throat as she ripped her jambiya through the dark soldier. Safin steel, unlike Baba’s dagger, now far away in Bait ul-Ahlaam. Even still, it was ten times more frightening than aiming a bow from a distance.
Beside her, Kifah unleashed a handful of throwing knives, felling three ifrit before turning to impale another. Altair and Nasir, despite their bickering, fought back to back, the prince’s sword flashing quicker than the other’s single scimitar, and she wondered if that was why Nasir was at his side.
Death sweeps toward us.
She paused at the Jawarat’s murmur. Already, men and ifrit littered the ground, shadowy forms beside human ones.
A fire crackled behind her, a warning before she whirled, tackling the stave away with her dagger, singeing the tips of her fingers in the process. Kifah turned to her aid with two well-placed thwacks of her spear.
“All right?”
“All right,” Zafira replied with some disappointment. She didn’t need a sitter. She needed a bow and an arrow.
Staves flashed without end. Misk’s men fought valiantly, making full use of their rough-edged swords and jambiyas, the pride of their fathers. But they needed to power ahead, to push past Aya’s house and make for the palace. The ifrit would only keep coming.
A shout rang out to her right, another to her left, this one older. For the rebels weren’t all spry young men, but those who had lost enough to fear death a little less. Altair deftly saved the first rebel as Misk sprinted toward the older man.
Zafira didn’t know why she watched him, why she was paying heed to the half Sarasin, half Demenhune who had stolen the heart of her dearest friend.
Until one of his archers shouted a warning that Misk didn’t hear.
And a stave pierced him from behind.
Zafira forgot to breathe.
The ifrit pulled the stave free and pierced him again, higher now. Misk choked. Zafira felt as if the stave were ripping her own heart. Sound became pulses. She stumbled.
Stole someone’s bow. Nocked an arrow and fired as pain tore through her mending wound. The ifrit fell. Her bow fell.
Misk fell.
Misk, Yasmine’s husband, the man she spoke of with anger and happiness and love. He had lied and he had withheld, and yet he had loved her just as much.
“Zafira,” Misk murmured as she sank to her knees beside him, yelling for help and knowing nothing could be done in time.
Someone screamed. Zafira looked up to find the doors flung open and Yasmine racing through the dark haze, a bundle of blue as bright as the sky. Too late, too late.