And so, when his mother screamed, every last drop of blood in his veins came to a halt.
CHAPTER 97
Zafira saw the moment the Lion lunged and sank his teeth into the Silver Witch’s flesh. One last attempt for si’lah blood. For power. Terror gripped the very air when Anadil screamed.
Then both brothers moved at once.
They did not think, they did not hesitate. It was innate, their actions. Unrestricted by sentience.
Shadows swarmed from Nasir’s palms, light roared from Altair’s.
Magic collided in a crash of thunder and a cresting hum. Both beams struck the Lion, black and white merging into a coruscating, iridescent pillar of magic that rose from the palace courtyard and disappeared into the clouds, dappled in every color Zafira could imagine.
“Bleeding Guljul,” Kifah exhaled.
They were draining him, siphoning every last dreg of his power into Arawiya. Ifrit shrieked, scattering into the shadows. Zafira struggled to breathe, something raw and broken upending her insides. It tugged her as close to the iridescent skeins of magic as she could go before Kifah shouted for her to step back, step away.
The Silver Witch clutched Zafira’s hand. Her face was wet with tears.
“Finish what they started.” She had drawn Zafira here. “His mind belongs in the Jawarat.”
Before she could ask how, Zafira staggered backward. Memories plowed through her, a violent and powerful barrage of emotion. The Lion as a child, in adolescence. As an adult. Lonely, always lonely. The Jawarat trembled in her hands as his memories joined the Sisters’， flooding Zafira with yet another life she had not lived but would always hold because of her bond.
The hum faded to silence.
Nasir and Altair lowered their hands, and the haze steadily cleared.
Where the Lion had lain, a tree now stood, dark branches curling into the sky like fingers seeking something out of reach. At its base, a body lay slumped, amber eyes closed to the world.
Mind, body, and soul, the Jawarat said softly. It was how the Sisters had wanted to defeat him, years and years ago.
“Why?” the Lion whispered. Only, his voice came from elsewhere. No—from the Jawarat, from her heart, where a part of him would live forever.
She closed her eyes against the anguish in his plea. Hadn’t she stood before the Arz that had stolen her father, and asked that very same question?
Against the black tree, the manifestation of his soul, the Silver Witch placed her hand. Lovingly, almost. Part of her truly did love him, the way the Lion might have loved her.
Zafira watched as Anadil closed her eyes and opened them to a new world.
“We are born with the promise of death,” Zafira said softly as a single rose, wild and white, blossomed on one of the branches. It was a gift. “You had merely outlived yours.”
CHAPTER 98
Nasir could scarcely believe it to be true. That the monster who had controlled his father, held his leash, belittled him without end, was gone. The Silver Witch spoke first, breaking the trance that had fallen across the courtyard.
“The heart. We must make for Sarasin at once.”
In Zafira’s fist, the heart that once belonged to one of the Sisters of Old pulsed direly, a shade of crimson so dark it was nearly black. Nasir met her gaze and saw doubt, for the Jawarat had called it impossible.
Nasir had never cared for magic the way Zafira had. He hadn’t spent decades working for its restoration the way Altair had. It did not signify vengeance for him the way it did for Kifah. Laa, for him, magic had signified destruction and pain. It had ruined his family and burned darkness into his life.
And still, he wanted its return—for them, for this new family he had built himself.
He led five horses to the palace gates.
CHAPTER 99
It was a thrilling kind of freedom to ride in the dead of the night, the thunder of hooves carrying one through. Kifah ululated as they charged through the streets, making it a little easier to ignore the destruction of the city, the heart dying in Zafira’s hand. The loss she felt, every time she recalled those amber eyes, closing to the world.
Magic, she reminded herself. What she had dreamed of and desired for years and years on end.
It will not work, the Jawarat said again.
Zafira ignored it, just as she had ignored the black gleam of the organ, far from the crimson it should have been. The pulse had been steady, promising. Corrupt. Surely the minaret, created by the Sisters’ hands, could rid the heart of the Lion’s evil.
The Jawarat only sighed.
It was still learning how stubborn she could be. How much she would give up to hope. They had come this far. If she couldn’t believe the heart would survive, how could she expect it to?
She would live in a world with glory akin to that of a century ago. Magic would roar in her veins, hum in her limbs. And it wasn’t only her, but everyone. Arawiya would thrive again.
It had to. She would not let herself think of the alternative.
The night was fading by the time they reached the palace in Leil. They rounded to the royal minaret, and Zafira was surprised to find three safin of the High Circle awaiting their arrival. The zumra neared the glittering tower, anticipation crowding her lungs.
“Akhh,” Altair exclaimed at the sight of the stairs spiraling to the very top of the minaret.
With an exasperated look at him, Nasir disappeared into an alcove and soon enough, the squeak of a rope filled the quiet. Thousands of oil lamps flickered to life, and the floor beneath them began to rise.
No one spoke. Everyone stared at the heart in Zafira’s hands.
“It’s slowing,” Zafira murmured.
The pulley creaked and the floor rose and rose before finally screeching to a stop.
Cool air brushed her skin, winding around her neck with a gentle caress much like the Lion’s darkness, and she held her breath as she stepped into the night. The others followed in hushed silence.
Sarasin unfolded beneath them, a perfect bird’s-eye view of darkness interspersed with flecks of fire like embers in the wind.
Zafira gave it all a passing glance, for her gaze was set much closer: the pedestal in the center of the annular space. Stone hands curved upward in everlasting prayer, the same mottled gray of the ones that had grasped the Jawarat on Sharr.
No one spoke. She did not think anyone dared breathe.
Her footsteps were heartbeats on the tiles. In her lungs was a drum. The Jawarat, too, held its breath, for it had at last learned that it could cling upon hope.
Zafira had only made it halfway when her legs stumbled to a halt, freezing her in place.
“No,” she cried.
As the heart
crumbled
in her hands.
We warned you, the Jawarat said, but not even it could find a way to be smug.
Anguish tore from her in the shape of a sob. The wind rose, winding through her hands, ashes scattering and swirling into the night, leaving her bare.
Empty.
She dropped to her knees with a shattered breath.
She did not care about Kifah’s soft cry. Altair’s croak. Nasir lifting his fingers through the fading dust. The Silver Witch, witness to every broken moment.
No. Zafira thought of Deen, who had died for this. Of Yasmine, who had lost for this. Of Misk and his sacrifice. Of Benyamin and his dreams.
Of Baba, who had taught her the enchantment of magic, parting the cage of her ribs and feeding desire into her very soul. She brushed her knuckles down the ache in her heart.