And
damned
himself.
CHAPTER 105
Some decisions could never be undone. Nasir was aware of this fact as he pieced together his next words.
“There are many truths you will learn in the years to come. The biggest is this: Arawiya’s sultana, Anadil, was not safin. She was not human, either. She was the last of the Sisters of Old, once warden of Sharr.”
The crowd ruptured in surprise. Again, he looked to her, his fair gazelle. She was holding her sister against her, whispering something even as she held his gaze.
“I am her son, but not her firstborn. I was raised a prince, but I wasn’t given the heart and soul of a king.”
The buzzing crowd fell silent at this admission. The zumra’s gazes burned into him, questions rising in the quiet, none of them louder than his mother’s.
“Her first son, however, was given both of those things. He has fought and bled for this kingdom, to keep the darkness at bay and our people alive even when all hope seemed lost. As I carried out the worst of commands, killing without mercy.” Now Nasir’s voice rose. It was a truth he would brand across history if he must. “If there is anyone deserving of the Gilded Throne and this crown, it is him. My brother.”
Nasir inhaled a deep breath, gripping the rail beneath the full weight of what he was about to do.
“Altair al-Badawi.”
The effect of the name was instant.
Joy swept down the ranks of the people gathered below, triumph in their shouts. He knew not everyone would trust that Altair was his brother. He knew there would be those who would search Altair’s lineage for the name of his father. Those who would challenge him.
But for now, their love for him, and all he had done for them, would be enough.
Nasir stepped inside, expecting bitterness in his veins, but he only felt pride. Pure and whole.
He turned the golden crown over in his hands. “I don’t know if this will fit, but—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Altair growled.
Kifah was grinning ear to ear.
“You are quite something when flustered,” Nasir said in full seriousness.
Altair shoved a hand through his hair, mussing it even further and dropping his turban. He turned to the wall and gulped down several deep breaths.
“If I take the crown—” he started, turning back.
“There’s no ‘if.’ I’m not going to step back outside to say I spoke in jest,” Nasir replied.
“What will you do?”
For once, Nasir had an answer waiting. “Sarasin’s throne sits empty.”
“Sarasin?” Altair asked, surprise arching his brow.
Nasir’s answer was wry. “I am my father’s son, after all.”
It was more than that. He vowed to begin righting his wrongs, and it was Sarasin that he had wronged the most. Sarasin that had suffered beneath his blade. Sarasin, where he had learned he could not live without her, as they had traveled and fought and triumphed as one, prudent and tactful.
When he found the strength to seek out his mother, he found shock and understanding. Uncertainty, but also surety. There were tears in her dark eyes, not ones welled from sorrow, but those of pride.
She said nothing, knowing she did not have to.
Altair regarded him as cheers continued to ripple outside. “You’re more than that. We both are.”
Nasir swallowed the sudden barge in his throat and struggled against the tantalizing fear in his veins that signified change. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d think you were going to kiss me,” he said, pulling a page from the general’s book.
Altair scoffed. “If you weren’t my brother, perhaps. That’s a little too much, Nasir. Even for me.” He looked at his trembling hands with a shaky laugh and wrapped his turban with haste. “Wish me luck, One of Nine?”
Kifah couldn’t stop grinning. “You gave up your eye for Arawiya. Make your own luck, Sultani.”
Nasir watched as Altair flicked his gaze, uneasy and fleeting, to their mother. The nod that was exchanged seemed indifferent, though it was anything but. And then the announcer was clearing his throat, prompting him to follow with a fortifying breath.
Altair hurried back inside.
“Wait—is my turban crooked?”
Nasir smiled. “Just the way you like it.”
CHAPTER 106
He had been born for this. He had been bred for this. Zafira had—skies, what had he done?
“Why do you look surprised?” Lana asked.
“Did you not hear what he said?” Zafira shot back. “He just gave up the daama crown like it’s kanafah. He’s lived his whole life for this moment, for the crown, and he just gave it up.” Her voice was louder than it should have been. People were turning to stare.
Lana tilted her head, a laugh in her eyes. “Because of you, Okhti. Didn’t you see?”
Zafira closed her eyes, exhaling a slow, slow breath as Yasmine watched. Her stomach dropped, not because of Lana’s words, but because she knew she was one of the reasons why he had done this. Some part of her had seen it flicker in his gray eyes before he even opened his mouth.
Altair ducked beneath the curtains and closed his hands around the burnished rail, his bare arms glistening in the full sun. People murmured of his eyepatch, threaded in gold. They murmured of their love for him.
“Arawiya mocks me even now,” Yasmine murmured with some of her usual bite.
Zafira threaded her fingers through Lana’s. Her sister, who had grown so much. Who would soon know how to heal with a touch. “What do you mean?”
“He’s far too pretty to be a murderer,” Yasmine said with a sigh.
Zafira grinned. Altair was light incarnate. Nasir was right about one thing: He deserved this. And a very different kind of pride swelled in her heart when the crown was placed on his head.
“Remember when I stole from the sultan?” Lana asked with a smirk.
Zafira let out a long-suffering sigh.
CHAPTER 107
The crown was placed on Altair’s head, and the written scrolls immortalized his coronation. He was sultan, he was king. He was a grand liar who had somehow earned himself a throne.
He had lived in his baby brother’s shadow long enough that he was accustomed to being second, and so none of this felt real. It felt undeserved, despite what everyone said. It made him guilty to feel elated with the weight of the metal atop his turban.
Altair had always intended for Nasir to sit on the Gilded Throne. It had been a part of the plan: Return magic, vanquish Ghameq, and nurture the young prince into the ruler Arawiya needed. But a crown on Altair’s head didn’t mean Nasir would be treated as any less than a sultan himself.
Altair would ensure it.
The procession made its way to the coronation feast in the banquet hall, ululations and drums ringing between the umber walls.
“Where are you going?” Nasir asked, ever observant. “Your belly dancers are getting cold.”
“I’ll be right back,” Altair said, plastering on a grin. “They won’t even know I’ve gone.”
There was something he needed to do without a witness in case he faced the rejection he feared. He pushed his way to the empty hall, taking the steps by two, and stopped in the throne room.
The Gilded Throne was still shrouded in shadow, the steps steeped in black.