Altair straightened the collar of his thobe that he had tailored for his brother’s coronation and strode to the dais, his footfalls hollow, his pulse quickening when the steps remained as dark as the night.
Sultan’s teeth. He laughed to himself. Those were his teeth now.
He held his breath and eased himself down. A whisper unfurled across the room, a sigh almost. One of us, the throne echoed. No, not the throne, the Sisters. Relief wound through him as resplendent gold spread over the darkness.
“Did you really believe the throne would not accept you?”
The Silver Witch stepped from the shadows.
“Did you doubt your blood?”
Altair’s grip tightened around the arms of the throne, his knuckles white. “My own mother didn’t accept me.”
“A sin I will forever regret.”
He didn’t know why her remorse contented him.
“Why? I was an amalgamation of your mistakes,” he replied mildly, but the words held less bite and more a bone-deep weariness. As if the part of him bereft of her love wanted to believe her, and years of experience told him otherwise.
“And it was worse to blame my wrongs on a newborn child,” she said softly. “If there was ever proof that good triumphs over the darkest of times, it is you. I will not ask for the forgiveness I do not deserve, but know that I will live the rest of my days with regret.”
Altair considered the white mane of her hair, the loss she endured that no one would ever know the extent of. The power she had relinquished by giving up her heart. “Will you stay here? In the palace?”
“I thought I’d had my fill of these walls,” she said carefully. “But if you’ll have me…”
A flutter, in his chest.
“Now that you mention it,” he said after a beat of thought in which he didn’t think at all, extending an offer of peace, “I am in need of an advisor.”
His mother’s lips twitched in the faintest of smiles as the throne room doors swept open, bringing with it a gust of the revel and three others. His family. His zumra. His lifeline.
Nasir looked surprised to see their mother, and Altair gave him a sardonic smile.
Zafira bowed first. “My king.”
Nasir followed, then Kifah, and Altair leaped off the throne and rushed toward them.
“No!” he commanded. “You will never bow to anyone, least of all me.”
Kifah smirked. “I only did it so Zafira wouldn’t feel awkward.”
Zafira rolled her eyes, and Altair was struck by how much he would miss them. Ruling a kingdom was lonely like that. He couldn’t expect Nasir to govern Sarasin from Sultan’s Keep. He couldn’t keep Zafira from her home, or Kifah from her calipha.
The others sobered, realizing the same.
“Strange, isn’t it,” said Nasir, who was never one for contemplation. “How the darkness brought us together, and the light will let us fall apart?”
Zafira shook her head, looking among them. “We’re not falling apart. We hunted the flame on Sharr, set free the stars across the skies, but it was only ever the dawn of our zumra. Now we make sure that light doesn’t go out. Forever. Together.”
CHAPTER 108
The safin of Benyamin’s High Circle would lift the blockades on magic at sunrise, and ease the people into the use of their affinities. A little bit more every day, Seif had said, and for the ones who wished to master the ability they’d been born with, the safin would aid them in cities across Arawiya.
There was a time when Zafira had approached the safin with disenchantment, but now she was glad of them. Glad they were here, with their experience of living in a world of magic, so that they could do for Arawiya what the Sisters could not.
Zafira left Lana in the palace banquet hall, where the girl was keen on trying every dish she possibly could, and closed the door to their rooms. Anticipation buzzed beneath her skin. Even the Jawarat hummed in excitement, ready for the inevitable chaos.
We cannot help it, it said at Zafira’s reproach.
She threw open the window as the knot in her throat became too thick to breathe around, as if she would be able to see magic flowing across the skies, reaching for her.
They had done it. She had done it. How small she had felt leaving her village behind for a mirage that she feared might never be. And now it was here. It was daama here.
Rest, bint Iskandar. We must be ready for dawn.
Just a few moments, she promised herself, tucking the Jawarat to her side. She didn’t think she’d doze off, but the next thing she knew, the bed was shifting and a figure curled against her side. Heftier and taller than Lana.
“Yasmine?” Zafira asked, cracking open an eye.
Yasmine turned onto her back, lifting her chin to stop her tears. They trailed down the side of her face, falling to the shell of her ear.
“I’ve never felt so empty,” she whispered. Her face was swollen, stained in streaks of sorrow.
Zafira turned and tucked her arms around her and held her close, as if that could bring Misk back, as if that could fill her with whatever his death and Deen’s had taken.
“If I hadn’t wished for time apart—”
“No.” Zafira stopped her. “He would have done it regardless. He was tied to Arawiya and its future. That’s why he worked for Altair. He was a hero, Yasmine.”
Yasmine sobbed. What had Zafira expected? For the Lion to die and all to be righted? It wasn’t only war that had an aftermath, but life, too.
“You can add that to your list now,” Zafira teased with a nudge.
Yasmine tried to laugh, but wept instead. And as the sister of her heart mourned the man she loved, Zafira was reminded of Umm and Baba. She was reminded of Nasir, and a truth: She could think of no future without him, and the revelation scared her roaring thoughts into silence.
Love was a terrible thing, she decided. It tore hearts apart with talons and gnashing teeth and left nothing behind.
CHAPTER 109
Altair’s first order as Arawiya’s ruler was upheaving the depressing decor of the Sultan’s Palace. He didn’t understand such dark and drab decor. Royalty wasn’t dead. A day after magic’s return, the black carpeting was rolled up and a new one unfurled in blue and red and edged in gold.
But if he was being honest, all this was merely delaying a more important task: being sultan. The loneliness of it. Magic and the chaos it entailed. Already there was word from one village of a fireheart having accidentally set a tree ablaze and the flames spreading to the sooq, upon which an aquifer thought to be heroic and flooded the market stalls.
Some good the safin were doing, easing magic into Arawiya.
“And here we have our lonely sultan,” Kifah said by way of greeting as she strolled into the room.
He was lonely. Nasir had already left for Sarasin to prepare for his own coronation. Zafira and her sister were bound for Demenhur. He bit the inside of his cheek. Sultans didn’t cry.
One side of Kifah’s mouth curled into a smile as she strode to one of the large windows. “Seif and I toured the city. They’re calling you Zhahabi Maliki.”
The Golden King.
“Has a nice ring to it,” Altair said, swallowing a rasp. He liked the word “king” more than the word “sultan.” What was it that his father had said?