She would be the reason magic returned.
Seif turned to her, his cruel gaze deflating her moment. “Well? Are we to leave for Alderamin?”
We? Ah—that was why he had kept a heart for himself. He was going to restore it to Alderamin’s royal minaret.
When she didn’t answer, Seif added, “Or was that proclamation yet another undertaking too heavy for you to handle?”
Zafira dropped her head, her failure still too fresh and too raw to allow a retort. Several of the safin tittered, and she wondered how they could want the best for Arawiya and still be so infuriatingly ill-mannered.
One by one, the trios of the High Circle took their leave, and one by one, the three hearts destined for Pelusia, Zaram, and Demenhur disappeared into the night.
Breathe, she told herself. Kifah stared after them, her face frozen before she caught herself and looked to Zafira with the edge of a smile. It warmed her, somehow, knowing she wasn’t alone in the feeling of loss. In missing the hearts the moment they left the threshold of the house.
“Don’t leave,” Lana said. Aya’s kit was in her hands.
“Come with me, then,” Zafira said, “and we’ll never have to be separated again.”
The moment Lana bit her lip, Zafira knew it was a wish too far-fetched. They had always been on different paths, she with her arrows and her sister with her tinctures.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Zafira asked, uncaring of the frenzy bleeding into her voice. Uncaring of Seif’s impatience and Kifah’s pity.
Lana only shook her head, sliding a glance at Aya.
It was one more shovel digging into her already hollowing heart.
* * *
Even the touch of the poker was less painful than this hollow in Nasir’s heart. All he wanted was for the emptiness to come to an end. It was all he had ever wanted, he realized. To be seen. Understood.
Needed and wanted.
He began the lengthy task of undressing, beginning with his weapons before he loosened the sash of his robes, then straightened the folds of his shirt and hung it behind the chair. The breeze from the open window counted the endless scars on his back with a curious touch.
The soft scuff of bare feet broke the silence, and he froze with his hand at the band of his pants. He didn’t bother reaching for his sword. His bare hands would suffice.
“Hiding will do you no favors,” he said, voice deathly low, and almost instantly a figure emerged from the shadows near the latticed screen, illuminated by the multiple lanterns.
He would know that slender build anywhere.
“Kulsum.”
She lowered the ochre shawl from her head, dark hair glossy in the light.
For a moment, he could only stare. His heart was a ruin scrubbed raw, his mind a scramble of pain and memory. This was the girl he had loved, whose body he knew as well as his own. Whose voice was the most melodic he had ever heard, until his father learned his son had found an escape. Laa, it was the Lion who had found him, the Lion who had controlled Ghameq’s hand, carving her tongue from her mouth.
As if Nasir had not abhorred himself enough before, the butchery had drowned him in a deep pit of self-loathing. He had kept his distance, blamed himself and vowed useless vows until that moment on Sharr, when he had learned Kulsum was a spy. What he didn’t yet know was how long she had been in Altair’s employ—long before the moment they’d first met? After his mother’s death? Since she’d lost her tongue?
“You came for Altair,” Nasir said.
She nodded slowly, yes and no, a painful reminder of what she would never again have. How had she entered the house—by writing Aya a letter?
“Then you would know he’s not here,” he said. Aya would have told her as much. Accusation flared in her dark eyes, and he gave a mirthless laugh. “Don’t worry, I didn’t kill him, but as you’re aware, there are fates worse than death. He’s with the Lion of the Night.” And then, because he was cruel and horrible and hurting, he said, “I would worry about telling you too much, for servants like to gossip, don’t they?” The monster inside him stretched a smile. “But we both know you can’t tell them anything.”
Not a single emotion flashed across her face.
She was better at this than he could ever have imagined. She glided closer, and he marveled at how much hatred he could summon for someone so beautiful, but was it hatred for her or himself—or for them both?
Her gaze dropped to his chest, to the fresh burn near his collarbone. He should have reached for his shirt, but what was the point? She had seen him this way countless times. She had seen more than this.
“Why did you do it?” he asked softly.
She didn’t answer. She would never answer in a thousand years.
“What could compel you to feign love for a monster?”
He studied the way she stood, straight-backed. The way she walked, head high, dress free about her legs.
She was not lowborn, a thing he should have realized years ago. And if befriending Kifah had taught him anything, it was the lengths a person would go for vengeance.
“You weren’t always Altair’s spy. He saw an opportunity and took it, but you…，” he said slowly, and faint lines of shadow painted his arms. He heard Zafira’s soft laugh in his ears. Breathe. “You had plans of your own.”
The glitter in her eyes was confirmation enough.
“I killed someone,” he reasoned. What else could he have done? He had never plotted or connived or brought anyone down. He killed them, simple as that. “Your father.”
She shook her head.
“Mother?”
Another shake. No—she had forsaken a good life for the purpose of growing close to him. To make him love her with the intention of breaking his heart.
“A lover,” he realized with a hollow, contrite laugh. “I killed the one you loved, and so you forsook your life for a path of vengeance. Admirable. Was it worth it, love? Did you laugh as my father branded me? Did you gloat as I came back from my missions bereft of another piece of my soul? Did my sorrow bring you pleasure, Kulsum?”
She reached for him, and Nasir stepped back.
“I would choose death over your touch.”
He was no saint. He was well aware of the irony in his disgust.
“You should have thought it through. You should have realized the sultan hated me more than you ever could. You might have kept your tongue, then.” He shook his head in the silence. “None of it hurt more than that, did you know?”
None of it had hurt more than the belief that she had lost her tongue because she had dared to love a monster, when in reality, it had been the price of her revenge. The curtains fluttered, eager for more, and the breeze tugged on the door he had been too scattered to shut.
“But if you were willing to sacrifice so much to bring me the level of pain you suffered, then mabrook. Your vengeance is complete.”
Some part of him was glad of this conversation, glad he was able to finish and lock away whatever had once stood between them.
“Now get out,” he commanded. “When Altair returns, there will be a line. Join it.”
But Kulsum didn’t move. She only looked at him, dark eyes bright. Regretful, almost … hungry. He imagined what she would say, had she been able to speak. Perhaps, despite her vengeance, some part of her had loved him, in the way that only time spent isolated with another could foster.