Nasir looked away.
And as if—as if—his day wasn’t going terribly enough, he heard the creak of his door and a sharp draw of breath, because no one thought of knocking in this forsaken house.
Khara.
Zafira was frozen in the doorway, hair mussed, mouth swollen. The sight ripped him to shreds as she looked between Kulsum and his shirtless state, her brows falling in two shattered slashes.
It isn’t what it looks like, Nasir wanted to say, but when did anything ever go his way?
CHAPTER 21
Sweet snow below. If she had only held the door closed when it accidentally slipped open, she wouldn’t have had to see that. Nasir, without a shirt, without the shadows of Sharr to cloak him. The lantern light painted him in strokes of gold down to the low, low band of his sirwal, igniting something in her veins.
And her: the slender girl in the yellow shawl who was more beautiful than Zafira’s broad build and unwomanly height could ever dream to be. When had the idea of beauty ever bothered her before? Her eyes began to burn.
Jealousy darkened the heart, and Zafira was not jealous. She was pure of heart.
Her mind flashed to the Lion’s mouth on hers. Nasir without a shred of cloth on his back. This was it. She was going mad.
She had only gone there to check on him, to tell him about their plans. To tell him how she had lost the Jawarat and explain that, yes, he had been right not to entrust her with the hearts that were now being taken away. Because some stupid, naive, childish part of her had believed he would care, he would understand.
How wrong she had been.
She slipped soundlessly back down the hall, running her fingers along the paneled walls, aware she’d never stepped so deep into the house, where many of the High Circle roomed. Were there more of them now that nine had departed? She didn’t know. But most of the doors were closed, and the last thing she needed was to pry one open to another sight she shouldn’t see.
And now footsteps were hurrying after her. Perfect.
She rushed beneath an archway and into a high-ceilinged chamber. For banquets, likely. She wouldn’t know. The largest space they had back in her village in Demenhur was the jumu’a, and that was daama outside.
“Zafira.”
She froze, the stone cool beneath her bare feet.
“Why are you running?”
She turned. He had thrown on a shirt but hadn’t had time to close it up. The muscles of his torso coiled with his breathing and she imagined her hands on his skin, his voice in her ear. Turning her mouth to his. The Lion’s hands on her thighs. No.
Anger. That was what she needed to feel right now. Not … this. But the flickering sconces lit the anguish in his eyes, making it hard to focus.
“I was giving you privacy.” Steel rang in her voice.
He backed her toward the wall, uncaring of the doors that could open at any moment. He pitched his voice low. “The only privacy that I want is with you.”
“No, you don’t,” she said breathlessly, ignoring what the words could mean. She wasn’t half as beautiful as the girl in the yellow shawl. Khara. She wasn’t supposed to daama care.
He stepped closer, pressing the tips of his bare toes against hers. His eyes were downcast. She felt his confusion and the heat of his body as if it were her own.
“What do you want?” she whispered. Their time on Sharr had wound a string between them, knotted and gnarled, the edges fraying even as it tugged them closer.
He made a sound that could have been half of a sob or a laugh, and that was it. Tell me, she pleaded in the silence. The darkness stared. This was as far as they ever got—she would ask, and he would retreat.
“The Jawarat is gone,” she bit out. Because they were a zumra, and she owed him that much. “The Lion came to me, disguised as … someone he wasn’t.”
Nasir’s eyes snapped to hers, but she looked away in a stir of embarrassment and anger. Her mind flitted to the girl in the yellow shawl with her golden skin, shapely features, and full lips. Did he struggle with words when it came to her? Her posture had been at ease, as if she knew his secrets. Her dark eyes had roamed his bare chest, as if she knew the feel of him beneath her fingers.
No, Zafira decided. He did not.
“If you can’t even speak of what you want, then perhaps—” She stopped and tried again. “Perhaps you don’t want it hard enough.” She slid away from the wall. His hand dropped to his side. “Perhaps you don’t deserve it.”
Was he the one the Silver Witch had warned her against? Her own son?
She left her heart at his feet and locked her brain safely away, and she was almost to the doorway when he spoke.
Soft. Broken.
“What do you want?”
The Lion’s death. Altair’s safety. Magic’s return. Baba’s justice. You. You. You. He was a rhythm in her blood.
“Honor before heart,” Zafira said. What work there was to do, she would do herself.
As always.
CHAPTER 22
It was dark when the Lion returned, triumph carving a smile that glittered like the night. Joy in his gaze that tripped Altair’s heart for the barest of beats before he at once felt a deep, numbing nothingness and a bursting, tumultuous everything.
From the folds of his robes, the Lion pulled free the Jawarat with a delicate hand. Green with tattered pages and a fiery mane embossed in its center.
Not only had the zumra—with their ancient safin, shadow-wielding prince, and dum sihr—not found Altair, but they had been careless.
The Lion watched him carefully, but what was there to see? Altair’s disappointment at their incompetence? Altair’s contentment at a plan gone right?
“Unlock his chains,” his considerate father said, and an ifrit came forth with a key.
A tiny, insignificant bit of molded iron that would grant his freedom. The Jawarat, memories of the Sisters of Old incarnate, for his freedom.
So that he would never be forgotten.
Neither father nor son spoke until the chains were detached.
“I don’t suppose you can remove the shackles, too?” Altair ventured, a little hoarse, his gaze fixed on the book.
The Lion smiled. It was quite something, to be the cause of another’s joy. To be the pride of someone’s eye, if only for a fleeting moment.
Altair matched it. “Akhh, I knew it was too much to ask.”
“You have done me a service, Altair. For that, you are free to roam the house as you would like.”
Some freedom.
“Ah, Baba. Quite the weight off my shoulders—er, arms,” Altair drawled, flexing his muscles. He dallied a beat before he said, “What do you plan to do with it?”
“Learn it,” the Lion said simply. “I’m never one to shy away from the thralls of a book.”
Altair considered that. “The Great Library would kill you, then.”
The Lion laughed, low and thoughtful. “I would not put it past the place. There is nothing quite like entering a door that promises to open onto the infinite.”
They were in a different house now, one that had belonged to a safi with a skill set that would be sorely missed by many.
“How were they?” Altair asked before he could stop himself. He found his limbs seizing in anticipation of the answer.
The Lion paused. It was eerie, for he had no pulse, even as he buzzed with excitement. “Alive. Well. They seemed to be in no hurry. It is for the best, is it not? I’m beginning to savor our alliance, Altair.”