Half the contingent followed Alia’s leap across the alley, dark robes fluttering as they hefted themselves up and down the rooftops rising in various heights. The others trailed Nasir.
They pressed deeper into the city, leaving behind the bustle of the Sultan’s Road and the shine of the Sultan’s Guard. When Zafira paused, Nasir did the same, following her gaze to the end of the alley, which opened to a street, where a house sat behind a stretch of sand among a line of others. It was simply built, tan stone mostly smooth, dresses hung out to dry. He knew of the woman who owned it, or rather, the safi. She employed a number of tailors in the city.
A murmur began in Nasir’s blood, a hum of darkness similar to whenever he neared magic. Not any magic, but dum sihr. Stronger than what Zafira had used moments ago. Movement caught his eye, and the hashashins froze with him.
Men were stationed on the surrounding rooftops, some idling behind screened terraces, others alert with swords against their shoulders.
A calm settled in his bones, and he knew. He would find no clothier safi inside that house.
If Altair were beside him now, he’d find a way to make light of this moment. He’d look back at Nasir and stretch a grin. How much do you want to bet those are not men, but ifrit?
I don’t gamble, Nasir would say, knowing full well Altair didn’t, either.
Oh no. Leave it to you to be the most moral man in Arawiya, brother dearest.
Nasir clenched his jaw. “Spread across.”
He leaped to a minaret and rounded it to the adjacent wall, matching Zafira’s stride until they reached the end of the alley, where a guard was stationed atop the last building. The hashashins halted, slashes of shadow awaiting a command as Nasir crouched at the rooftop’s edge.
The guard strode from one end to the other, sandals on his feet, dark hair wavy beneath his turban, a mustache thick above his lip. Human in every way, except for the warning in Nasir’s gut.
Nasir dropped, toppling the guard to the dusty rug unfurled across the rooftop. He could tell by the feel of the guard beneath him even before he dragged his blade across his victim’s neck and black blood oozed free like tar in the sun.
Ifrit.
CHAPTER 38
Zafira hadn’t been prepared to hear the final, strangled breaths of the guards. Ifrit, Nasir had said as if in reassurance as he and his hashashins killed them. She closed her eyes as another thud echoed, another fallen soul.
“Khara,” Kifah croaked, and Zafira’s eyes flew open in time to see Nasir leap from the building’s edge, hurtling through the open air of the street. The tips of his boots touched down on a suspended rope, propelling him to the rooftop on the other end. A blade shot out from his gauntlet while he was in midair, and the guard fell before Nasir landed.
Half of his hashashins followed his lead, taking positions where the Lion’s guards previously stood.
The Lion’s guards. The Lion’s hideout.
She was here.
Here.
She closed her fist against the sting in her palm, the reminder of what she had done. Her skin still tingled from where he had held her, her heart still snagged in that moment. Dum sihr dizzied her, raced feverishly through her veins, tugging her forward. Toward this castle of a house sprawling along the crowded street across from them.
It was wide and unsuspecting, windows shaped like eight-pointed stars rimmed in darker clay. The flat roof was furnished with a screen and a silken rug draped to dry, accenting it like a towel over a man’s bare shoulder.
Like your prince’s? Yasmine asked in her head. There was an edge to her friend’s voice, cut from the death of her brother.
Zafira bit her lip, forcing her focus. Somewhere inside that house was Altair, the Jawarat, and the fifth heart, and she intended to find them, the Lion be damned.
Nasir had made his way to the rooftop of the house and watched her now. Waited for her. She ignored the flip of her stomach at his unreadable gaze. How was it that he was there, right there, and they felt leagues apart?
Kifah tucked into the shadows between two narrow houses to Zafira’s right. To her left, Aya pressed deeper into her cover, the breeze toying with the soft pink layers of her abaya, Seif at her side. If not for the staff in her hand, Aya would have looked as if she were out for a stroll down the street with a friend. Her words still nagged at Zafira’s conscience, troubling her.
Zafira’s blood raced beneath her skin like a rushing stream as she darted across the street, toward the ledge surrounding the house. Grab, push, jump. Then she would be over, one step closer to the house, one step closer to the Lion, only a window separating her from a forage for the fifth heart. She wasn’t afraid of him, she reminded herself. Not when she knew he wouldn’t harm her and risk losing the Jawarat.
She ducked her head, bow and arrows slung behind her, palms slick with anticipation.
Grab, push, jump. That was the plan.
Until a latch lifted.
“Zafira,” Kifah hissed. “Hide.”
She froze. Her heart was encased in a tomb of ice, but she didn’t move.
“No. He already knows I’m here.” Zafira lifted her chin as the door swung open. The fringe of her shawl fluttered in the breeze, helplessly tugging her to safety. It took everything in her power not to flick her gaze to Nasir on the rooftop. She had lost Baba’s dagger for this mission, for Altair and the heart.
They wouldn’t fail.
The Lion stepped through the archway. He was fitted in mauve and midnight, the bronze of his tattoo catching a ray of the early sun.
“I wondered when you would come to see me.”
Even now, knowing who he was and what he had done, the velvety darkness of his voice struck her, removing her worries and setting her at ease.
“I’ve come for what’s mine,” she replied.
The Lion lifted his brows, knowing she spoke of the Jawarat. “And why do you believe it is yours? Because it speaks to you, understands you in a way your friends cannot?” His lips curled wickedly as he regarded her, the end of his turban rippling. “Do I not understand you as well? Am I yours, azizi?”
Yes, she thought. He was hers. Her companion, her succor, her prey.
He was hers to end. Hers to kill.
She knew by the flash of his gaze, amber and beautiful, that he saw the murder in hers. The temperature careened and sudden clouds raced to hide the sun. She steeled her spine against a quiver of fear. Did the Jawarat revel in his theatrics? Was this what it had wanted from her?
A dark head poked over the ledge of a nearby window. Another door opened a smidge. Curtains parted. Nosy people drawn like bees to honey as a swarm of black crowded around the Lion, filling the expanse of sand with ifrit and shadows.
“Tell your friends there’s no need to hide,” he called. “We are all well acquainted, are we not?”
With a lash of his hand, the wind rose, baying like dogs, bringing a chaos of sand and debris and the sounds of the city. Silver threads glinted from the Lion’s thobe as he addressed the empty road.
“Don’t be shy. Come, fight my kin. Further your deception of triumph.”
Zafira drew her bow and nocked an arrow as darkness flooded like fabric unspooled and swallowed her whole.
CHAPTER 39
The darkness stirred the shadows in his blood. The Lion’s voice echoed through it, low and seductive, and Nasir could only think of Zafira’s laugh that night. Focus. He had two beats to decide: Go to her aid or adhere to the plan?