The sultan saw.
When the throne room doors closed behind them, Zafira hushed the skeins tugging at her heart, trying to steer her focus. Aya, the Lion, the heart, Altair. A bride.
Something burned in her eyes. Fatigue, she lied to herself, ignoring what this entire conversation was: a reminder of her place.
A sign, perhaps. She was a fleck of dust, adrift in the storm of sultans.
CHAPTER 44
They were gone. His zumra, his family. They had come for him, and then they had—gone. The sight of them cast Altair upon Sharr once more, Nasir at his back, Benyamin with his little vials. Their camaraderie.
But this time, it was his fault that he was alone. His fault that the pain fracturing their gazes when he had turned away and strode to the Lion’s side was seared into his own soul.
And they didn’t know the half of it: That it was Altair who had sent the Lion to them, telling his father where the zumra was hiding, because he trusted them to be competent and the Lion was bound to find them anyway. That Altair had turned back because of what Nasir had said, because though Altair had fruitlessly searched the house for the heart, he finally knew what they needed.
When he had decided to see how far a bluff could take him, he had not expected the repercussions upon himself.
“For a moment,” the Lion simpered, “I doubted you would return. You seem to forget who you are when you see that pathetic prince.”
“Yet here I am, ever loyal,” Altair quipped. He had also not expected the stirrings of empathy toward his father to blossom in some delicate corner of his heart.
The Lion hummed. “And what did you learn from him?”
“Will I be free of these shackles if I tell you?”
“That is yet to be determined.”
Altair did not answer, but the Lion, he knew, expected nothing, and left without another word. There were times when he wondered which of them was truly falling for the other’s delusions.
The two lanterns at the head of the room sculpted Aya’s slender form in shadow. The silence simmered between them, mostly because Altair couldn’t bring himself to look at her. His friend. The beloved of an even dearer friend. Benyamin would have shattered.
“I returned to the Lion because of you,” he said to her. He knew where they were now. He knew this place like the back of his hand.
The Lion had been right to ponder over Altair’s return. For when Altair saw Nasir, haggard but happy to see him—as happy as the grump could look—he felt a renewed sense of hope.
With his brother and the zumra at his side, he would triumph.
“You did not have to.” She smoothed the folds of her abaya. Like Benyamin, she was his elder by decades, but she looked like a lost child sprawled on the floor. “I do not need protecting.”
Altair scoffed, leaning against the wall, resting his weighted wrists on the tables on either side. “Sweet Aya, you lost my care for your well-being when you linked hands with his.”
She came over to him, and after a beat of hesitance, trailed her fingers up the inside of his left wrist and bare arm. He stiffened, instantly growing wary. He should have moved. Wrapped a hand around her slender neck and demanded an answer.
The tattoo around her eye stopped him. Hanan. Only she would have chosen a word that encompassed so much.
“I’ve nothing left, sadiqi,” she murmured. “My son is gone. My husband is gone. Am I not deserving of a new life?”
“You had me,” Altair said hoarsely.
He thought of his visits to Alderamin years and years ago, when he’d take her the flowers she loved most, soft hues that she began to adapt in her clothes. When he had strung pearls in her silken hair beneath the whisper of the moon. And later, when he had called her his friend, his sadiq, because what she had wanted of him was what Benyamin had wanted of her far longer, and Altair would never take that away from his brother by choice.
He remembered the way Benyamin spoke of her with boyish diffidence, loving her from afar for decades. He remembered the letter he wrote in Benyamin’s name, the piece of parchment that made the longing in her eyes shift from him to Benyamin.
He remembered, as vividly as yesterday, when Benyamin and Aya had wedded beneath the fanning leaves of the date palms. The way his heart had wept with loss and joy at once, bittersweet and beautiful.
“Was I not enough? Was my friendship too heavy a burden?” he asked, his voice soft.
“The Lion will win, sadiqi,” she whispered, cupping his face. Her hand was cold. All those servile dramatics, and the Lion hadn’t told him anything about Aya. Altair hadn’t known she was a part of his plans, and he certainly didn’t know why. But he wouldn’t wait to find out.
“For once,” she said, “I will not be on the side of loss.”
He stared into her eyes, wide and innocent and bereft of reason, and he turned his head to press a kiss to her palm. One last gift. One final farewell.
For the next time he touched her, it would be with a blade through her heart.
CHAPTER 45
The feast was this evening, and Zafira was on edge. More dignitaries had arrived, chests puffed as if they were sultans themselves, hauling treasures to sway favors. She hadn’t seen Nasir since he’d been told of his impending wedding, nor had she sought him out. Her fingers still buzzed from reaching for him, and her heart still stung from when he pulled away. If he wanted to see her, he could come to her. Otherwise, she would have her answer: She truly had been the most interesting thing on Sharr, and they were on Sharr no longer.
Always so hasty, Yasmine tsked in her head.
I learned from the best, Zafira retorted.
She supposed the voice in her head that sounded like Yasmine had a point, however. Since she’d woken this morning from a restless sleep, her attention had been in demand. Seamstresses came and went. First for her, then for Lana. Servants barged in and out. Maids with clean sheets and others pulling dusty curtains.
On the one hand, Zafira was secretly grateful, for the constant company gave her more time to find the right words to tell Lana what had happened yesterday. On the other, she was beginning to wonder if the sultan was purposely keeping the zumra apart.
At last, her door closed and remained closed, and with Lana in the adjoining bath, Zafira quickly grabbed her shawl and darted into the hall, coming face to face with Kifah.
The Pelusian raised an eyebrow. “Off to see your lover?”
Zafira scowled, and then her scowl deepened when her mind conjured an image of Nasir, his shirt on the floor, her fingers on his skin. No, not hers, but the girl in the yellow shawl’s. “If that’s who you think you are.”
Kifah’s laugh was cut short by her somber mood. “Seif is expecting a runner any moment now, with updates on the Lion’s—and Aya and Altair’s—whereabouts. I thought you might want to be there.”
Zafira trailed after her, elbowing her way through the bustling halls and deeper into the palace, tiles cool beneath her feet, the breeze stirring the curtains warm and dry as bones. Kifah barely glanced at the guards as they passed, but Zafira’s skin itched with their probing gazes.
When she made to open the door to the war room, Kifah rolled her eyes.
“What?” Zafira asked.
“Watch,” Kifah taunted, and a guard, stoic and elegant, opened it for them. “See? It’s like magic. No heart required.” She winced. “A bit too soon to be joking about this, eh?”