He seized it as whatever held him stiff against the wall subsided and the ifrit grabbed him once more.
“Aya, look at me,” he implored, despite the hatred in his veins. “Look at what he’s done. What would Benyamin say?”
She smiled at him. “The dead cannot speak, sadiqi.”
The Lion looked pleased. Aya picked up the first of her tools and pulled back the folds of the Lion’s robes.
Altair’s blood ran cold. He thrashed against the ifrit, but he felt as if he were suddenly made of wheat, frail and insignificant. He gave up, all but hanging in their clutches.
Two more came for him, because Aya might be Arawiya’s best healer, but no one could insert a heart into a heartless monster by skill alone. Without Altair’s blood to fuel her, none of this was possible. He twisted away in futile protest and dull pain throbbed up his arm at the slash of the blade. He stilled at the warm rush of blood, heard the soft pings as it hit the metal cup.
Pride bit his tongue, held his silence. His eye socket wrinkled oddly, bile rising to his throat.
Aya blended their blood with a soft murmur. She smoothed her fingers down the Lion’s chest.
“Do you feel it?” she asked momentarily.
The Lion shook his head.
Altair knew she was good, but skilled enough to numb so much of a man in heartbeats? She placed the tip of the lancet on the Lion’s skin and paused. “There is always the chance that it may not work.”
“Fair Aya, always so concerned for my welfare. We’ve discussed this, haven’t we? It is a risk I must take.” The Lion touched her cheek, like a proud parent commending his child.
“For Arawiya,” she said.
The Lion smiled. “For Arawiya, my sweet.”
She truly was gone. Altair watched helplessly as the knife tore through the Lion’s golden skin, black blood welling along the path of the incision.
The promise of a greater darkness to come.
CHAPTER 49
There truly was no fool bigger than Zafira. I love you? She wanted to bash her head against the nearest wall.
If Kifah hadn’t knocked when she did, Zafira’s wayward tongue would have run too far to reel back, though the look on Kifah’s face when Nasir followed her out of the room was mortifying enough. He barely met Zafira’s eyes as he hurried on and turned down a different hall, the guards on either end snapping to attention.
She was aware, then, that those were the last words she would say to him before he was bound to another. Before this night was over, all that they had shared would no longer be the beginnings of a possibility but the end of a memory—unless he spoke out and held his ground.
“So that’s why you weren’t with Lana. Akhh, he’s looking cheery,” Kifah observed as she appraised her. “You, on the other hand, look like you climbed out of someone’s dream. Probably his.”
Zafira felt bare with her hair unbound, lost in the flame of his touch and the yearning beneath her skin. She felt powerful, too, with her new jambiya against her leg.
“I was worried when you weren’t in the audience hall,” Kifah continued. Her own new attire was fierce: A sleeveless tunic dropped at a slant to her mid-thigh, the high neck embroidered in bold gold filigree. She started to say something more, but stopped.
Zafira cast her a sidelong glance. “What is it?”
She pulled a small cylinder of polished wood with golden caps from a loop at her hip. With a flick of her wrist, it extended to either side, a vicious spearhead at the very end.
“I’m impressed.” Zafira’s brows rose.
Kifah flicked a latch and the spear retracted. She attached it to her waist. “A gift from Benyamin.”
Zafira’s throat closed, imagining Benyamin preparing for a matter of life and death, yet pausing to construct a gift for the stranger with whom he would undertake a momentous journey.
“It’s exquisite.”
Kifah nodded, torn. “Calipha Ghada had it with her. She wants me to come back.”
Ah. The Calipha of Pelusia. “But that’s good, isn’t it? It seemed like you wanted her to forgive you.”
“Not with an ultimatum. I’d have to go back with them now. After the feast. It means leaving everything behind. You, the prince, Altair … magic. Forgo my vengeance and regain my place.” She barked a bitter laugh. “My father would love it.”
What could Zafira say? If she had to decide between going back to her home or staying here to restore magic and defeat the Lion, she couldn’t choose one or the other. She wanted both. She wanted more. She wanted to return home without the guilt of Deen’s death. To find Umm alive and Yasmine smiling. She wanted magic returned without the betrayal of Aya and Altair.
No matter what, though, she was a part of this now. She could not see herself stepping away, not after what she had endured and all she had lost.
“Your advice is unmatched, Huntress,” Kifah drawled.
Zafira laughed. “I can’t be the one to decide which is more important to you. Your place in the Nine, which you joined for vengeance against your father. Or your place in the restoration of magic, which you once decided would be an even bigger blow to your father. Big enough that it was worth leaving Pelusia against your calipha’s wishes.” Zafira stopped to look at her. “If you leave us, you will be missed. If we restore magic without you, it will always be your victory, too.”
Kifah let out a low whistle. “And yet, once magic is restored, who’s to say how Arawiya will be?”
Once, she said, not if. That was Kifah, doubtless and fierce, but Zafira shared her concern. She was no longer the Hunter now that the Arz was gone. She wasn’t even a daughter anymore. What was she to do after magic returned?
She would need to start afresh. She and Lana.
“That’s what makes the future beautiful.” Lana’s voice came from behind them.
Kifah rolled her eyes. “I doubt there’s a fourteen-year-old as ancient as you, little Lana. That’s what makes the future terrifying.”
Zafira stilled.
Lana’s dress was sage, a pale shade of fresh sprigs adorned with tiny pearls. Pleats were set across the length, folds of bronze wound around the middle to accentuate her nimble shape. Brown kohl framed her eyes, and if Baba were here, he would have wept at the sight of his little healer, a woman now.
Lana had always been beautiful; now she was breathtaking.
“What do you think?” she asked shyly after the silence dragged on a beat too long.
Zafira lifted her brows. “I think we ought to hide you away.”
Lana wrinkled her nose dismissively, but she was glowing with pride. Happiness. It was what her sister deserved after what had happened to Aya and Umm, and Zafira decided then that no matter what, she would see this mission through. She would end the Lion with her last breath if it meant a world where Lana could be happy.
She could barely imagine a world such as that. Without the Arz, without the Lion. She wasn’t artless—she knew a world without danger could never exist, but if there was one where death didn’t loom, where a girl didn’t have to fear becoming the woman she once idolized, Zafira would find it.
Before two massive doors, a servant in white garb lowered his head, and the rest of Zafira’s thoughts were lost in a gasp. The audience hall was quite possibly the largest room she had ever seen, flourishing in the latest that art and innovation had to offer.