Zafira swayed back with a low breath and ran her gaze across the gathered crowd.
She hated Ayman. She hated how angry he made her feel, rekindling the rage born from her bond with the Jawarat. The surrounding noise blurred into one, her blood rushing through her ears. The burning rage seared her gaze.
This isn’t like you.
The Jawarat was gone. It couldn’t continue influencing her. But as she fought her anger and her darkening thoughts, she blearily recalled its promise, smug and sure: We will align with time.
“Caliph Elect, Muzaffar bin Jul min Sarasin!”
She exhaled slowly at the sound of the announcer’s voice.
The man, middle-aged and well dressed in a finely spun russet thobe, looked every bit the merchant he was presumed to be. His skin was the same olive tone as Nasir’s, and as if testament to the improvements he was spearheading in Sarasin, his face was pleasant. He was a reminder that there was good in this world. She hoped the sultan would see it and appoint him, and quickly.
The announcer’s voice rang one final time, and not a single guest dared to breathe.
“Esteemed guests, the Sultan of Arawiya, once of Sarasin, and Crown Amir, Nasir bin Ghameq bin Talib.”
Zafira’s heart slowed, pulsing in time to the sultan’s steps. He grasped his gold-banded black cloak in one hand, a white thobe flashing beneath it. How he could spend time and coin on clothing and feasting instead of searching for the Lion and the fifth heart was beyond Zafira. Laa, it made her as angry as the Caliph of Demenhur did.
Lana nudged her.
Behind the sultan, a wraith in the night, was Nasir. His features were stoic, eyes trained at his father’s back. Someone had contained his hair in a checkered turban, neat dark folds held by a silver circlet, though the stubborn strands didn’t want to stay put and a lock curled boyishly at his temple. His thobe was immaculately fitted to his lithe frame, tailored sharp enough to cut. Dark damasks embroidered the panels, the high collar trimmed in silver. He looked smart, princely, and unarmed, but she knew that last one was a lie.
He looks beautiful, her heart whispered to her.
The sultan settled onto his throne. Nasir remained at his side, eyes sweeping the room as the dignitaries took their seats.
“There’s that look,” Kifah muttered beneath her breath, and Zafira met the fervent flint of his gaze with a suppressed shiver—almost, almost missing the way his mouth quirked at one corner with the faintest smirk before his mask returned.
Cannot all three be one and the same?
A silence fell over the room when the sultan lifted his chin.
CHAPTER 50
The malodorous scent of blood clung to the room, transporting Altair to the plains of the battlefield. Anywhere that was not here. The Lion’s tenacity was endless, for more than once, those amber eyes rolled to the back of his head, but not one time did he lose consciousness. He was bleary but alert as Aya cut and hacked at his body, healing him as she went along.
It was better than Altair was doing.
“He will kill you,” he said. No matter what transpired, the Lion still loathed safin a thousand times over.
Aya only smiled, as dreamily as ever. The same way she had smiled years ago when she ran her fingers through Altair’s hair. The same way she had smiled when her son was born.
“Think of what you’re aiding,” Altair pleaded, uncaring that the Lion was witness.
“The ignition of a new world,” Aya said. “Had it not been for the Sisters, Benyamin would live. My son would live.”
“Listen to yourself,” he roared, wrenching against the ifrit again. His legs trembled like a daama fawn’s, his strength diminishing. “The Lion killed Benyamin. Right in front of me.”
The Lion merely blinked at her. “Do not believe the musings of the mad, fair Aya. Benyamin was akin to a brother—he brought me into your fold. Cared for me as no one else did.”
Altair stared in disbelief. “Then ask him how Benyamin died on the island where the Lion was our only foe.”
Aya paused, fingers poised above the Lion’s chest. She turned to Altair with the barest hint of sense.
“Protecting yet another descendant of the Sisters,” the Lion said simply, and Aya exhaled slowly, reaching for one of her tools. “You see? They will always be the cause of our troubles.”
Sultan’s teeth. “Yet here you are, Aya, giving him power that even the Sisters themselves venerated.”
“A power I will wield well, for I have suffered as you have, as the Sisters never did.”
Aya looked at Altair, wide eyes soft, and he dared to hope. “It is truth, is it not?”
No. Her hands closed around the heart. The heart the Sisters had entrusted to them. To him. The ifrits’ clawed hands dug into his skin.
“Aya, please,” Altair begged. She ignored him, tongue between her teeth in concentration.
And there was a moment like a sigh when the pulsing organ was fitted into place.
Altair’s sob was soundless. The Lion’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he struggled to acclimate. Aya’s hands were steeped in red and black, magic aiding her along, connecting arteries and valves with sickening precision.
But she was not yet finished.
And Altair was not yet dead.
He emptied his mind, wiped away the pain, and collected what remained of his strength. But even if he could break free, he had no access to a weapon. He couldn’t blast her with a beam of light because of the daama shackles. He couldn’t stab her with a scalpel, too far out of reach.
No—he would wring her neck with his bare hands.
He wrenched forward and fell to his knees with a force that rattled his teeth. The ifrit chittered. The Lion’s eyes flashed. Aya pressed the back of a bloody hand to her mouth at the sudden ruckus.
“Aya, my sweet,” the Lion prodded gently, an edge to his voice, “finish what you’ve started.”
A crackling stave came rushing for Altair’s stomach. He twisted away, slamming the weight of his shackle into the ifrit’s chest. A second stave rammed into the wall behind Altair’s head, and he wrapped his fingers around a scrawny throat until the ifrit ran away shrieking.
The other two ifrit dug their claws into his arm, drawing blood, and Altair yanked them off with a hiss, needing an extra moment to orient his one-eyed self. Forget Aya. The Lion was supine on the bedroll. He lunged, stumbling back from a sudden blast of shadow.
Magic.
The Lion’s sigh was a sated sound. Beneath Aya’s sure fingers, his skin knitted itself back together again, beads of black blood streaking his golden skin.
“Such zeal, Altair,” he rasped. “Did you really presume I would lie here without precaution?”
Altair didn’t waste time with a retort. He scrambled toward Aya, prepared to pull her away, when terror froze him in place.
Blood poured from her mouth. She coughed, looking at the spray of blood in her hand in dismay. The scalpel was lodged just beneath her breast, the Lion releasing it from his grip.
“The irony,” he said with a soft laugh. And then he stood, swaying as his newfound power countered the loss of blood. “What was it that Benyamin used to say?”
The price of dum sihr is always great.
Aya fell into Altair’s arms with a surprised oof. How many times had she lain just like this?