She lifted red fingers to his face. Her pink abaya was drenched in blood, both hers and the Lion’s. “Did I do well, sadiqi?”
No, sweet Aya. Twisted Aya. Beloved Aya, who had ruined everything.
“Shh, don’t speak.” He was angry with her—so terribly angry—but the despondence was greater. “Heal it.” His hand shook as he reached for hers, dragging her prone fingers to her breast. “Aya. Heal yourself.”
She didn’t move. “You must know.” Her breath wavered. “I never stopped loving you. I tried, but the pain was too much.”
He felt it then. That box in which he had stored every dark thing of his past swelling too heavy, too big for his soul. Pain rent the latches that kept it shut. It flooded him, tearing one single sob from his throat, hoarse and aching.
“An empty life is a fate worse than death,” she whispered.
The words sank bitter and desolate before the light vanished from her eyes.
The Lion hummed softly.
“Chain him up,” he commanded, and turned to leave as ifrit flooded the room.
Altair blearily wondered if he was next. No. He did not want death. He would not welcome it the way she had. He rose to his feet. He was Altair, son of none, gifted by the sun itself, and he would fight the throes of death before letting darkness triumph.
CHAPTER 51
Nasir had forgotten how it felt to be on display like a prize goat at the butcher’s. It had been years since the crown had last held a feast. Scores of eyes crowded upon the sultan, and Nasir caught each furtive glance as it slid his way with a bit more discretion.
Being the Prince of Death was akin to being the sun, he supposed. Hard to look at, but, rimaal, did everyone want to look.
“Luminaries of Arawiya,” his father called, genial and welcoming. “Less than a fortnight ago, Arawiya was struck with change. The Arz retreated into the bowels of Sharr, history reshaped and remade in a single act. Magic was salvaged from the ruins of the dark island and transported across the Baransea with vigilance.”
It was foolhardy, this feast. Unwise to trumpet magic’s return when it still hadn’t returned. There was much about his father Nasir could not understand, even more than what he hated.
But Ghameq was never rash or reckless.
“You may wish to know whom to thank for the impending return of magic, for vanquishing the Arz and uniting us after decades of separation. It was none other than my son: the Prince of Death.”
Nasir’s breath caught. Troubled murmurs meandered from person to person throughout the hall, fear stirring the expectant air. It was a title given to him by the people. A moniker never meant for official use. It wasn’t a name to say in front of every ruling power in Arawiya.
Suspicion roiled like a storm at sea, and Ghameq rose as the doors at the far end swung open on weary hinges.
“Such a feat is deserving of a reward,” he said warmly. “My greatest one yet.”
Nasir met Zafira’s eyes as panic flitted across her features. Two cloaked men of the Sultan’s Guard stepped into the room. A third figure slumped between them, the rattle of chains branding him a prisoner.
Whispers thickened the air as the trio began a slow march to the dais.
The guards stopped with matching bows at the foot of the white steps as the prisoner rose to his full height and lifted his dark head.
And Nasir stared into the amber eyes of the Lion of the Night.
Ghameq’s voice was thunder in his ears, unfamiliar. Velvet. Dark. “Are you pleased with my gift, Ibni?”
The Lion was adorned in finery, his turban the color of sunset. He was not dressed like a prisoner. He did not stand like a prisoner, despite the shackles at his wrists and the collar around his neck.
It wasn’t defeat that stirred in the beastly depths of his eyes, but something else. As if he played a game Nasir still didn’t understand.
Zafira shot to her feet.
A slow smile curved the Lion’s face.
The chains disintegrated into smoke. Shadows. The guards morphed into the shapeless forms of ifrit and drew to his either side. Ghameq stared into nothing.
Like a puppet, cut loose from its strings.
“Human hearts are like glass,” the Lion said softly, rising up the steps of the dais, each one bleeding into black as he passed. “Fragile, delicate little things.”
The hall doors slammed shut, a vise of shadow barring them in place. Panicked shouts rang out, but not a single person moved, afraid of being the first to fall.
The Lion curled his fingers and Ghameq doubled over, gasping for air with the kingdom as witness. His vow was a snarl. “Delicacy fosters death.”
The Sultan of Arawiya
staggered and
fell.
Nasir sprang forward. He dropped to the cushions and carefully lifted Ghameq’s head into his lap. Pain crossed the sultan’s features, but Nasir saw that his eyes were clear, soft, kind.
His father’s.
Truly, wholly. Nasir didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed the falsity before.
“Ibni,” the sultan whispered, lifting a trembling hand to Nasir’s hair.
Distantly, chaos erupted.
“Forgive me.”
The hall darkened.
“For the days that I lived to hurt you. For the days that you lived in suffering. Tell your mother—I think of her when the moon fills the sky. Always.”
“No—” Nasir’s voice cracked as a chilling cold swept to him, a presence as familiar as his own. Death.
Not now, he begged as others once begged of him. Wisps of black slipped from his fingers and wound around his father, clutching him as Nasir did. The medallion swung behind his closed eyes. Aya had been right. It had corrupted the sultan beyond return. He was a fool to have believed his father could survive without the Lion’s crippling hold. To have believed his father could walk free after years of imprisonment.
“Every day, I saw you, and every day I wanted to tell you the same: I am proud of you. He would not let me tell you, but it is true. Now, and forever.”
Nasir didn’t care anymore. About approval, about pride. He didn’t want any of it.
The shadows scattered.
“Baba,” he wept, but as always, Nasir was too late.
CHAPTER 52
The storm had arrived, the Lion at its cusp. Dressed in splendor like a king come for his throne, with every single dignitary of Arawiya gathered like cows to slaughter.
Zafira should have known. The signs were there: When the sultan remembered one moment but strangely not another from the same event. When he hadn’t lent a hand or thought to finding the fifth heart. When he had called his own son the Prince of Death.
The Lion had been controlling the sultan the entire time, playing them like the fools that they were. The Sultan’s Guard drew their swords and surrounded the platform. Hashashins halted near the walls, and Zafira knew there were ifrit lurking in the shadows. Both sides waited. The air was heavier than her cloak had ever been.
Through it all, Nasir sat on the dais with his father’s head in his lap. Unmoving.
No—weeping.
A boy, orphaned years ago and suffering afresh. The new Sultan of Arawiya, on his knees before his own throne, a river of his sorrow drenching his finery. His brow fell to his father’s with soundless anguish, and when the Lion turned to him with a frown, a warning throbbed in her limbs.