If she drew his attention, there was a chance he would direct whatever dark power he had at her and crush her heart with a flourish of his hand. But the Jawarat, a little voice reminded. He would still have need of it and its infinite knowledge. He wouldn’t risk its destruction by hurting her.
Nasir, however, like his father, no longer had a purpose, and if she waited any longer, he would die.
“Haider.”
In the split breath it took Zafira to push Lana away and say the Lion’s name—his true name—every single member of the Sultan’s Guard turned to her.
As did the Lion.
“Did you enjoy my theatrics, azizi?”
He spoke as if it were only the two of them in the vastness of the room. He looked at her as if she were his, his gaze hungrily roaming the length of her.
“My bladed compass, sheathed in starlight,” he murmured. “Did you hope to compete for the prince’s hand? To wear the crown of the sultana? I admit, that bit about brides was improvisation. To send your heart aflutter. You looked quite pale, if I recall.”
At his feet, Nasir stirred from his wretched stupor.
“I have no interest in crowns,” she bit out, her voice echoing in the hall.
“That remains to be seen, azizi,” he promised, and crossed the final distance to the Gilded Throne, the golden light illuminating an odd pallor to his skin.
Lana whispered a sob, and Zafira knew how she felt, how everyone in this room felt, even the ancient safin. It was one thing to hear that the Lion of the Night was alive. It was quite another to see him in the flesh.
“It won’t accept him,” Kifah murmured with razor-edged hope, banking on a truth every child knew: The Gilded Throne allows only the blood of the Sisters or the ones they’ve appointed.
The room was charged with that very thought.
The thud of his footsteps echoed when he turned, and Zafira thought she caught a hint of fervent green from the folds of his robes, her stomach lurching for the barest of instances before her heart did the same as the Lion lowered himself onto the Gilded Throne.
Nothing happened—at first. The throne didn’t repel him. It didn’t thunder and throw him off.
Laa.
It changed. The gold became black, color draining from left to right, smoke curling like ashes on the wind. Kifah loosed a strangled breath.
The resulting silence was deafening, the death of an era, and the Lion’s soft, triumphant sigh was a roar immortalized in history.
A silver-liveried guard stirred from the foot of the dais, the thick suspense in the hall slowing time as the fool dropped to his knees, awe hollowing his voice when he said, “Sultani.”
The Lion frowned. “I never did like the word. The sultan is dead. This night, we abandon the old ways and bring forth the new: I am king. King of Arawiya.”
And then he flourished a hand, his command like a knife.
“Kill them.”
ACT II
VICTORIOUS UNTIL THE END
CHAPTER 53
The room erupted in chaos as ifrit pulled away from the shadows and every last person realized why the Lion had invited them, the governing heads of Arawiya. Zafira was a reed in a flood, helpless, hopeless, before she found her roots and stood her ground.
“The doors,” she shouted over the din, and if her voice cracked, no one heard it. “We need to get them open.”
Or not a single ruler would be left.
Kifah’s features were frozen in shock. “Laa, laa. It shouldn’t have—the throne—it—”
“Kifah,” Zafira snapped, and the warrior recovered with a lamenting breath. She flicked open her spear, and with a few rapid nods, disappeared into the fray.
Ifrit clashed staves with guards, hashashins, and armed dignitary alike—all while the Lion reveled in the ruin of his own making.
“You need your bow,” Lana said eagerly.
“I need you to stay safe.” Zafira gripped her shoulders, digging her fingers in to stop their trembling. “Look at me. Stay with the crowd. Don’t help anyone.”
Disappointment flashed across her sister’s face. “Is that what you’re going to do?”
“Don’t,” Zafira warned, wavering. The blank horror on Kifah’s face had shaken her will. “I’m not going to dig you a grave, Lana. Do you understand? Do this for me.”
Lana finally appeased her with a nod.
A few cowardly guards braved the steps to swear loyalty, and Zafira seized the distraction. She leaped over the table and dropped to her knees in front of Nasir on the first step of the dais.
“We need to go,” she said. “He will kill you.”
“Let him.” Desolation swallowed his already quiet voice.
She gritted her teeth. “Your father is dead. The Lion sits on your throne. Are you really going to abandon your people?” What was it he had said to her on Sharr? “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
His laugh cracked. “How our fates have reversed, fair gazelle. I started to feel, and now I cannot stop.”
With a gentleness she never thought him capable of, he lowered the sultan’s head to the dais. He brushed his father’s eyelids closed and tucked a feather into the folds of his robe, and she couldn’t understand how something so gentle could hurt so terribly.
And then with a sudden wheeze he froze, his back arched.
“Why waste time mourning the dead when you can join them?” The Lion lounged in his black throne and twirled his finger, wrenching Nasir to face him, shadows crushing tight.
Zafira’s hand twitched for an arrow, for her bow, but she had neither as Nasir was lifted off his feet.
“I could never understand why you hated me.”
Zafira barely heard Nasir’s voice over the din.
“So much that my father’s every breath was spent ridiculing me.”
The Lion tightened his bindings with a clench of his fist, Nasir’s words striking true.
“Because I’m exactly like you: a monster breathing shadows.” Nasir’s voice dropped, the epithet near silent. “Yet she loved me.”
The Silver Witch.
He threw down his hands and the chain splintered. The Lion rose and splayed his fingers. Zafira couldn’t tell which wisp of black belonged to whom as Nasir lifted himself to his feet and threw his head back with a soundless roar.
The room fell to darkness.
Shadows rippled from his hands, flinging the Lion back. Control Zafira hadn’t thought Nasir to have. The Lion slumped on the ill-claimed throne, and the ruckus doubled, panic striking anew. She didn’t waste a heartbeat, remembering every sightless moment in the Arz as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She hurried up the stairs, one hand sliding to Nasir’s jambiya at her leg.
“Zafira—” Nasir’s voice was lost in someone’s scream. “The doors. I don’t—”
She didn’t hear the rest, but she saw him turn, trusting her to follow.
The dagger fitted to her palm, the blade faint in the gloom. The anger and chaos she associated with the Jawarat’s vision, a different version of herself, drove her. She would make up for that moment when she had fallen for the Lion’s lies and lost what was hers.
A hand gripped her wrist and she cried out as the jambiya fell with a clatter. Cool amber eyes caught hers through the billowing shadows.