The girl startled like a deer, her carefully draped hood falling back just enough to reveal shapely eyes wide in fear. She lifted her chin in a wobbly display of defiance, full lips pressed tight. With a start, Zafira realized the girl was not much younger than her, possibly even the same age as Zafira.
Lana scrambled to her feet, firelight highlighting her distress. “Khara, you’re a girl?”
Zafira turned to her sharply. “Mind your mouth.”
Lana directed her glower at Zafira. “How did you know?”
“I should think the answer to that question is obvious.”
“What’s your name?” Lana asked, turning to the disguised girl. Disbelief toned her voice, the edges roughened by hurt.
“Qismah,” the girl said in a voice as gentle as first snow. She darted a glance at Lana, but her gaze seemed most comfortable on the ground. “I—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Only Ammu Haytham knows I’m a girl.”
Zafira wondered what sort of life Qismah was leading. Haytham looked out for her, but what did it mean for Qismah to keep her true self a secret? Did she believe herself a harbinger of ill, as many in Demenhur believed women to be?
“And—and Baba.”
Perhaps it was the way she referred to her father, with shame and hesitance, that caused Zafira’s anger to rear. It was a chorus in her skull, wild and grating. The Jawarat fueled it with murmurs, reminders of the way men of her caliphate looked at her. At women. She cinched her jaw tight, willing it away, telling herself to stay calm as the book sat innocently in her lap, as if it weren’t guiding her thoughts.
She smiled at the girl, seeing the resemblance between her and the elderly caliph. “Haytham says you are an apt pupil. You are very brave, doing what you do.”
Qismah’s half smile was fleeting.
It was unfair that girls so young were weathered enough to understand society so keenly. Once, Zafira would have smiled that same fleeting smile. She would have told herself that this, and this, and this was enough.
Enough. The word was a box she had placed herself within, and she would be a fool to let another young girl do the same.
“Your throne will be yours,” Zafira promised. Once the Lion was vanquished, and Arawiya stopped teetering at the edge of this dangerous precipice, she would help her. Enough people knew who Zafira was, and Haytham was a man in position who would do what was right. He would help them. The people should know by now how twisted the caliph’s words were. If they didn’t, they would learn—or she would shove the truth down their throats.
“I…，” Qismah began, and tapered off with a nod. “Shukrun.”
The caliph’s daughter braved a glance at Lana, and in a clear attempt to do something, she tossed wood into the fire, pulling back when it hissed, her hood falling farther from her head.
That was when Zafira saw Qismah’s hair—shorn like a man’s, dark curls glinting bronze. Kifah was bald, of course, but that was a commonality in Pelusia. In Demenhur, the longer a woman’s hair, the more beautiful she was deemed. No one would dare lift a blade to a woman’s mane. Trimming it was as unseemly as pretending to be a man.
Trimming it was an act of disgrace.
Liquid fury replaced the blood in her veins, burning hotter than the bluest flame. She barely felt the throb of her arrow wound.
Let us redeem ourselves for leaving you. We will please you.
He will die for what he has done.
She did not know whose thought that was, whose vow that burned bright. She was on her feet. The Jawarat was in her hand, and turmoil ached in her bones, fighting against its pull and failing, failing. This wasn’t the chaos she had come to recognize and steel herself against. This was the fervent need to recompense. To atone. And it caught her off guard.
She couldn’t tell where her thoughts began and the Jawarat’s ended. Lana’s mouth shaped her name, but Zafira heard nothing. Qismah hurried away, terror morphing her pretty features. The hall hurried past in a blur.
It wasn’t until Zafira stood before two large double doors, the Jawarat clutched tight, that she knew where she was going, danger carving her path.
CHAPTER 69
A good part of Altair thrived on refusal, and it came alive the moment the Jawarat imparted its eerie message through Zafira. He refused to believe one of his lovely aunts’ hearts was fading to black inside his father.
Sultan’s teeth, he had quite the family tree.
Regardless, he would wring this for what he could. He had been desperately searching for a match to light a fire beneath the dignitaries’ arses and rally their aid, and this new revelation was it.
“What did Ghada say?” Kifah asked as he unfurled the Pelusian calipha’s missive.
“If her answer was affirmative, she wouldn’t have sent you a letter,” Nasir said, sharpening his sword. “She’s down the daama hall.”
“I cannot wait until you and your impeccable ability to rouse hope are crowned king, brother boy,” Altair drawled. “What a gloomy day that will be.”
Nasir’s reaction was a downward turn of his mouth.
The prince was right, but Altair read it aloud for Kifah’s benefit. “‘Pelusia is all that stands between Arawiya and starvation. We cannot, in good conscience, invite the Lion’s wrath. Regards, Ghada bint Jund.’”
“A better excuse than the Zaramese caliph’s, at least,” Kifah consoled herself. The reed of a man hadn’t even offered an excuse.
This was it, then. Two caliphs had refused to join their efforts to defeat the Lion. Leila was on her way to claiming her mother’s throne in Alderamin, while Sarasin’s throne remained empty still, the man most promising for the job dead before he could claim it.
Altair threw open the doors and stepped into the hall, spotting a servant tossing almonds into his mouth. “Oi, you there. Where are Haytham and Ayman? Make haste.”
The boy responded with a gesture that would have had him decapitated, had Nasir been on the receiving end. But Altair was only a general, and the boy answered to his caliph.
“Is that so?” Altair drawled. “Do it now, pint. By order of the true sultan.”
“True sultan,” Nasir repeated when he stepped back inside.
“If you aren’t going to use the title for anything useful, I will.” Altair rubbed his beard. “What else can we do? Summon a nice feast? A few bodies to keep us warm?”
Nasir’s ears flushed red.
“Kifah, dearest?” Altair called. She retracted her spear. “Remind me to check on Nasir’s ears the next time Zafira’s around, eh?”
She smirked as Haytham entered, his checkered keffiyah off-kilter. A servant girl followed with a tray. The nutty and spicy aroma of qahwa filled the room, awakening Altair’s senses as the girl poured him a cup from a silver dallah, breaking the silence with an awkward trickle before offering him a platter of cubed honey cake that Kifah stole away.
“Zafira still hasn’t returned,” Nasir reminded them as Haytham took his seat.
“She’s a big girl,” Altair said to pacify him. For his part, Altair could only think of that cake, glistening and soft and not in his mouth. “She knows her way back.” He frowned at the Demenhune wazir. “Where is Ayman?”