In the stables, Zafira’s filched prize doubled in weight when Lana snuck her a sly grin as they narrowly avoided Altair exiting the farthest stall. It was yet another way the brothers were utterly different—Nasir would have noticed them immediately.
“Yasmine won’t be happy you didn’t tell her,” Lana said. None of them would be, but when she thought of telling them, she heard Altair’s laughter rolling past her door, the horror on their faces at the sight of what she’d done.
“I’m well aware,” Zafira replied, “and I’ll deal with that later.”
“Well, then, what should I tell her? And the others?”
What, indeed.
“The truth.” Zafira would be far away by then. “We’ve lied to her enough already.”
The stable was stone, each stall carved into an ornate point like a doorway into a place unseen. Polished shoes hung on the wall, alongside brushes and saddles, everything neat and orderly, square windows illuminating each steed in brilliance. It was nothing like Sukkar’s shed in their village.
Nasir joined them with a cursory glance as if hoping Zafira had changed her mind, and though every guard noticed him, not one asked what they were doing or where they were going. They were hawklike in their vigilance, however, no doubt garnering a story to share over arak later about the crown prince taking leave with an insipid Demenhune.
He stopped short, looking past Zafira’s shoulder.
“Afya?” he murmured in disbelief.
It was the name of one of the Six Sisters of Old, but he was staring at a horse. A dark gray mare.
“This one.”
The stable boy stumbled at the force of his command and brought the horse forward, handing Nasir the reins with hushed respect before turning to her. “Another horse, sayyida?”
Zafira merely shook her head, her attention riveted on Nasir. At the happiness he could barely contain. He ran a gentle hand down the mare’s flank and murmured sweet words in her ear, his face breaking into a tenderness too fleeting to memorize. He pressed his brow to her nose, and she nuzzled him back just as gently.
She was melting inside. There was no other way to describe how she felt. This was the same boy who had tended to her their first day on Sharr. The same boy she had healed when the Lion had seared him with the poker. When he forgot to carry the burden of the Prince of Death and allowed himself to be.
He turned to her and his smile disappeared. He dropped his gaze and led the horse outside. Zafira couldn’t help it: hurt flared through her.
Lana laughed. “You made him shy.”
“Him. Shy,” Zafira bit out.
Lana tilted her head. “I don’t mean it in a bad way, but for someone so brave and smart, you are terribly daft sometimes.”
“I’m glad you don’t mean that in a bad way.”
Lana bit her lip. “Be safe.”
“What, no imploring me to stay this time?”
“I tried, Okhti. I’m not stronger than that book, but maybe your prince is. Do you remember that day you took so long in the Arz that it was evening by the time you returned? Deen kept telling us not to worry. ‘She has a penchant for punching death in the face,’ he said.”
Zafira didn’t reply. She recalled Deen using those very words with her as they headed to Sharr.
“I believe it now,” Lana said.
Nasir’s shadow fell across the entrance. “Shall we?”
Zafira looked back at Lana. “Keep Yasmine away from Altair.”
Something flickered in Lana’s eyes, but she nodded. Contending with Yasmine’s wrath was as terrifying as disturbing the Lion’s repose.
“And talk to Qismah,” Zafira added.
“She lied,” Lana protested, “when she pretended to be something she wasn’t.”
As did I.
“The repercussions for her are tenfold of what they were for me.” Zafira touched the back of two fingers to Lana’s cheek, guilt gripping her. “I don’t know if she knows the truth of how her father was killed, or how she’s taken the news, or what will happen to her now. She needs allies. People who will fight for her.”
“I wasn’t born to fight.”
“No,” Zafira agreed. “Neither of us were. We were not born to fight, but our cradles were built from struggles and hardship. Pens, swords, sticks—weapons shoved into our fists as soon as we’re old enough to grasp them. So we fight, because the world will cut our throats otherwise. We fight, because we won’t go down without one. Do you understand?”
In answer, Lana threw her arms around her.
“I can’t breathe,” Zafira gasped, and Lana pulled away sheepishly.
Outside, Zafira paused, the cold biting the backs of her hands. Nasir waited with Afya, and the guards waited by the gates. Perhaps she shouldn’t leave without telling the others.
A humming rose from the Jawarat, lulling her wayward thoughts.
We are winning them back. This is what we must do.
Again, she was jolted by its uncertainty, but it was right.
Noon was just deepening the sky when she tugged her cloak closer and used the stool to mount Nasir’s horse like a frail old man. She shivered at a sudden gust of wind, and every part of her warmed when Nasir mounted behind her.
Skies.
She felt his hesitation before he reached around her for the reins, breath across her cheek. She tried not to focus on the way it skittered, taking in the mare’s dappled coat instead. She tried to ignore the glorious press of his legs at the backs of her thighs, studying the familiarity of the unfolding landscape instead.
The gates rolled open to stone streets lined with houses puffing smoke and people going about their day untroubled, which meant the horrors of Sultan’s Keep hadn’t yet reached Thalj. Thalj. Another city of grandeur to which her journey had brought her.
“All right?” Nasir asked in that voice, reinstating his presence.
She swallowed with a quick nod and met Lana’s gaze in silent farewell. Nasir spurred the horse forward, and Zafira fell back against the solid wall of his chest, barely registering the knifing pain of her wound and the Jawarat’s whispering melody over the sudden heat of his body.
Sweet snow, this was going to be some journey.
CHAPTER 77
It took every last scrap of Nasir’s self-worth not to press closer when he mounted Afya’s back. It became hard to breathe, and then altogether hard to daama exist when Zafira fell against him. Soon they were past the gates, cantering down the sloping street unfurling from the palace, and he had no choice but to exhale a very slow and not-so-collected breath.
Zafira turned back to take in the alabaster majesty of the Demenhune palace, her blue eyes bright with childlike wonder. They were clear, unaffected by the book clutched to her chest, and he wondered if this was one of the moments she had spoken of, when she and it had come to an understanding.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“An apt descriptor for a number of things,” he murmured, pleased when her shoulders stiffened.
He slowed Afya to a walk along the bustling streets, ever aware of the dark blotch he was in this fair city, from the snow and the buildings down to the pristine white thobes, light-hued abayas, and furred coats almost everyone wore. Demenhur, the caliphate of ghosts and ethereality.