She tasted anger on his tongue. Pain. Desire and her anguish and her fury lashed back. He broke down to panting, begging her to let him breathe.
They wrestled, punishing each other for the words they had spoken and the things that they wanted and the Jawarat between them, confusing her. She sank her teeth on his lower lip. He tugged away, greedily taking her mouth again whole. His hands dug into her hair, gathering fistfuls as he pulled her closer, the space between them searing as his hands trailed down her neck, down to her back, pulling her flush against him with a rasp. She slipped her own fingers into his robes, beneath the fine linen of his qamis, and his head tilted back with a low, drawn-out sound.
The cold Sarasin night was a caress as much as his touch. She felt powerful. She felt free—for the first time in an eternity, her thoughts were clear, so full of him that she thought nothing of the green book embossed with a lion’s mane.
Afya snorted with as much indignation as the sound allowed, and Zafira pulled away, leaning her brow against his with a sigh.
The starless night looked down upon them.
She stared at the book, grasping at its contentment. As if it were pleased that she felt like herself, that she had returned to herself.
You are surprised, bint Iskandar.
She could barely hear the Jawarat over the buzzing of her skin. I thought you wanted someone to control. Someone to unleash your chaos.
We thought it, too.
The voice was distant, contemplative once more as Nasir gazed down at her with hooded eyes. “All right?” Are you through wanting to kill me? was what he asked in that question.
Sweet snow, the rasp of his voice was a song she wanted to hear without end.
She nodded.
His mouth was a glorious bruise. His breathing the most beautiful, broken sound. He looked as if he’d already known exactly what would happen when his lips touched hers.
He brushed a trembling thumb across her lower lip. “If anyone can change the fabric of the world, it is you, fair gazelle. I have seen it.”
She had the feeling he spoke of more than just the Jawarat.
He took her to another inn, this one lavish due to its presence in the capital of Sarasin. Zafira’s blood ran hot, her heart still a drum that wouldn’t cease.
“Take me with you,” Zafira said as Nasir started for the courtyard.
He helped her down and released her hand, and she wondered what it would be like to slip her fingers between his whenever she desired. To call him hers.
Monsters didn’t become queen.
Inside, they were greeted with warmth and the scent of fresh manakish. Curtains hung from horizontal beams, and an intricate chandelier fitted with a hundred oil wicks dusted the space in golden light. The crowd was subdued, patrons dressed crisply despite Sarasin’s state, their conversations amiable. Apart from their darker colorings, they were almost exactly like the Demenhune. Laa—they were hardier somehow, as if living in the volatile shadow of Sultan’s Keep had weathered them for this moment.
Zafira started when a woman sidled up to Nasir’s side, her stomach bare, her skin like molten gold and leaving very little to the imagination in a red bedlah.
“Sayyidi,” she said breathlessly, gripping his arm.
Zafira frowned, ignoring a twinge of whatever it was. “You sound like you’re going to die.”
Nasir only stiffened and the woman noted her with surprise. Zafira couldn’t see beneath his turban, but she knew the prince’s ears were burning a brilliant shade of crimson, and he looked grateful when the innkeeper emerged from the kitchens.
Nasir cleared his throat. “Do you have any rooms?”
The innkeeper nodded, and Zafira didn’t like the way his gaze priced Nasir’s clothes. “We run low, sayyidi, and—”
A handful of coins clunked on the table between them, and the man’s hungry eyes swept downward. Zafira’s breath caught. It struck her oddly, how they could share so much yet live entirely different lives. The silver he exchanged in a single moment was more than she had seen in her entire life.
“Very nice, sayyidi,” the innkeeper said, nodding so profusely that Zafira was afraid his head would unhinge. One by one, he pocketed the coins before gesturing down one of the halls. “This way, this way.”
The room was as sumptuous as the ones in the palace. The platform bed was laden with silken sheets and jeweled cushions, wide enough for three of her and surrounded by a thin veil. It was a lavish display not meant for one, she realized with a stroke of heat.
Nasir paused at the sight, and then quickly set her satchel on the low table and turned for the door. His eyes were dark. Fear clamped Zafira’s lips tight.
And then the door closed with a soft thud.
A recreant. That is what you are.
“I don’t even know what that means,” she mumbled.
A coward.
Zafira gritted her teeth. She wrenched the book from her bag and threw it near the fire burning in the hearth, and felt the heat the instant the Jawarat did. With a snarl, she snatched it up again and threw it on the bed.
Anguish flooded her, an overwhelming sense of hurt—and it wasn’t hers. Skies, had the thing been … teasing her?
Why do you not take what you wish?
It was an earnest question, not one spurring her to action. Harmless curiosity was not something Zafira associated with the Jawarat.
“Like when I killed the caliph? When I took justice into my own hands?”
We speak of him. Your prince.
She ignored it and unsheathed Nasir’s jambiya, the blade a gleam in the firelight reminding her of all she’d done. Then she pulled the black dagger out of her boot with another wince, thinking of how Altair must have reacted to finding it gone.
She should give them both to Nasir to tuck away.
You have killed. You have not been thieved of judgment.
“Oh, so you’re suddenly intent on making me feel good,” she retorted, but couldn’t summon her anger. What had happened to its goading? To its gloating and vile provocations? She dropped down beside it. “Everything that’s happened is your fault.”
She was a fool to assume she could go to Sultan’s Keep on her own. She pressed her eyes closed at the reminder of her brashness, how mindless she’d been to guilt Lana into stealing the dagger, how witless she’d been to sneak away.
Killing the Lion and stealing back his heart wouldn’t rebuild the zumra’s trust. It wouldn’t recover the shard of her soul that was lost when she killed the caliph. Laa, the only way forward was through. To face them. To retain the person she once was.
We know it is the fault of ours. And so we tried to atone.
Atone. She almost laughed. “This is why you need a mother,” she said dryly.
The Jawarat hummed at her joke, too chagrined to do more.
The lantern threw a handful of shadowed stars and shapes across the ceiling as she snuggled into the pillows and cushions with a long sigh. She couldn’t fall asleep, despite the fatigue burning behind her eyelids. Could the Lion sense her, the way she sensed him in every shadow and slant of the night?
Zafira stared at the Jawarat, knowing she relied on its company as a drunkard would rely on arak. She turned on to her side and stared at the stretch of space beside her. It wasn’t the Jawarat’s company she wanted, was it?
She slid off the bed and helped herself to a single ma’moul cookie from the plate the maid had left on the table, glancing at the door and wrenching her gaze away.