Altair had spent the entire night searching for clues and racking his brain for why the Lion might need Aya, to no avail. He hadn’t been able to talk to her again, either, for the Lion had kept her secured. Precaution, in case his son decided to kill her. It spoke to how little the Lion truly trusted him, but Altair didn’t mind.
He knew what he needed.
The door opened for the Lion and several ifrit. In the center of the room, one unfurled a bedroll generous enough for a sultan. Another set out a tray of tools, instruments meant for a healer. A third brought in yet another tray, empty and pristine.
Upon it, the Lion set down an organ, crimson and pulsing.
The final heart of the Sisters of Old, the embodiment of Altair’s mistake. Because he had planned and schemed and plotted, but he hadn’t even considered he might be kidnapped himself.
“Well done, my kin,” the Lion said, the Jawarat in his hand. He met Altair’s confusion with a staid smile. “Are you ready, Altair?”
“Er,” said Altair, “for what?”
“To live forever,” he said simply. “We will be at the forefront of a new Arawiya.”
Altair opened his mouth, dread stealing his ability to make light of the moment. A frenzy bubbled in his veins, and his pulse quickened when he noticed that beneath his open robes, the Lion wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“Now,” the Lion said to the ifrit near him. “Bring us Aya.”
A healer and a heart.
Altair wished his mind didn’t work so quickly. To be blissfully unaware was a blessing of its own.
I would need a heart to claim otherwise.
The Lion was half ifrit, half safin. Born without a heart, but with the cavity for one. There was an actual hole in his chest. What better way to fill it than with the object he desired more than anything else?
Altair struggled for air. With this, his father would be as powerful as the Sisters of Old. Limitless in his capabilities. Unmatched by anyone else.
The Lion set down the Jawarat.
Altair didn’t think. He lunged, slower than he should have done, which only made his triumph blaze brighter when his hands closed around the Jawarat. The Lion remained still even as the ifrit scrambled.
As power shifted in a single, dividing moment.
The book hummed in Altair’s hands, a low, almost imperceptible sound akin to that of a content cat. It was connected to him in a way his father might soon be, as it was forged with the blood of the Sisters of Old, the very same that coursed through his veins.
And Altair was going to destroy it.
He opened the book to its middle, its worn pages rough.
“I should have known,” the Lion remarked softly, almost sadly. “We are mirrors, you and I. Only you cannot see it. Go on, my son. Tear it apart.”
He listed his head, and Altair paused at his calm.
Sultan’s teeth—Zafira. The daama thing was connected to her life. If he tore it apart, she would die with it.
“Is that concern I see?”
Altair clenched his jaw.
“You betrayed your zumra by telling me where they were. You’ve killed and mutilated and betrayed to rise up Arawiya’s ranks. I’ve seen the atrocities you’ve committed under the name of the kingdom’s well-being.” The Lion lowered his voice, temptation in his words. “What’s one more life to ensure your people’s future?”
Nothing.
Everything.
The fight bled from him when the Lion pried the Jawarat out of his grip, and four ifrit wrenched back his arms.
The Lion gloated, knowing Altair could not harm him, not when he had used Altair’s own blood as protection. Or Altair would have lunged for far more, gouged those unnatural eyes from their sockets, ripped the man to shreds with his bare hands.
The Lion set down the Jawarat with a soft, dawning laugh as Altair fought against the ifrit. “You love her.”
Altair was not like his mother. He loved freely, abundantly. It was admiration that came rarer, for him. “Only a fool wouldn’t love her. After all that she’s endured and all that she’s lost, she still fights for a world that failed her.” The true definition of a lionheart.
The Lion only hummed.
“Unlike you,” Altair said with anger.
The Lion’s gaze shot up.
It was a warning, a sign he should stop, but he did not. He couldn’t. “You endured loss and turned into a monster. You suffered, and now you want others to do the same.”
Stop talking, sanity whispered in Altair’s ears. The Lion’s eyes were like flint; his mouth a straight, hard line; his body as still as when Altair spoke of his days in the palace, abandoned by his mother.
“Isn’t that right, Father?”
In a burst of speed, the Lion flicked his wrist and Altair was wrenched back against the wall, arms flung to either side. He let out a splintered breath, unable to move. The man must be terribly furious if he was wasting magic on Altair’s insolence.
“I need you alive, Altair,” the Lion said as he stepped close, his voice low. “I need your blood, and that, too, for merely a while longer. I do not need you whole. I kept you unbroken because I believed we could be together. Work together.” Sorrow flitted across his gaze. As if he lamented the lies they had shared together. “Did you consider that before your tongue ran loose?”
The Lion’s livid eyes dropped to his mouth, and for the first time in Altair’s life, he felt it: pure, unrestrained terror. He clamped his mouth closed, blinking back against the perspiration dripping down his brow. The Lion gripped the underside of his face, nails like claws raking his skin, and held him still.
“No, not the tongue, my dearest son,” he taunted. “We both know you value something else far more than your voice, and you’ll have much to say when I rid you of it.”
Altair saw the glint of a small knife, and that was all he could do: watch. As understanding struck. As a distinct before and after were born in this moment. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t fight back, but he would never beg.
He grasped the shreds of his composure as the Lion of the Night shoved the blade through his eye.