Zafira held her breath, expecting the carts to halt and swords to be drawn and turmoil to break loose. Where was Nasir? The only plausible solution was that he had remained behind, sending her beyond the gates on her own. Laa, laa, laa.
The carts rattled to a stop. Her mind buzzed. They had found him. They had—
One of the carts moved away, and footsteps crunched along the sand. Her relief was quickly replaced by another fear: The carts were being halted for inspections. Of course they were—this was a palace. Zafira’s heart drummed loud enough that she wouldn’t be surprised if the drivers thought their sacks of flour had suddenly found a pulse.
Footsteps shuffled near, and she knew by the thud of boots that it was a guard. She screwed her eyes closed, pressing herself as low and flush against the side of the cart as she could.
“Yalla,” the guard droned. “It’s almost time for my break.”
Guards are lazy, Yasmine reassured her.
She closed her eyes even tighter, knowing that miles away in Thalj, her friend was livid with hurt and anger because Zafira had left without a word.
Something pushed against the wood—the guard leaning against the side of the cart. Something else rustled.
The burlap. Sweet snow. No, no, no. Gray light slipped into the cart as the cover was peeled back, bit by bit. She dug her toes beneath a sack of flour.
The guard paused.
Her limbs shook.
“Eh? Tell me again?”
She couldn’t make out the response over the roaring in her ears.
The guard broke out in laughter, the strangest guffaws making Zafira bite her tongue against a laugh of her own. Khara, did her brain not understand the danger she was in?
The burlap fell closed. The guard moved away, talking more animatedly than he had just moments ago, and Zafira’s exhale shuddered as the cart jostled forward again, at last rumbling to its final stop. The driver leaped down, tipping the cart with his weight.
And then, nothing.
What was she supposed to do now? She held her breath as the footsteps faded, reminding herself that she trusted her ears more than her eyes.
She lifted a smidge of the burlap and peered into the stall. No one was there. Drivers only drove. They didn’t unload goods. Which means the ones who do will come along next, oaf. At the count of three, she threw off the covering and leaped over the side of the cart. She fell with a sharp sting down her chest, knees jarring.
The stall was wide enough to park all three carts. The horses that had drawn them snorted tiredly, waiting to be untethered. The place hadn’t been cleaned in months, it seemed, and the dust collected from the morose expanse of sand doused in gray light behind her clung to the odds and ends piled against the far wall.
Immediately she knew she was not alone. She ducked her head lower, glancing beneath the cart to see if anyone was heading her way.
“Hello,” someone whispered.
She nearly screamed. Nasir clung to the bottom of the cart, dust in his hair and the keffiyah knotted around his neck. With a sheepish grin at her answering glare, he dropped and rolled out beside her as if he did this every daama day. She rubbed the backs of her knuckles across her chest, but before she could snap, he lifted them both to their feet and dragged her to a tiny alcove, hands around her shoulders as the drivers returned.
“Now what?” she whispered, suddenly aware of his touch. There wasn’t even enough room in the space to turn around and face him.
“Now,” he said smoothly, mouth feathering her ear, “we wait.”
She held still. Her body pulsed as she fought the desire to nestle back against him. Feel him against her.
“I wonder how we can pass the time,” he mused in that same low tone. For a moment, neither of them moved. Only the sound of their breathing filled the air. Then his hands left her arms and he brushed her messy hair away with a drag of his fingers. She shivered at the whisper of his breath on her skin before he pressed his lips to the hollow between her neck and shoulder.
The drivers, Zafira suddenly thought, could take as long as they wanted.
She let out a ragged wheeze and something inside her came alive. It tilted her head, granting him better access.
“The way you breathe drives me to insanity, fair gazelle.”
His daring did the same to her. His voice. The way his words slipped from his tongue, each one careful, each one beautiful. He had been a touch bolder since they’d begun stealthing about. He thrived on this, she realized. On the thrill of his missions.
A curl of darkness whispered along her skin, widening her hooded gaze. She almost startled, but held herself, knowing this was a part of him, one he had not yet conquered. Shadows grazed her wrist and slipped down the slope of her neck, tender and questioning, wholly unlike the Lion’s.
“Do you feel what they do?” she asked, lifting her palm. The dark wisps circled her fingers, soft as smoke, and faded, suddenly shy beneath her scrutiny.
He made a sound behind her, as if wishing he could. “It’s the same as a pen across papyrus. I control the pen but cannot feel the bleed of its ink.”
She turned, brushing against him, grinning when he drew a sharp breath. She knew he could read her, knew he could see in her gaze that she accepted every part of him, every dark shard. His mouth trailed down her neck and fell to her collarbone. She gasped.
“What was that?” one of the drivers asked.
Zafira froze—or tried to. Every part of her pulsed with need, tangible and hot. Nasir’s lips curved into a dark smile, trailing lower, his bottom lip brushing away the neck of her dress. She bit her tongue against a sound. Burrowed her fingers into his hair. Sweet snow, this man. These feelings. She shifted her hips and his hands fell, gripping her tight against him with a barely audible groan.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were ghosts in this place,” another one answered. The drivers untethered their horses. She heard them mount, she heard the whip that made her cringe, and then they were gone.
“If only they knew,” Nasir whispered, pulling away.
“Wait,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
His fingers flexed in restraint. He looked at her feet. “They’ll be coming to unload the carts.”
Of course. There was work to be done. “Later,” something possessed her to say.
“Forever, Zafira,” he said softly. “Forever. You need only say so.”
He lifted his eyes to hers.
Yes, she wanted to whisper. Yes, the Jawarat echoed, but Umm’s hollow eyes flashed in her thoughts, and then Nasir was turning away and sliding open a door and disappearing into a dark hall.
Zafira released a breath.
Her mind was abuzz. She could barely see her surroundings, barely hear anything over her pulse and this terrible thirst inside her.
“Is there no quicker way to get there?” she asked when Nasir returned.
They paused as a trio of servants passed, one clutching a dallah while the other two held platters and trays, the whiff of the dates, grape molasses, and carob used to prepare jallab making her mouth water.
“Usually, I would scale the walls, but—” He gave her wound a pointed look.
She swallowed a twinge of embarrassment.
They darted down the corridor and ducked into a tiny closet. He pulled aside a slab of wood, unveiling a steep staircase.
“Makes it easier for servants during big banquets,” he explained, taking the steps two at a time. “There are two places our caliph might be.”
She hurried after him, nearly toppling them both when he stopped at a narrow door and pressed his ear to the wood with utter stillness. With a slight frown, he eased it open, and she peered over his shoulder into a room.
A bedroom. A jewel of a place she felt a surge of diffidence to behold. It was built beneath the curve of the main dome; the high, angled ceiling painted with a sea of stars interspersed by a mosaic of tiles and calligraphy that told the story of the Sisters of Old. This was her room, Zafira realized: the Sister who had claimed Sarasin long ago.
Like a veil from a crown, the sheerest silver gossamer fell over the low and ample bed, another arch at its fore, recessed and ornate. The sheets were made of starlight and dreams, darkness plentiful despite the gold of the afternoon stretching shapely rays through the decadent mashrabiya. She’d seen her fair share of the enclosed latticed balconies, but never one so intricate, many of the carvings fitted with stained glass that told a story itself.
Nasir was watching her. “He’s not here,” he said unnecessarily, in that voice that looped with the darkness and time spun once more.
She had missed this. Her fascination being a thing to witness with rapt attention.
A few steps away, he stopped again, and she knew. The ifrit who had stolen the face of Muzaffar was on the other side of this door. The newly appointed Caliph of Sarasin.
“History repeats itself,” he mused, lifting his hand to the latch.
The last time he was here, he had killed the mortal caliph. Everyone in Arawiya knew this, though Zafira couldn’t connect that faceless hashashin with the prince she knew now.
Was this time any better? Could they justify the caliph’s death simply because he bled different? Yes, she told herself. The ifrit were the reason Deen had died. The reason she had nearly died. Fury ignited her blood, sudden and bright. She would kill them all. She would end the Lion and then make the streets black with their blood.
A resounding shout reverberated in her skull.
NO!
She swayed and gripped Nasir’s arm, the taut bands of muscle flexing beneath her fingers.
Then the Jawarat stole her away.
Heady, intoxicating power crashed through her veins. Golden light shrouded her, attention scouring her exposed skin, silks against her limbs and jewels around her neck. She saw nothing. Only felt the sovereignty, the power, the superiority—something so foreign, she was lost to it.
We learned power from the women of old. A dominion so great it forged a kingdom.
The Sisters. In the Jawarat’s hazy vision, the Sister whom Zafira embodied sat upon a throne. Confidence dripped from her every shift, authority in her every word. Zafira saw, felt, heard, but she understood none of it.
The vision cut.
It was a desolate sort of darkness.
Plink, plink, plink. The metallic stench of blood flooded her senses. She was drowning, somehow, without water. Anguish and the complete loss of power. Helpless. Alone. It drained every drop of her spirit, and when she heard the cry that slipped from her mouth—Baba!—she knew in an instant where the Jawarat had taken her.
We learned vengeance from the boy of two bloods. A pain so deep it bred darkness and malice.
Haider. The boy who had become the Lion of the Night. She was a tangle of chaos and pain, clinging to the edge of a precipice, the border of sanity, until she discovered purpose, singular and bereft of morals: vengeance. It burned bright in her blood, the end slowly but surely disappearing from sight.
No sooner had she caught the pinprick of light at the end of the Lion’s memory, she was jerked into yet another vision. It was calmer, somehow. Less frantic, less disembodied, as Demenhur’s familiar cold stung her nostrils. Like a container upended by an eager child, the calm was ruined by a sense of failure. The pain that crowded her skull was edged not in darkness, but something else. It was almost as heady as the Sisters’ power. Almost as flooding as the Lion’s malice.
We learned compassion from a girl. A sentiment so profound it altered our spirit.
It was her. The Jawarat was connected to her in ways it had never been connected to the Sisters of Old or the Lion of the Night, a bond no one could understand. Zafira wasn’t powerful, she wasn’t immortal. She was just a girl trying to find her place in the world. A girl inundated with emotions she was trying to sort through. Pain, sorrow, desire—the Jawarat had been witness to it all.
“Why?” Zafira asked against the confusion caught in her throat, but she knew why.
The Jawarat had wanted a soul to shape to its will, someone to enact the chaos it had absorbed on Sharr, and who better than one pure of heart? When she had refused, it had taken to the Lion, unaware of his iron will. He eluded its control and in turn tried to control it. But hilya were like people, and his abuse did not sit well.
Something changed then, for the Jawarat had discovered it missed the one bound to it as much as she had missed it.
Then, in atonement, once they were reunited, it took her to the door of the man she hated and amplified her anger, provoking her until she cut him in two. It had expected her to be pleased, for this wasn’t senseless chaos like the vision it had shown her, it was justice.
How wrong it had been.
It had not expected to upend the girl. It did not expect to find her empty when she woke, isolation and pain stretching as barren as the Wastes, as unending.
Again, it tried to atone, this time with more hesitance and less violence, and she snuck away, intent on killing the Lion to earn back the trust of the zumra. To recover her soul, lost to time. It was along this journey that it mended the angry cuts of her heart, the pain and rage it had nestled in her veins. It found chaos without violence, in her moments with her gray-eyed prince, in her profound happiness and her desires for magic and justice and peace.
You must understand, bint Iskandar. We are of you as you are of us.
She had known that ever since the fateful moment on Sharr, when she had bound her life to it. “You used me, remember?”
For which we are sorry. We tried to atone, and still we were wrong.
That was the reason for its contemplation of late. For its contrition. For impelling her toward Nasir—because he made her happy, which in turn made it happy. It was chaos in a dose that pleased them both, and in this, it found a way to exist.
From you we have learned, and so we shall impart. Must an entire creed suffer for the sins of a few? Must the body be destroyed for the failings of an organ?
The ifrit. The Sarasins. Nasir was right: It was up to her to steer the Jawarat in a direction she chose.
She tucked the book away.
“What happened?” Nasir asked.
“Don’t kill him.”
Nasir frowned. “The plan—”
“Forget the plan, Nasir. This time, we do what’s right.”
He inhaled a careful breath, but before he could answer, the door swung open.
She froze at the sensation of eyes scouring her skin. For ifrit were not like men. They were shrewd in a way humans were not, swifter—and their foe was ready.
With a knife.