We Free the Stars

by Hafsah Faizal

  “Why am I never invited to such things?” a boisterous voice asked, and Zafira’s disappointment at the interruption was replaced with a different kind of elation.

  Altair swept inside, carrying a bundle wrapped in an ivory cloth. He was clean now, scrubbed free of the terrible bloody tears that had streaked his face. A neat patch of deep crimson threaded with gold covered his eye, matching the turban carefully styled around his head. Only he could procure something so extravagant so quickly.

  She thought of him turning away, standing at the Lion’s side. How well he’d looked then, only a day before he had lost his eye. What had changed within so short a time?

  “Why is it you can never knock?” Nasir asked, clearing a rasp from his throat.

  Altair peered at him. “Why? Were you busy? You don’t look like you were busy.”

  The insinuation rang clear in his voice, and the feathering in Nasir’s turned neck made her pulse quicken. Touch me, that vein whispered.

  She swallowed thickly as Altair crouched and frowned at her empty cup. “Nice of you to join us in the world of the living, Huntress.”

  “I could say the same of you,” she replied. Questions rose to her tongue. Why did you leave us? What happened?

  His eye was bright as it swept her face, his smile warm, and Zafira wondered if he had gotten that dimple from his mother or father. “I knew you’d miss me.”

  And she had, so very much. She’d thought it odd, at first, that she could miss them when she had finally reunited with Yasmine, but it seemed that delicate, mortal hearts were strange and vast.

  Riddled with guilt, too. Within the very walls of this palace, Yasmine nurtured hatred for her brother’s killer, yet here Zafira was, filled to the brim with relief that he was safe.

  Skies, Yasmine. Altair.

  How was it that they had lived leagues apart for decades and now, when anger and pain and vengeance burned in the sister of her heart’s veins, the object of that vehemence was only a hall away? As if she didn’t have enough to do, now Zafira needed to ensure the two of them did not meet. That their paths remained uncrossed.

  She could imagine Yasmine in all her tiny glory scrambling atop him with murder and rage while Altair went slack-jawed at her beauty. He would apologize, she knew, but it wouldn’t be enough. No amount of apologizing could bring back Deen and mend the hole in Yasmine’s heart.

  Only time could do that.

  “I’m sorry about Aya,” Zafira said softly. Altair’s face fell, his eye ghosted by weariness. He and Benyamin had been close; it only made sense that Aya had been his friend, too.

  If Zafira had been willing to live the rest of her life with Aya’s blood on her hands, would any of this have happened?

  Kifah stepped inside and slammed the door closed, looking among them. “Oi, is there a reason we’re all loitering in something we probably don’t need to be loitering in?”

  All three of them looked up. Kifah repeated her question with a silent lift of her brows. Her head was freshly shaved, scalp bright.

  “We’re a zumra. We hunted the flame together, found the light in the darkness, but we were far from done, laa? Now we unleash it. We free the stars, shatter the darkness holding us captive, and return the world to the splendor it once was.”

  Zafira breathed deep, as if she could somehow ingest the hope of her words. Had Kifah decided not to leave with her calipha?

  “With a side of revenge, of course.”

  Altair dipped his head. “Spoken like a true qa’id.”

  Kifah cast him a sidelong glance. “Did you just put me in a position above yours? You do know a qa’id commands a general, yes?”

  Altair grinned, and Kifah groaned before he even opened his mouth.

  “I have no qualms about putting women above me.”

  Him and his strange double-edged sayings that she wished she could ask Yasmine about.

  He turned to Zafira with a stern look and held out the bundle in his hands. “I thought you might want this back.”

  He peeled off the ivory cloth, unveiling a tome bound in green leather. The Jawarat.

  Her breath hitched. A wave of emotion rolled over her when she curled her fingers around it, remembering what it had last wanted of her. To kill the Lion. To rend him in two. She closed her eyes against the senseless savagery it had roused. Kifah looked displeased but said nothing. Nasir watched her.

  They knew that the book had used her to speak, but how differently would they react if they knew the extent of its influence? Only Altair was blissfully unaware.

  She set it in her lap as if she weren’t itching to hold it in her hands.

  “I felt his pulse,” Zafira said in an effort to shift their attention. “The Lion’s.”

  She thought of telling them about his memory, the stones striking his father to death, but couldn’t summon the words. It didn’t feel right. Laa, like her strange connection with the Jawarat, it made her fear how they would view her. More fearfully. As if she couldn’t be trusted.

  And sweet snow, there was enough of that with Yasmine.

  A thousand questions rose with Altair’s eyebrow in the silence. “You, dear Huntress, have come a long way from the innocent lamb I met on Sharr.”

  The Jawarat hummed with the same thought. Skies, how empty she had been without it. She had missed it deeply, and she knew without a doubt that the Lion, with his newfound throne and newfound power, missed it, too.

  For he would forever be a slave to that which he didn’t know.

  We missed you, too.

  “Even with everything he has now, he’ll still want it,” she said, running her fingers over the fiery mane. “The Jawarat’s knowledge is endless, and the Lion couldn’t possibly have gleaned even a fraction of it.”

  We do not want him.

  If a book could pout, the Jawarat did just that.

  You were quite eager to leave, she thought in her head, not at all unsmugly.

  For which we are sorry. We were wrong to have left you. To have forced you to an unwanted fate.

  Zafira paused at its apology. It was bowing its head, yielding to her. And she, jaded as she was, was instantly wary.

  The Jawarat sighed.

  “He may seek it out at some point, but he’ll make use of the Great Library in the meantime,” Altair said.

  Zafira had seen much of Arawiya due to this mission, but not the inside of the library her father once lauded. Alabaster floors, gleaming shelves stocked with scrolls upon scrolls arranged in a code only few knew. Librarians, those few were called. The scrolls had interested Baba less than the books, rare and treasured, for the process of binding them was no simple task.

  He would have loved the Jawarat.

  “Knowledge is his neighbor now that he’s king, but we might have something bigger to worry about. Baba dearest believes that magic must remain in the hands of the powerful. And by that, he means himself. He will destroy the hearts.”

  The Lion was many things, but never wasteful. He would go for them nonetheless.

  “He won’t prioritize them. They’re useless to us, and safe in the minarets,” Zafira contended. “There’s no reason to choose them over establishing the throne as word of his coronation spreads. He’ll want to be loved.” As his father once loved him. “And there’s no better time than now. Demenhur’s snows are melting, Pelusia’s soil is returning. The kingdom is returning to what it was, because of us, and he’s going to use that to his advantage. And then, with the people appeased and tolerant, he’ll make room for ifrit.”

  The zumra stared at her. She was unable to remember a time when Demenhur had been so warm.

  Altair smacked his lips. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say my father wants love.”

  “She’s right,” Nasir said, and she held still against the weight of his scrutiny.

  He knew the Lion had come to her room back at Aya’s house—she’d told him as much. He had witnessed her relationship with him before then, too. On Sharr.


  “We can’t go around re-collecting the hearts,” he continued. “The minarets are safest, specifically with the High Circle protecting them.”

  Speaking of the High Circle … “Where’s Seif?” Zafira asked.

  “In Alderamin,” Altair replied. “We lost the Alder calipha, Benyamin’s mother, and without Aya as his charge, Seif’s place is there. He’ll protect the Alder heart and aid Benyamin’s sister, Leila, in claiming her throne.” He heaved a sigh at that. “What’s worse in all this is that no dignitary will divulge the massacre. For good reason, of course, but it means no one outside of the feast will question or fear the Lion.”

  Zafira was only now beginning to understand the repercussions of the feast. The sultan was dead, a self-proclaimed king in his place, but the caliphates had always been, to an extent, independent. The bloodbath had toppled that system, bringing with it a swell of fear and uncertainty that no leader would rightly impart to their people.

  “No point lamenting,” Kifah said with force, crossing her arms as Nasir tossed wood into the hearth, discreetly glancing at Zafira’s wound. “We need that heart. And if the Lion was in a big enough hurry to leave you unsecured”—she gave Altair a pointed glance, to which he feigned hurt—“there’s bound to be something else he’s missed.”

  Altair’s mouth widened into a grin. “There is this.”

  Bint Iskandar.

  Not now, she snapped in her head. Altair closed his fingers around the black hilt of a dagger sheathed around his leg and pulled it free. It was black down to the tip of its blade.

  Zafira had seen that wicked knife before. In the hands of the Lion. In midair. Striking the Silver Witch.

  “The Lion’s black dagger,” she marveled.

  “The one and only,” Altair said, flipping it over in his hands with a faraway look.

  She studied him. “And the reason you went back.”

  Altair smiled, and she didn’t miss the flicker of relief in his eye. “Ever perceptive, Huntress. It was indeed why I went back, when Nasir told me our mother was unable to heal herself. It just so happens that black ore strips one of magic. You saw how little your arrow affected him. There are spells that protect those who speak them, making the enchanted impossible to overpower. So long as the heart provides him with magic, wounding him will be impossible. Yet, until we wound him, we won’t be able to retrieve the heart. Akhh, I love conundrums.”

  “And with the black dagger, we have a chance of stripping him of his power,” Kifah reasoned, foot tapping a beat. “Should have asked me.” She flourished a hand across the lightning blades sheathed along her arm. “I’ve got black ore to spare.”

  Altair peered at them. “Pure black ore, One of Nine. See that silver sheen? They’ve been mixed with steel.”

  Kifah didn’t look surprised. “I should have known anything of my father’s would be rubbish. Now, don’t lose that thing.”

  “I don’t make a habit of handing important artifacts over to the Lion,” Altair said lightly. “I’ll keep it safe. In my own rooms.”

  Zafira ducked her head.

  “Using the dagger requires getting close,” said Nasir, ignoring the gibe.

  “Oi, Zafira went and felt his pulse,” Kifah said, waving away his concern, and Zafira stared at her empty teacup.

  “No one said it would be easy,” Altair said, sheathing the dagger. “But we have a chance now where we didn’t before, and it’s time we take back what’s ours. And yours, Nasir. Worry not—I’ll even polish your throne for you.”

  Nasir gave him a look.

  Heed us, bint Iskandar. The heart fights him, yet it will soon be tainted by him.

  The Jawarat waited for its words to register. Zafira’s hands fell to the cover, confusion giving way to horrible understanding.

  Once it is tainted, it cannot sit within a minaret.

  The others stopped talking. Kifah and Nasir frowned at the book. Altair stared.

  “What can’t sit within a minaret?” Nasir asked, jaw set.

  “The heart,” Zafira whispered, too hollow, too anguished to care that the book had used her again. “We’re running out of time.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Kifah asked with the same dread suddenly cloaking the room. She had gone still as a bird trapped beneath snow.

  “It’s a si’lah heart. Meant to live within the si’lah themselves or the minarets of their making. It was never intended for the body of someone half ifrit, half safin.”

  Her first thought was not to trust the Jawarat, not after she’d seen how capable it was of manipulating, stealing memories and exploiting others. But it made sense, didn’t it? It was the same as placing a fish in an empty bowl and expecting it to survive.

  “That means—skies, we need to get it back now,” she said, “or all that we’ve done will have been for nothing. The Baransea, Sharr. Finding the Jawarat.”

  Deen. Benyamin.

  “And Aya would have done worse than give him magic,” Nasir said slowly.

  Altair sat down. “She’ll have destroyed magic for good.”

  CHAPTER 68

  It was fitting, Zafira supposed. That one safi had dedicated his life to reversing the fall of Arawiya, only for his other half to do the opposite.

  She should have unleashed her arrow when Aya had taken the Lion’s hand. She should have leaped to the ground and torn Aya apart with her bare hands. Blood filled her vision: Aya gasping, her throat ripped to shreds. Zafira’s fingers steeped in crimson.

  Part of her was repulsed by her thoughts.

  It is as you wanted.

  The Jawarat lulled her with its truth. When it had shown her the terrible destruction of her village by her own hand, she had wanted it to heed her wishes. That was exactly what it had woven in her thoughts just now. The room spun, angry slashes of red making it hard to see. A soft purring came from the book in her lap and something—

  Something fell to pieces.

  Altair jerked from the little table with a yelp. “I’m all right! I’m all right!”

  Zafira’s empty cup was now matching halves of ceramic. Rent in two the way the men in her vision had been.

  “How did that happen?” Kifah asked with a frown.

  “It must have already been broken,” Zafira said quickly. She struggled to quiet her racing pulse, as if the others could somehow hear it and know she had broken the cup.

  “And just needed a bit of time to fall apart,” Nasir said, watching her, not at all referring to the cup. She carefully set the Jawarat down, out of reach, but the haze didn’t disappear. Laa, it was worsening, embers of anger merging into a flame, thieving her thoughts.

  You did this, she hissed in her head.

  Laa, bint Iskandar. It was you. It is the violence you wished upon the safi.

  “I—I need to go,” Zafira said quickly. She started to get up but swayed with light-headedness, and Kifah had to grab her arm.

  “Maybe you should sit back down,” Altair suggested gently. “We need to put together our plan.”

  Zafira shook her head. She needed space to think. To sort through the crowding in her skull. If she remained, her only input would be blood and murder and other atrocities she wanted no part of. What was happening to her? She was the girl who’d mourned the rabbits she snared, who sought forgiveness as she slit their throats.

  “I’ll take you to your sister,” Kifah said, oblivious. Yes, Lana would help.

  “Akhh, there’s two of you?” Altair remarked.

  Zafira rolled her eyes as the door thudded closed. Kifah led her down one hall and then another, wide and serene, arches beckoning with parted curtains every so often.

  “You met Yasmine,” Zafira started. Her friend was down one of these halls, hating Zafira for her treacherous heart, knowing Zafira was the reason the last of her family was gone.

  Kifah nodded, a sly smile playing on the edge of her mouth.

  Zafira ignored it. “So you know what she looks like. And … well, I need your hel
p making sure she and Altair don’t meet.”

  Kifah only nodded, her smile widening. At Zafira’s glare, she shrugged. “I might have overheard a word or two of your, er, reunion.”

  Zafira’s brows flattened.

  “Can you imagine it?” Kifah continued, wistful. “I didn’t spend long with her, but bleeding Guljul, the two of them would be perfect.”

  Zafira’s slow blink turned to a scowl when she realized what Kifah was implying.

  “She’s married,” she deadpanned. “And Altair killed her brother.”

  Kifah only shrugged again as they turned down the hall. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Zafira?” Yasmine stepped from one of the rooms as if summoned by their conversation, a shawl clutched in her hand. Her hair fell in freshly washed curls, kissing her cheeks.

  Kifah lifted her brows.

  “You’re supposed to be resting,” Yasmine said. She looked between them, gaze narrowing to slits.

  “I was,” Zafira replied, wanting to step close. Fear held her in place. “I’m going to see Lana.”

  A door slammed down the adjacent hall, and a laugh echoed, boisterous and free. The dread coiling in Zafira’s stomach was instant and girdling.

  “You should have seen your face, habibi.”

  It’s fine, she told herself. Yasmine didn’t know Altair by the tone of his voice. Only by name.

  “Always happy to be the source of your amusement, Altair,” came Nasir’s exasperated reply.

  Zafira looked at Kifah, and Kifah looked at Yasmine.

  Perhaps, if they hadn’t been here, Yasmine would have thought nothing of it. But their pause gave Yasmine pause. She stiffened, and Zafira saw the moment recognition dawned, her features morphing into anger and rage, eyes bright and livid.

  Khara.

  “You know,” Kifah said lightly, “maybe Yasmine can take you to Lana, eh? I—I have to go.”

  “Go where?” Yasmine snapped, but Kifah was already jogging backward with a two-fingered salute. Yasmine hoisted her abaya and ran after her.

  Now both of them were leaving her.

  “Wait!” Zafira called. “What about me?”

  Kifah turned down the hall, disappearing from view. Yasmine didn’t look back.