Do something, you fool. Zafira winced and shoved her fingers against her wound, crying out at the sudden pain. Yasmine slowed but didn’t stop.
“Akhh, One of Nine, why the rush?” Altair exclaimed, moving closer.
Zafira hissed again, just for good measure.
Yasmine looked back at her. “Now what is it?”
“Lana,” Zafira gasped, clutching her chest as blood blossomed across her wrappings. Perhaps this was a little too good an act. “I think my wound broke again.”
Yasmine wavered, torn between going after Altair or helping her bleeding friend. Zafira nearly scowled, doubling over and throwing a hand against the wall instead.
“Yasmine!”
“All right,” she snarled. “I’m coming.”
Zafira heaved a relieved sigh. Altair deserved the brunt of Yasmine’s anger, but not now. Later, when everything was through, she would make the introductions herself.
Yasmine grumbled all the way to Lana’s door and abandoned her immediately, but Zafira didn’t mind. She’d done her job. She stepped into a room with shelves upon shelves of little bottles—a regular arsenal of healing supplies—and Lana, almost invisible in the shapely rays of evening light.
It was much like the rest of the palace: carved white shadowed by gray, accented in silver that complemented the deep blue furnishings, but this space smelled of so many herbs that Zafira’s nose couldn’t decipher a single one aside from rosemary, which she had never liked but Lana had always loved.
It was like Lana to claim a room that wasn’t hers. Even at home, she could never sleep in their room, preferring to curl on the majlis in their foyer, and for a moment, Zafira could only stand in the doorway, taking in the gleam of her sister’s hair, the soft curve of her cheek, lit with a line of fire from the crackling hearth.
It reminded her of home, before she undertook the journey to Sharr, when Lana had begged her to stay, saying magic meant nothing without Zafira.
Now it could be gone. Never, ever to return.
“You’re here!” Lana said, leaping to her feet. Her hands were stained with ink. Only then did Zafira realize she had brought the Jawarat with her. Her fear was a viper, sinking fangs and numbing her. “I was just writing down notes. Since you survived.”
“I’m delighted your experiment was successful,” Zafira said dryly.
We like her, bint Iskandar.
Zafira ignored it, or tried to—there was a sense inside her, a foreboding similar to when a storm churned in the distance.
Lana grinned cheekily before concern marred her brow. “Are you all right?”
Zafira nodded quickly, angling her bandages from view.
“It’s the book, isn’t it?” Lana was staring at the Jawarat with fascination and fear. “You act strange when you have it.”
“I—”
She stopped when a knock sounded and the door opened before either of them could answer. Lana looked past her shoulder and quickly smoothed back her hair with an eager hand, leaving a streak of ink on her temple. Zafira’s eyebrows flicked upward. Sweet snow.
“Are we meeting someone special?” she whispered.
Lana glared at her. “It’s the boy Ammah Aya saved.”
Zafira turned to the door, wincing when her wound stretched. The newcomer was slight, with a cloak shielding hunched shoulders and a hesitant step. Zafira was suddenly back at home, staring in her speckled mirror before her hunts. She recognized it all, down to the bare tilt of the newcomer’s hooded head.
“That’s no boy,” Zafira murmured. This was the palace, where the caliph lived. Where Haytham lived. She pieced together the clues. “You’re her. You’re the caliph’s daughter.”
The girl startled like a deer, her carefully draped hood falling back just enough to reveal shapely eyes wide in fear. She lifted her chin in a wobbly display of defiance, full lips pressed tight. With a start, Zafira realized the girl was not much younger than her, possibly even the same age as Zafira.
Lana scrambled to her feet, firelight highlighting her distress. “Khara, you’re a girl?”
Zafira turned to her sharply. “Mind your mouth.”
Lana directed her glower at Zafira. “How did you know?”
“I should think the answer to that question is obvious.”
“What’s your name?” Lana asked, turning to the disguised girl. Disbelief toned her voice, the edges roughened by hurt.
“Qismah,” the girl said in a voice as gentle as first snow. She darted a glance at Lana, but her gaze seemed most comfortable on the ground. “I—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Only Ammu Haytham knows I’m a girl.”
Zafira wondered what sort of life Qismah was leading. Haytham looked out for her, but what did it mean for Qismah to keep her true self a secret? Did she believe herself a harbinger of ill, as many in Demenhur believed women to be?
“And—and Baba.”
Perhaps it was the way she referred to her father, with shame and hesitance, that caused Zafira’s anger to rear. It was a chorus in her skull, wild and grating. The Jawarat fueled it with murmurs, reminders of the way men of her caliphate looked at her. At women. She cinched her jaw tight, willing it away, telling herself to stay calm as the book sat innocently in her lap, as if it weren’t guiding her thoughts.
She smiled at the girl, seeing the resemblance between her and the elderly caliph. “Haytham says you are an apt pupil. You are very brave, doing what you do.”
Qismah’s half smile was fleeting.
It was unfair that girls so young were weathered enough to understand society so keenly. Once, Zafira would have smiled that same fleeting smile. She would have told herself that this, and this, and this was enough.
Enough. The word was a box she had placed herself within, and she would be a fool to let another young girl do the same.
“Your throne will be yours,” Zafira promised. Once the Lion was vanquished, and Arawiya stopped teetering at the edge of this dangerous precipice, she would help her. Enough people knew who Zafira was, and Haytham was a man in position who would do what was right. He would help them. The people should know by now how twisted the caliph’s words were. If they didn’t, they would learn—or she would shove the truth down their throats.
“I…,” Qismah began, and tapered off with a nod. “Shukrun.”
The caliph’s daughter braved a glance at Lana, and in a clear attempt to do something, she tossed wood into the fire, pulling back when it hissed, her hood falling farther from her head.
That was when Zafira saw Qismah’s hair—shorn like a man’s, dark curls glinting bronze. Kifah was bald, of course, but that was a commonality in Pelusia. In Demenhur, the longer a woman’s hair, the more beautiful she was deemed. No one would dare lift a blade to a woman’s mane. Trimming it was as unseemly as pretending to be a man.
Trimming it was an act of disgrace.
Liquid fury replaced the blood in her veins, burning hotter than the bluest flame. She barely felt the throb of her arrow wound.
Let us redeem ourselves for leaving you. We will please you.
He will die for what he has done.
She did not know whose thought that was, whose vow that burned bright. She was on her feet. The Jawarat was in her hand, and turmoil ached in her bones, fighting against its pull and failing, failing. This wasn’t the chaos she had come to recognize and steel herself against. This was the fervent need to recompense. To atone. And it caught her off guard.
She couldn’t tell where her thoughts began and the Jawarat’s ended. Lana’s mouth shaped her name, but Zafira heard nothing. Qismah hurried away, terror morphing her pretty features. The hall hurried past in a blur.
It wasn’t until Zafira stood before two large double doors, the Jawarat clutched tight, that she knew where she was going, danger carving her path.
CHAPTER 69
A good part of Altair thrived on refusal, and it came alive the moment the Jawarat imparted its eerie message through Zafira. He refused to believe
one of his lovely aunts’ hearts was fading to black inside his father.
Sultan’s teeth, he had quite the family tree.
Regardless, he would wring this for what he could. He had been desperately searching for a match to light a fire beneath the dignitaries’ arses and rally their aid, and this new revelation was it.
“What did Ghada say?” Kifah asked as he unfurled the Pelusian calipha’s missive.
“If her answer was affirmative, she wouldn’t have sent you a letter,” Nasir said, sharpening his sword. “She’s down the daama hall.”
“I cannot wait until you and your impeccable ability to rouse hope are crowned king, brother boy,” Altair drawled. “What a gloomy day that will be.”
Nasir’s reaction was a downward turn of his mouth.
The prince was right, but Altair read it aloud for Kifah’s benefit. “‘Pelusia is all that stands between Arawiya and starvation. We cannot, in good conscience, invite the Lion’s wrath. Regards, Ghada bint Jund.’”
“A better excuse than the Zaramese caliph’s, at least,” Kifah consoled herself. The reed of a man hadn’t even offered an excuse.
This was it, then. Two caliphs had refused to join their efforts to defeat the Lion. Leila was on her way to claiming her mother’s throne in Alderamin, while Sarasin’s throne remained empty still, the man most promising for the job dead before he could claim it.
Altair threw open the doors and stepped into the hall, spotting a servant tossing almonds into his mouth. “Oi, you there. Where are Haytham and Ayman? Make haste.”
The boy responded with a gesture that would have had him decapitated, had Nasir been on the receiving end. But Altair was only a general, and the boy answered to his caliph.
“Is that so?” Altair drawled. “Do it now, pint. By order of the true sultan.”
“True sultan,” Nasir repeated when he stepped back inside.
“If you aren’t going to use the title for anything useful, I will.” Altair rubbed his beard. “What else can we do? Summon a nice feast? A few bodies to keep us warm?”
Nasir’s ears flushed red.
“Kifah, dearest?” Altair called. She retracted her spear. “Remind me to check on Nasir’s ears the next time Zafira’s around, eh?”
She smirked as Haytham entered, his checkered keffiyah off-kilter. A servant girl followed with a tray. The nutty and spicy aroma of qahwa filled the room, awakening Altair’s senses as the girl poured him a cup from a silver dallah, breaking the silence with an awkward trickle before offering him a platter of cubed honey cake that Kifah stole away.
“Zafira still hasn’t returned,” Nasir reminded them as Haytham took his seat.
“She’s a big girl,” Altair said to pacify him. For his part, Altair could only think of that cake, glistening and soft and not in his mouth. “She knows her way back.” He frowned at the Demenhune wazir. “Where is Ayman?”
“Currently engaged in other matters,” the wazir said.
The only time that particular phrase sufficed was when a man was in his bedchamber, engaged in matters that were decidedly not rest. Altair lifted his one visible brow, unconvinced.
Haytham’s shoulders dropped, disappointment curving his mouth. “He refuses to come … He refuses to meet with you.”
Understandable. Altair was, after all, the general who had led several armies against Ayman’s own. He wouldn’t have wanted to meet with the old man, either, had he been on the losing end.
“I am here in his stead,” Haytham said, and cleared his throat, lifting a bundle of missives. “Several reports have come in.”
“Let’s hear them,” Altair said, leaning forward.
Haytham slid forward a sheet of papyrus covered in neat scrawl. “Sarasin’s smaller cities have fallen to darkness.”
“Already?” Altair asked. He hadn’t thought his father would act this quickly. They’d barely had time to recover.
“It will make travel difficult,” Kifah said, gears turning as quickly as Pelusian mechanics. “We intend to return to Sultan’s Keep, don’t we? If Sarasin has been blanketed by shadows, ifrit are bound to be there. The darkness isn’t for nothing. He’s creating a home for his kind.”
“What’s this about a new caliph?” Nasir asked, tapping a finger on the missive.
“Ah. Yes,” Haytham said. “They’ve appointed the caliph elect—Muzaffar. He was present at the feast.”
On the low table, Nasir’s fingers turned white, and Altair remembered that moment, months ago, when the prince had received his orders to assassinate the previous caliph of Sarasin.
“Muzaffar is dead,” Nasir said. “I saw him lying in a pool of his own blood.”
Haytham didn’t seem surprised. “I had a feeling the timing did not align. The Lion has little reason to appoint someone as beloved as Muzaffar. Even if there was a reason, I cannot see the man idling as ifritkind overtook his lands. Possibly worse, several Sarasin contingents have been sighted shifting to Sultan’s Keep. I assume they are reinforcements.”
Kifah toyed with her lightning blades. “If they’re claiming it’s Muzaffar on the Sarasin throne, there’s only one way it could be possible: An ifrit is wearing his face.”
Altair dragged a hand down his own face.
“It’s a near-perfect solution,” Nasir commented. “The Sarasins are subdued, both human and ifrit armies answer to the caliph, and the caliph answers to the Lion.”
“You said ‘reinforcements.’ Reinforcements for what?” Kifah asked. “Us? He’s put too much faith in our leaders if he thinks we’ll march at him with four armies.”
Down three different halls of the palace, Ghada sat with her Nine Elite, the Zaramese caliph dozed, and Ayman lounged with his ancient bones. Altair wanted to grab them all by the shoulders and shake sense into them.
Haytham leafed through his missives. “I’ve also had men scoping the grounds near the Sultan’s Palace.”
Nasir shared in Altair’s surprise. It seemed there was at least one other competent man in Arawiya aside from himself.
“They’ve reported a mere handful of sentinels, barely enough to withstand a full-blown attack. If the Lion truly does believe we may march in with an army, why remain short-staffed?”
“Magic?” Kifah assumed, plopping another honey cake in her mouth. Altair scowled.
“There are spells that create protective barriers,” Altair pondered. “It’s what you were supposed to use in Sultan’s Keep to prevent the Lion from taking the Jawarat.”
He still felt the guilt of that moment, the horror of seeing the book in his father’s hands.
“We were, until we ran out of blood,” Kifah said.
“There is one good note,” Haytham said, handing him another missive that looked to have been steeped in snow one too many times. “Rebel forces have been gathering in Sultan’s Keep.”
“Rebels?” Kifah asked, taking the soggy sheet.
“They may very well join us.”
Us. Altair liked the sound of that word from the wazir.
“Depends on what they’re rebelling against.” Nasir was as optimistic as ever.
“But an army nonetheless,” Altair said, spreading the missives across the table. He stared at the map pinned to the wall, gray lines and navy rivers. The silver streaks of palaces reinforced by might and magic, the curve of the Great Library.
The Great Library.
Altair straightened and grabbed a reed pen. “Gather round, children. I’ve got a plan.”
CHAPTER 70
There were men who deserved forgiveness and a second chance, and others who deserved only to suffer for what they’d done. Caliph Ayman of Demenhur, the Jawarat said, was one of the latter.
Zafira fought against this claim, for she was a huntress and a girl, an orphan and a sister. Not a judge.
Wrongs must be righted, the Jawarat crooned. We will help you.
It was a losing battle against a bottomless, gaping hunger, a craving that could never be sated. This was h
ow the Lion felt, she realized, when he desired knowledge. When he wanted vengeance for what his father had endured.
He dared to sequester a child in such a way?
Zafira didn’t know if the thought was hers alone or the Jawarat’s. Or if it had simply found the vial inside her that held everything enraging, and drunk it. The caliph had been wrong for years. His lies had spread across the caliphate, had permeated the very fabric of their lives. What made this moment any different? What made murder burn in their veins?
Their?
We are one and the same.
The double doors were locked, white wood as pure as her heart. She laughed at the analogy. Open them. Open them? It would be a waste of dum sihr to unlock doors. In her thoughts flashed Qismah’s shorn head. Her downcast eyes. Zafira’s own hunched shoulders.
A line of red ripped down her palm, and the locks came undone.
No longer will we wait for change. We will bring it.
Resolve hardened her. The doors flew open. Caution whispered from the back of her skull, that viper striking fear slithering close, and she—
“Qif!” Two guards leaped to attention, shouting in tandem, but what sort of fool would stop?
Sharp pain burst across her palm and she threw out her arms. The guards crumpled to the ground, dead. Dead? She froze in her tracks, blearily studying her surroundings as if suddenly awakening from a slumber. Her bandaged chest ached. Where was she? Where were Qismah and Lana?
The sentinels merely rest. Look at them, bint Iskandar.
Her lucidity vanished, and she felt as if she were watching herself from afar. The guards were lounging on the floor, chests rising and falling ever so slowly, asleep as the Jawarat assured her they were.
She was led by an invisible hand down one room and into the next, large archways like keyholes that would never find their match. Moonlight flooded the space, solitary lanterns lighting her path to a chamber.
And there, standing before a platform bed resplendent in furs, was the Caliph of Demenhur.
This is atonement for our abandon. Be pleased with this justice.
“You,” the caliph said in surprise. “The Hunter.”
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