We Free the Stars

by Hafsah Faizal

  He hadn’t meant to say all of that, and though Nasir was silent as usual, the silence he held now was one of shock.

  Might as well get it all out.

  “I hated it. I hated you. I hated how deeply she loved you, but it brought her joy. You brought her joy.”

  On the streets below, a crier wailed some nonsensical news and children dashed down from the nearby sooq. Nasir didn’t apologize, as some would. He didn’t breathe a word, the idiot boy.

  “And then you stopped using your brain in lieu of your father’s,” Altair said, softer now. “You stopped being yourself.” He looked away, words dropping softer still. “And I hated you even more for it.”

  The words clung to the air, bringing with it a gust of the past. Nasir tucked his ridiculously tidy bundle of weaponry away, and a trail of black followed him to the edge of the roof, as if he were fading into the light. Just when Altair thought he would leap off the end, peacock that he was, he spoke without turning.

  “I was not made for battle. This is not my fight.”

  “Is it mine?” Altair asked with a hollow laugh. “Because I’m his son?”

  Nasir stared into the sky as if he hadn’t considered that. As if he’d forgotten. “Destruction follows darkness. You know this.”

  And then he was gone, leaving Altair’s second scimitar at his feet.

  CHAPTER 75

  Of the two Iskandars Nasir imagined standing at his door, the younger one was not it. He did not expect he would be the one she’d come to with such distress, either.

  “What is it?”

  Lana wrung her hands. “It’s my sister. She—she’s leaving.”

  His brows flicked upward. “And where is she going?”

  “I don’t know—just hurry!”

  Nasir heaved a weary sigh but followed after Lana as she rushed down the hallway. It was gratifying, he supposed, that she had come to him instead of anyone else. Then again, he suspected the bronze-haired girl, Yasmine, would lock Zafira in a room if she had to.

  Lana paused in front of a rounded archway until a servant pulled aside the curtain. For a girl who grew up in a village, she had adjusted to palace life rather quickly.

  “I almost let her go,” she said, darting through. “I even gave her—”

  “Gave her what?” Nasir asked, refusing to run.

  She waved a dismissive hand and slipped into the kitchen, taking a shortcut. The place was bustling with cooks and maids, a variety of aromas fighting for dominance and reminding him he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in quite some time. Stacks of flatbread were piled high, an undercook hefting a trio from a stone oven while a woman and a shirtless boy peeled potatoes into an ample pot.

  “That thing is large enough to sit in,” Lana murmured.

  Not entirely adjusted, Nasir ceded. She ducked her head, realizing her slip when he cast her a look.

  He flung open the door to a gust of cold air, and came to a halt. There she was, radiant in the still-early light. A cloak sat at her shoulders, furred with a hood in deep plum. Her tunic cut above the knees, the tail fading to black as it fell lower. The sleeves must have been short, because she’d wrapped bands from forearm to wrist, gray ribbons like armor matching the shawl at her neck. Its fringe was as black as the sash around her middle, framing the ring at her chest. For a brief moment, Nasir’s lungs had forgotten what they were meant to do. She was a marvel to behold, a vision both deadly and beautiful.

  The Jawarat was clutched to her chest.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  Zafira startled, surprised to see him with Lana by his side. She glared at her and slowly unclenched her jaw. “Sultan’s Keep.”

  Snow dusted the courtyard, and a guard kicked some as he went. Nasir leaned against the doorway, keeping his words and stance nonchalant. “And what do you intend to do?”

  “I’m sorry for what I did, and I’m going to make up for it.”

  There was no redeeming oneself of murder. He knew it, and the sorrow in her eyes told him she knew it, too. He nodded slowly. “What does that have to do with Sultan’s Keep?”

  “I can stop the Lion.”

  Lana sputtered. Nasir’s eyebrows rose.

  Zafira snatched her bag with a wince, pressing a hand to her breast.

  “You’re in no condition to ride.”

  “I can sit astride if someone else handles the reins,” she said, vehement.

  “And if you run into trouble? Will you wave an arrow and hope the Lion dies?”

  Lana snickered.

  Zafira looked down at the Jawarat. “I’ll find myself a horseman who knows their way around a weapon.”

  He knew of such a person, as skilled with a weapon as he was with a horse. He knew of a person who would take her to the ends of the world, if only she would ask. He would take the stars from the sky and fashion them into a crown, if only she would have it.

  Yet he said nothing. He was not like the boy who had given her a ring, which she wore at her heart like a promise of forever. He was the prince, whose throne she wanted no part of, lips molded to hers for a few brief moments stolen from a thousand more.

  Nasir uncrossed his arms and made to leave.

  “Wait! Just … don’t tell the others yet. Please.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know I wasn’t included in the plans. I know no one will let me go, because you’re all concerned or afraid or what have you.”

  He bit back a smile at her flustered attempt to act unflustered. The way she was, he didn’t think Altair and Kifah would consider her stable enough, but he wasn’t about to be brushed aside so easily. There was no reversing what she had done, but to stop it from happening again? Nasir would do anything.

  “I won’t tell them on one condition.”

  She looked at him warily.

  “Let me be your horseman.” Let me be your everything.

  He was northbound anyway. The quick lift of her eyebrows revealed her surprise.

  “Aren’t you afraid of me?”

  Never. “What have I ever done to wrong you?”

  Lana’s lips twitched against a smile. Zafira wasn’t convinced.

  “You’ll leave the others behind for me?”

  Someday, she would learn he would do anything for her. Someday, he would find the words to tell her as much.

  “No one will even notice I’m gone,” Nasir said. Not until it was too late, at least. “Have we a deal?”

  He watched Zafira’s slow intake of air. “No.”

  He shrugged a shoulder and turned to leave without a word, banking on her small sliver of hesitance as Lana panicked.

  “Fine,” Zafira bit out. “Don’t vilify the Jawarat, and our pact is sealed.”

  Nasir turned back to her and smiled. “Of course, sayyida.”

  Of all the lies he’d told, this was easiest.

  CHAPTER 76

  We do not need him.

  That, Zafira thought with her one remaining shred of sanity, was precisely why she needed him. Even if the very thought of sharing a horse with him flooded her with heat.

  In the stables, Zafira’s filched prize doubled in weight when Lana snuck her a sly grin as they narrowly avoided Altair exiting the farthest stall. It was yet another way the brothers were utterly different—Nasir would have noticed them immediately.

  “Yasmine won’t be happy you didn’t tell her,” Lana said. None of them would be, but when she thought of telling them, she heard Altair’s laughter rolling past her door, the horror on their faces at the sight of what she’d done.

  “I’m well aware,” Zafira replied, “and I’ll deal with that later.”

  “Well, then, what should I tell her? And the others?”

  What, indeed.

  “The truth.” Zafira would be far away by then. “We’ve lied to her enough already.”

  The stable was stone, each stall carved into an ornate point like a doorway into a place unseen. Polished shoes hung on the wall, alongside brushes and sad
dles, everything neat and orderly, square windows illuminating each steed in brilliance. It was nothing like Sukkar’s shed in their village.

  Nasir joined them with a cursory glance as if hoping Zafira had changed her mind, and though every guard noticed him, not one asked what they were doing or where they were going. They were hawklike in their vigilance, however, no doubt garnering a story to share over arak later about the crown prince taking leave with an insipid Demenhune.

  He stopped short, looking past Zafira’s shoulder.

  “Afya?” he murmured in disbelief.

  It was the name of one of the Six Sisters of Old, but he was staring at a horse. A dark gray mare.

  “This one.”

  The stable boy stumbled at the force of his command and brought the horse forward, handing Nasir the reins with hushed respect before turning to her. “Another horse, sayyida?”

  Zafira merely shook her head, her attention riveted on Nasir. At the happiness he could barely contain. He ran a gentle hand down the mare’s flank and murmured sweet words in her ear, his face breaking into a tenderness too fleeting to memorize. He pressed his brow to her nose, and she nuzzled him back just as gently.

  She was melting inside. There was no other way to describe how she felt. This was the same boy who had tended to her their first day on Sharr. The same boy she had healed when the Lion had seared him with the poker. When he forgot to carry the burden of the Prince of Death and allowed himself to be.

  He turned to her and his smile disappeared. He dropped his gaze and led the horse outside. Zafira couldn’t help it: hurt flared through her.

  Lana laughed. “You made him shy.”

  “Him. Shy,” Zafira bit out.

  Lana tilted her head. “I don’t mean it in a bad way, but for someone so brave and smart, you are terribly daft sometimes.”

  “I’m glad you don’t mean that in a bad way.”

  Lana bit her lip. “Be safe.”

  “What, no imploring me to stay this time?”

  “I tried, Okhti. I’m not stronger than that book, but maybe your prince is. Do you remember that day you took so long in the Arz that it was evening by the time you returned? Deen kept telling us not to worry. ‘She has a penchant for punching death in the face,’ he said.”

  Zafira didn’t reply. She recalled Deen using those very words with her as they headed to Sharr.

  “I believe it now,” Lana said.

  Nasir’s shadow fell across the entrance. “Shall we?”

  Zafira looked back at Lana. “Keep Yasmine away from Altair.”

  Something flickered in Lana’s eyes, but she nodded. Contending with Yasmine’s wrath was as terrifying as disturbing the Lion’s repose.

  “And talk to Qismah,” Zafira added.

  “She lied,” Lana protested, “when she pretended to be something she wasn’t.”

  As did I.

  “The repercussions for her are tenfold of what they were for me.” Zafira touched the back of two fingers to Lana’s cheek, guilt gripping her. “I don’t know if she knows the truth of how her father was killed, or how she’s taken the news, or what will happen to her now. She needs allies. People who will fight for her.”

  “I wasn’t born to fight.”

  “No,” Zafira agreed. “Neither of us were. We were not born to fight, but our cradles were built from struggles and hardship. Pens, swords, sticks—weapons shoved into our fists as soon as we’re old enough to grasp them. So we fight, because the world will cut our throats otherwise. We fight, because we won’t go down without one. Do you understand?”

  In answer, Lana threw her arms around her.

  “I can’t breathe,” Zafira gasped, and Lana pulled away sheepishly.

  Outside, Zafira paused, the cold biting the backs of her hands. Nasir waited with Afya, and the guards waited by the gates. Perhaps she shouldn’t leave without telling the others.

  A humming rose from the Jawarat, lulling her wayward thoughts.

  We are winning them back. This is what we must do.

  Again, she was jolted by its uncertainty, but it was right.

  Noon was just deepening the sky when she tugged her cloak closer and used the stool to mount Nasir’s horse like a frail old man. She shivered at a sudden gust of wind, and every part of her warmed when Nasir mounted behind her.

  Skies.

  She felt his hesitation before he reached around her for the reins, breath across her cheek. She tried not to focus on the way it skittered, taking in the mare’s dappled coat instead. She tried to ignore the glorious press of his legs at the backs of her thighs, studying the familiarity of the unfolding landscape instead.

  The gates rolled open to stone streets lined with houses puffing smoke and people going about their day untroubled, which meant the horrors of Sultan’s Keep hadn’t yet reached Thalj. Thalj. Another city of grandeur to which her journey had brought her.

  “All right?” Nasir asked in that voice, reinstating his presence.

  She swallowed with a quick nod and met Lana’s gaze in silent farewell. Nasir spurred the horse forward, and Zafira fell back against the solid wall of his chest, barely registering the knifing pain of her wound and the Jawarat’s whispering melody over the sudden heat of his body.

  Sweet snow, this was going to be some journey.

  CHAPTER 77

  It took every last scrap of Nasir’s self-worth not to press closer when he mounted Afya’s back. It became hard to breathe, and then altogether hard to daama exist when Zafira fell against him. Soon they were past the gates, cantering down the sloping street unfurling from the palace, and he had no choice but to exhale a very slow and not-so-collected breath.

  Zafira turned back to take in the alabaster majesty of the Demenhune palace, her blue eyes bright with childlike wonder. They were clear, unaffected by the book clutched to her chest, and he wondered if this was one of the moments she had spoken of, when she and it had come to an understanding.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

  “An apt descriptor for a number of things,” he murmured, pleased when her shoulders stiffened.

  He slowed Afya to a walk along the bustling streets, ever aware of the dark blotch he was in this fair city, from the snow and the buildings down to the pristine white thobes, light-hued abayas, and furred coats almost everyone wore. Demenhur, the caliphate of ghosts and ethereality.

  “How long will it take?” asked Zafira.

  “Afya is an Alder steed,” Nasir replied. Spotting his mother’s mare in Demenhur’s stables was the last thing he had expected. He had never expected to see her again, khalas, sure she’d been eaten by the ifrit elder. If he were to guess, Seif had left her for them in the courtyard on the night of their escape, for only a safi would be shrewd enough to notice an Alder steed in the midst of chaos, and someone in the Nine Elite would have ridden her here. “I’d say a little under three days, but there’s no telling how this new, dark Sarasin will be.”

  He heard her soft murmur of Alder steed before she ran her hands down Afya’s neck in a way that made him swallow thickly.

  The soft sun had reached its zenith by the time the bustle of the main city dwindled to a few sole houses. Nasir picked up the pace, then slowed Afya down again when they neared a village. Zafira turned, profile lit with sunlight. “I’m sorry about your father. I never had the chance to tell you.”

  He had lost his father long ago, the moment the poker first seared his back, and yet some part of him had held on to hope. For recognition. For a smile. For a nod of approval like he was still a daama child. Now Arawiya’s notorious sultan was a corpse on the cold, hard tile beside his own throne. A puppet left to rot without even the respect of a burial.

  “It’s all right,” Zafira whispered, closing her cold hands around his. “It’s all right.” Her thumbs swept across his skin, covering the dark flame as they passed a man using a shovel in the snow and a line of women chatting in front of another’s house.

  There were only spiny
trees to their either side when she spoke again, softly. “Others cry in tears. You cry in shadow.”

  She continued her ministrations, absently, and though he couldn’t see his hands, he knew the moment the shadows receded and something else stirred inside him at her touch. His grip tightened on the reins and her own loosened, realization striking quick.

  Rimaal, he—

  He swung off the mare’s back, pursing his mouth at the slush beneath his boots but grateful for the rush of cold against his body. She stared at him from the saddle as if he’d lost his mind. He almost laughed. Surely she wasn’t that guileless?

  “Why can’t you part with the Jawarat?” he asked, to distract himself as much as her.

  She stiffened. “You promised.”

  “It’s only a question.” His voice dropped.

  “Turn us back.”

  He stopped.

  “Turn back, or I will take you to the caliph’s palace and leave—”

  He saw the moment her idea struck. She lunged for the reins with a soft cry as her wound stretched, wrenching Afya around with a deft hand. Nasir leaped forward with a curse, grappling one rein from her grip, half of him bearing her weight to stop her from falling.

  “You lied,” she panted against him, and oh how he wished there was another reason she was like this, so gloriously coming undone.

  “It was only a question,” he said again, and then he laughed at how he was defending himself. At how he was being used yet again. At how she was ready to leave him here. It wasn’t hard to find words when he was in pain. “Do you think I’m some sort of easy mark? Is that why you agreed to letting me be your horseman? Why you didn’t want me telling the others?”

  She stilled, hurting his pride when she dared to meet his eyes.

  “I will take you back to the palace and chain you to your bed,” he growled in her ear. “This is madness.”

  She dropped the other rein, her knuckles bone white. Their exhales clouded the air like smoke.