We Free the Stars

by Hafsah Faizal

  It had to. She would not let herself think of the alternative.

  The night was fading by the time they reached the palace in Leil. They rounded to the royal minaret, and Zafira was surprised to find three safin of the High Circle awaiting their arrival. The zumra neared the glittering tower, anticipation crowding her lungs.

  “Akhh,” Altair exclaimed at the sight of the stairs spiraling to the very top of the minaret.

  With an exasperated look at him, Nasir disappeared into an alcove and soon enough, the squeak of a rope filled the quiet. Thousands of oil lamps flickered to life, and the floor beneath them began to rise.

  No one spoke. Everyone stared at the heart in Zafira’s hands.

  “It’s slowing,” Zafira murmured.

  The pulley creaked and the floor rose and rose before finally screeching to a stop.

  Cool air brushed her skin, winding around her neck with a gentle caress much like the Lion’s darkness, and she held her breath as she stepped into the night. The others followed in hushed silence.

  Sarasin unfolded beneath them, a perfect bird’s-eye view of darkness interspersed with flecks of fire like embers in the wind.

  Zafira gave it all a passing glance, for her gaze was set much closer: the pedestal in the center of the annular space. Stone hands curved upward in everlasting prayer, the same mottled gray of the ones that had grasped the Jawarat on Sharr.

  No one spoke. She did not think anyone dared breathe.

  Her footsteps were heartbeats on the tiles. In her lungs was a drum. The Jawarat, too, held its breath, for it had at last learned that it could cling upon hope.

  Zafira had only made it halfway when her legs stumbled to a halt, freezing her in place.

  “No,” she cried.

  As the heart

  crumbled

  in her hands.

  We warned you, the Jawarat said, but not even it could find a way to be smug.

  Anguish tore from her in the shape of a sob. The wind rose, winding through her hands, ashes scattering and swirling into the night, leaving her bare.

  Empty.

  She dropped to her knees with a shattered breath.

  She did not care about Kifah’s soft cry. Altair’s croak. Nasir lifting his fingers through the fading dust. The Silver Witch, witness to every broken moment.

  No. Zafira thought of Deen, who had died for this. Of Yasmine, who had lost for this. Of Misk and his sacrifice. Of Benyamin and his dreams.

  Of Baba, who had taught her the enchantment of magic, parting the cage of her ribs and feeding desire into her very soul. She brushed her knuckles down the ache in her heart.

  Never, ever to be sated.

  “How?” she whispered.

  The zumra remained silent as she wept. No one spoke of hope, for there was none.

  CHAPTER 100

  Zafira couldn’t stand the sight of those stone palms any longer. Empty. As empty as her chest, her lungs, her heart. She pressed her hands to the floor, dust biting her skin, and her vision clouded with this terrible dream.

  “Huntress.”

  She almost didn’t hear the Silver Witch’s voice, as if she herself wasn’t certain she wanted to be heard. Zafira wanted to laugh. There was no Huntress anymore. There was no Hunter. There was no Arz, no Sharr, no whispering shadow, no magic.

  No magic.

  Still, Zafira turned to face her. The last remaining Sister of Old. The vanishing moonlight illuminated her and the blood on her palms, a trickle smattering the dark stone at her feet.

  In her hands was a heart. Pulsing and alive, brighter than all the others she had seen.

  Hers.

  “Magic for an entire kingdom versus magic for one warden who has lived far too long,” the Silver Witch said wistfully when her sons looked to her inquisitively. “I was the only one of my Sisters never to remove my heart. I was one with my power, and could not understand how easily they relinquished their own. They had never asked me to, and I realize now that it was not they who would ask, but you.

  “My kingdom.”

  Zafira sputtered, a sob becoming a laugh. Altair joined her, bewilderment making him rasp.

  “I don’t think I can take any more of this,” Kifah choked out, clutching her chest with her free hand.

  Nasir couldn’t contain a smile of his own, and the moon crept from the clouds, an eager witness.

  Zafira stepped forward. Stopped. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. She wanted to scream, she wanted her joy to be felt across the caliphate, across Arawiya.

  The Silver Witch gestured for her to take it. “This honor is yours.”

  “Mine?” Zafira said breathlessly. “I—I’m no more worthy of it than any of you.” She looked across them, her friends, her companions. “Kifah, this is your vengeance complete. The Sil—Anadil’s redemption come full circle. It’s your heart. Nasir, this is the opposite of what ruined your life. Altair, you’re—you’re the one who plotted decades for this.”

  “And yet none of it would have been possible without you,” Nasir said in that voice that looped with the darkness, and she warmed at the deep intent in his eyes.

  “You didn’t think we’d forget, did you?” Kifah asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  It is yours, bint Iskandar.

  Zafira met the Silver Witch’s eyes and reached for her heart. The embodiment of her power, more supreme than any of the Sisters of Old. Zafira’s breath caught as the pulsing mass filled her hands, thrumming quick beneath her fingers, and knotted a blustering laugh in her throat.

  Anticipation flooded her, rendered her mute.

  She could tell they all held their breath once more as she turned to the stone hands. The familiar hum of magic set her veins at ease. The Jawarat basked in her joy. Blood dripped from her fingers, each plink a hiss, until she carefully placed the organ in the center of the pedestal.

  For a long, drawn-out beat, nothing happened.

  Then the hands lifted with a great groan, and closed around the final heart.

  CHAPTER 101

  For as long as Nasir lived, he would never forget this moment. The way the earth’s exhale ruffled his hair. The way the safin’s eyes fell closed, returned to a love long lost. In a way that Benyamin, the dreamwalker who had given his life for this moment, never would. It was only now that Nasir realized how deeply magic had been ingrained into Arawiyan life.

  “So this is what it feels like,” Kifah contemplated, “to see vengeance through.”

  “What does it feel like?” he asked.

  “Freeing.”

  A thousand troubles unraveled with the rupture of her laugh, a sound so untethered and unfettered to the world, so perfect for this night, that Altair joined her, and Nasir smiled.

  His mother did not look like one who had lost a part of herself. Laa, she had gained something by losing her power, and Nasir knew it was the relief that only someone of si’lah blood could comprehend.

  Perhaps more significant than any of it was her: Zafira. The way she alighted in untrammeled joy, the way her head fell back in victory, and still she stopped to look at him. Him of all people.

  Had he, too, been a walker of the past, gifted to relive memories, this was where he would return. Zafira, always and always.

  CHAPTER 102

  In Baba’s stories, once the villain was vanquished, the world suddenly became a better place. The victors could at last lean back and avail themselves of the fruits of their labor. There was much the stories failed to mention. The way the victors missed the villain, for instance. The trauma left behind for the kingdom and its people to endure. The deaths to mourn.

  Zafira had reunited with Sukkar, who was the same lazy dastard he’d always been, not really surprised to see her alive. Laa, the beast would have been surprised if she had died. Misk had kept the horse busy, riding him from Demenhur all the way to Aya’s house where he and his rebels had gathered. Together, she and Sukkar found Yasmine in the graveyard beneath the morning sun, not far from the Sul
tan’s Palace. A mound of dirt stretched before her.

  Misk Khaldun.

  “The dead don’t like to be delayed,” Yasmine said in greeting. Her friend looked smaller than she was, delicate and breakable. She didn’t look up, even when Zafira sat down beside her on the rug flecked already with sand.

  “I wish he had died in Demenhur so it wouldn’t be so hard to visit him,” she continued.

  “You’ll have to move here, then,” Zafira teased. “The royal life suits you.”

  Yasmine breathed a laugh, and finally looked at her. “They’re gone, Zafira. I’m an orphan. I’m a widow. I was once a sister, and now I’m not even that.”

  Zafira reached for her hand, sliding their palms together. “You still are.”

  She didn’t exhale until her friend squeezed back, but she felt the whisper of her hesitance, the pain. I’m trying was spelled within the gesture.

  “Hearts need time to mend,” Zafira said softly, reassuring them both.

  Love was a peculiar thing, she had learned. Like the surge of old magic that defeated the Lion, like the Silver Witch sacrificing her heart.

  It had been little more than half a day since his separation: his memories in the Jawarat Zafira kept close, his soul immortalized in the black tree in the palace courtyard, and his body soon to be anchored in the Baransea.

  Jinan hadn’t asked for coin this time.

  Zafira sat back, breathing the scent of freshly turned earth. It was strange, not having to worry about whether or not she would live to see the next sunrise. Strange that the Lion was no longer a threat, that the Arz no longer crept closer. Every breath she took now felt new and free. Every heartbeat felt like the promise of another.

  And yet she missed both the Lion and the Arz beyond comprehension. They had shaped her into who she was, as Nasir had said, forcing themselves into the fabric of her existence.

  A crier marched the streets, announcing the upcoming coronation and filling the city with a buzz of excitement and fear. Change was coming, and as the Lion taking the throne had shown them, it was not always good.

  What they did not yet know was this: the coronation would grant them more than a new king, but magic, too. A new age. As Seif had assured the zumra, the High Circle had positioned blockades to stop its flow until after the coronation, and though the dignitaries who had attended the ruined feast knew of the hearts’ restoration, it would be some time before everyone else did.

  Yasmine rose and dusted off her dress, spotting Sukkar. “What’s the plan? Back to Thalj?”

  “Only to fetch Lana,” Zafira replied, refusing to meet Yasmine’s eyes as she swung atop her horse. In days, Nasir would become ruler of Arawiya, the circlet of a prince replaced with the crown of a sultan. It filled her with pride, even as her heart ached.

  She took Sukkar’s reins as Yasmine watched her with a wistful softness in her eyes, understanding everything.

  “I’ll be back for the coronation,” Zafira said.

  She intended to return with enough time to spare, and though the trek through Demenhur would be sloppy as snow continued to melt across the caliphate, she couldn’t complain. Word had come that it was gradual enough that the water seeping into the ground would allow people to grow herbs once more, and soon.

  “You mean we will be back,” Yasmine said, arching a brow when Zafira looked at her in surprise.

  She loathed the sorrow in her friend’s gaze, the hollow that she was afraid might never be filled again.

  “It’s your prince. Did you assume I wouldn’t want to come?”

  CHAPTER 103

  The announcer basked in his moment of fame from the balcony overlooking the main jumu’a, where not long ago, death and blood had run rampant. The palace gates had been thrown open, the entire kingdom invited to the occasion, including the remaining caliphs. The trio was seated on a platformed majlis below, with Haytham representing Demenhur. Nasir had invited Muzaffar, too—the ifrit, of course. For the future of Arawiya promised to weave not only human and safinkind at its core but ifritkind as well.

  The people were not jubilant.

  They whispered of the strange tree that had sprouted out of stone. They whispered of him. They were not bursting with love for the assassin turned sultan, and how could they? The Prince of Death had touched upon countless lives—if not directly, then indirectly. Displayed like the sultan’s prize dog, used to instate fear and obedience.

  Nasir was no stranger to the way people reacted to him, but now that he had done so much, changed so much, their whispers were a thousand and one stones upon his back. He lifted his chin, determined.

  Their hesitance meant there was work to be done and barriers to tear down, and Nasir reminded himself that he would not have to do any of it alone.

  “Ready, brother boy?” Altair asked as the announcer finished his spiel.

  Kifah was unable to stand still. “He was born for this.”

  The Silver Witch smiled, for it was she who had taught him how to rule, she who had ensured he was ready.

  Zafira was still not here.

  A plinth held the royal crown in a shroud of gossamer. Nasir had asked them to remove the small onyx in its center, which had been set to represent his father’s Sarasin lineage. Now the crown would stand with a rare polished amber, untethered to any caliphate.

  A reminder of all that they had vanquished.

  The announcer returned to the shadowed alcove with a dip of his head.

  “Yalla,” Altair crowed. “The food will get cold.”

  “He means the belly dancers,” Kifah said.

  Nasir drew a careful breath, everything muffled as he met his mother’s eyes, and went forward into the light. The crowd fell silent. He saw their fear. Their reluctance. Their curiosity.

  And when he opened his mouth, every last word he had prepared disappeared.

  Honesty, Zafira whispered in his skull. Honesty was easier when people expected little of you.

  “My mother once said I was born to hold a crown on my head and death in my fist,” Nasir said. He was far more quiet than the announcer had been, but the balcony had been designed to carry his voice across the courtyard and into the streets. “I excelled at the latter. I killed fathers, mothers. Lovers and dignitaries. Each left their mark, in more ways than one.”

  Murmurs swept through the people. His people.

  “I am not—” He stopped, clenched his jaw, and started again. “I am not going to ask for forgiveness; I am going to ask for trust. In me, in the throne. Trust that Arawiya will be restored to greatness. Trust that our trade will flourish, and our cities will shine, and that one day your children will speak of these dark days as ones we overcame.”

  His eyes searched the crowd until he alighted on a young woman shoving her way through the crowd. A profile of ice, a study of angles.

  She had come. Her eyes were lit with pride. Her smile was bittersweet.

  Honor before heart, she had said. All that she did, she did for love. For honor. For what was right.

  Like that, he knew what he needed to do.

  CHAPTER 104

  By the time Zafira fetched Lana from Thalj, reunited with Yasmine, and returned to the Sultan’s Palace, the throngs of people that had gathered for the coronation were impenetrable. The hushed whispers and curiosity made it clear Arawiya still feared him, the Prince of Death, but if Nasir could change her heart, she knew he could change countless more.

  She dragged Lana through the thick of the crowd. “This is all your fault.”

  Zafira had left Sukkar behind for the very reason of trading horses and riding hard, and still they had managed to arrive late.

  “It’s not my fault you never taught me how to ride as well as you,” Lana whined. She was smart enough to know that now was not the time to bring up the fact that having to restitch parts of Zafira’s wound had delayed them, too.

  “She has a point,” Yasmine said.

  Near the black tree, Zafira paused to lift her head to the
branches reaching for the skies. There was no white rose on its limbs now, but she felt a whisper as she brushed past, a call she once heeded.

  “Qif,” ordered the guards standing before the doors, silver uniforms bright. “No one is allowed inside.”

  Zafira froze, and Lana lifted her chin.

  Yasmine propped her hands on her hips. “We’re expected.”

  One of the guards barked a laugh. “You and every other peasant here. Move aside.”

  “I’m the—” Zafira almost said “Hunter,” before the word died on her tongue, for there was no Arz to hunt in anymore. She wasn’t a hunter, or a huntress.

  She was a peasant, as the guard said.

  “Okhti,” Lana warned beside her, and Zafira snapped out of it as the guard descended the steps, his face cruel.

  She grabbed Yasmine’s hand and the three of them backed into the crowd, shoving their way through the people until they found a spot within view of the balcony where Nasir had already begun addressing the crowds.

  “I’m sorry,” Lana said softly.

  Zafira and Yasmine hushed her.

  And then Nasir found her in the throngs, and he stopped.

  He smiled after a thought, a true curve of contentment that reflected in his eyes, a dimple etched into his right cheek. From his mother, then.

  Several people turned to look at her, to see what had stolen their sultan’s attention, and she couldn’t stop a full grin of her own. Then he opened his mouth.

  And

  damned

  himself.

  CHAPTER 105

  Some decisions could never be undone. Nasir was aware of this fact as he pieced together his next words.

  “There are many truths you will learn in the years to come. The biggest is this: Arawiya’s sultana, Anadil, was not safin. She was not human, either. She was the last of the Sisters of Old, once warden of Sharr.”