The crown was placed on Altair’s head, and the written scrolls immortalized his coronation. He was sultan, he was king. He was a grand liar who had somehow earned himself a throne.
He had lived in his baby brother’s shadow long enough that he was accustomed to being second, and so none of this felt real. It felt undeserved, despite what everyone said. It made him guilty to feel elated with the weight of the metal atop his turban.
Altair had always intended for Nasir to sit on the Gilded Throne. It had been a part of the plan: Return magic, vanquish Ghameq, and nurture the young prince into the ruler Arawiya needed. But a crown on Altair’s head didn’t mean Nasir would be treated as any less than a sultan himself.
Altair would ensure it.
The procession made its way to the coronation feast in the banquet hall, ululations and drums ringing between the umber walls.
“Where are you going?” Nasir asked, ever observant. “Your belly dancers are getting cold.”
“I’ll be right back,” Altair said, plastering on a grin. “They won’t even know I’ve gone.”
There was something he needed to do without a witness in case he faced the rejection he feared. He pushed his way to the empty hall, taking the steps by two, and stopped in the throne room.
The Gilded Throne was still shrouded in shadow, the steps steeped in black.
Altair straightened the collar of his thobe that he had tailored for his brother’s coronation and strode to the dais, his footfalls hollow, his pulse quickening when the steps remained as dark as the night.
Sultan’s teeth. He laughed to himself. Those were his teeth now.
He held his breath and eased himself down. A whisper unfurled across the room, a sigh almost. One of us, the throne echoed. No, not the throne, the Sisters. Relief wound through him as resplendent gold spread over the darkness.
“Did you really believe the throne would not accept you?” The Silver Witch stepped from the shadows.
“Did you doubt your blood?”
Altair’s grip tightened around the arms of the throne, his knuckles white. “My own mother didn’t accept me.”
“A sin I will forever regret.”
He didn’t know why her remorse contented him.
“Why? I was an amalgamation of your mistakes,” he replied mildly, but the words held less bite and more a bone- deep weariness. As if the part of him bereft of her love wanted to believe her, and years of experience told him otherwise.
“And it was worse to blame my wrongs on a newborn child,” she said softly. “If there was ever proof that good triumphs over the darkest of times, it is you. I will not ask for the forgiveness I do not deserve, but know that I will live the rest of my days with regret.”
Altair considered the white mane of her hair, the loss she endured that no one would ever know the extent of. The power she had relinquished by giving up her heart. “Will you stay here? In the palace?”
“I thought I’d had my fill of these walls,” she said carefully. “But if you’ll have me…”
A flutter, in his chest.
“Now that you mention it,” he said after a beat of thought in which he didn’t think at all, extending an offer of peace, “I am in need of an advisor.”
His mother’s lips twitched in the faintest of smiles as the throne room doors swept open, bringing with it a gust of the revel and three others. His family. His zumra. His lifeline.
Nasir looked surprised to see their mother, and Altair gave him a sardonic smile.
Zafira bowed first. “My king.”
Nasir followed, then Kifah, and Altair leaped off the throne and rushed toward them.
“No!” he commanded. “You will never bow to anyone, least of all me.”
Kifah smirked. “I only did it so Zafira wouldn’t feel awkward.”
Zafira rolled her eyes, and Altair was struck by how much he would miss them. Ruling a kingdom was lonely like that. He couldn’t expect Nasir to govern Sarasin from Sultan’s Keep. He couldn’t keep Zafira from her home, or Kifah from her calipha.
The others sobered, realizing the same.
“Strange, isn’t it,” said Nasir, who was never one for contemplation. “How the darkness brought us together, and the light will let us fall apart?”
Zafira shook her head, looking among them. “We’re not falling apart. We hunted the flame on Sharr, set free the stars across the skies, but it was only ever the dawn of our zumra. Now we make sure that light doesn’t go out. Forever. Together.”
