As they led their horses through the gates, the paved ground gritty with sand, the growing heat settled on Nasir like a fine cloak. The rooftops would be quicker, but for once, he wanted to be seen. He was expected, and he had no reason to sneak about.
Posturing as your favorite brother, I see, Altair’s voice mocked in his head. Perhaps he was.
Aya had insisted on accompanying him, which meant Lana did, too. She rode with the safi, eyes wide in wonder as Nasir led them past sprawling limestone constructions and their green-tinted pools. They could pass as mother and daughter if one ignored their ears, he realized. Their features were similar enough, eyes brown, hair barely shades apart.
Lana turned to Aya with a smile far more innocent than he knew the girl to be—he’d heard her daama hiss when Zafira protested being alone with him. But Aya’s gaze softened and grew distant, and Nasir remembered: Benyamin and Aya once had a child. That was what Aya saw when she looked at Lana, young and duteous.
The morning was quiet until they reached the Sultan’s Road, a wide expanse of stone that left no obstacle to mar the view of the palace, shimmering with heat. Along either side of the road was a single row of date palms, akin to sentinels, leaves swaying in the early breeze, accentuating the beauty of the palace.
He passed marketgoers and guards. Servants bargained for every bit of produce they placed in their baskets. Men passed on horseback and more on foot, several with camels ambling beside them. Some merchants dragged carts while others
hefted goods over their shoulders, rousing dust as they shuffled in their sandals.
The whispers were immediate, carrying on the dry breeze and straight to his ears.
The prince is back. Behind me, my child.
If only it were the general who had returned.
Altair was every bit as much a murderer as Nasir, yet they doted on him. He kept them safe, they said. He smiled. He charmed.
Nasir had shamefully joined the masses.
Lana giggled at one of the more indecent comments, and they pressed on. The people stared at Aya just as much, awestruck and slack-jawed, for she was beautiful and graceful, her smile tender no matter who it was fixed upon.
If curiosity lifted any of the people’s gazes to his, terror quickly glazed them. It awakened a surge of power in him, making the shadows in his bloodstream stir. Some part of him had missed the fear he deserved, but he hadn’t missed the reverence. He had loathed it when they dropped to their knees and lowered their heads with murmured respects.
Now he felt Aya and Lana’s silence as they witnessed the way people looked at him, the Prince of Death.
Amir al-Maut.
The name undercut the meticulous changes in himself that he had cultivated upon Sharr.
Then who am I? he’d asked on Sharr. Zafira had given him an answer then, quick and succinct. If only the truth were as easy.
A falcon drifted across the horizon, dipping behind one of the palace minarets. Nasir slowed his horse to a trot and dismounted at the palace gates, their grandeur every bit as
despicable as always. If the guards were surprised to see him, they didn’t show it. They even continued with their chattering, one of them stepping forward for the horse’s reins with a boldness Nasir did not like.
He dropped his hood as he strode through the black gates, increasingly aware of his surroundings, from the beads cascading down the lip of the fountain shaped like a lounging lion to the angle of the desert breeze.
At the palace doors, the two guards lowered their heads in solemn greeting, neither emitting the fear they usually did, and Nasir slowed his steps, touching a hand to his sword before counting again the throwing knives linked to his belt.
Inside, the usually empty palace was a touch stiller. The dignitaries would not arrive for a few days still. Laa, this trap was for him, and he refused to fall within its grasp. Apprehension molded to his skin, the dark power in his blood aiding his sight in the gloom of the hall as it had done in the Lion’s palace on Sharr.
Illumining the five men in the silver of the Sultan’s Guard.
