Nasir tossed the bloodied rag into the bin and swept a look across the room. Khara. He had forgotten about Zafira’s sister. A thousand scenarios flitted through his brain: She would have panicked. She would have unlocked the other door or thrown open the window and tried to escape at the first clash of weaponry. The men had only just dragged the last of the bodies away, a pair of guards leading—to Nasir’s relief—the tired sultan to his rooms. He hurried to unlock the door and paused against the doorway.
Lana lay on the bed, eyes closed, chest rising too quickly to be asleep.
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth before he folded it away with a sigh and locked the door again.
There was no chance of him sleeping. Not now, when his father was suddenly his father again, a concept he had last seen so long ago that he didn’t know when exactly Ghameq had begun to change. He recalled the Silver Witch’s words on Sharr, that she had never known true love until she met his father. The medallion had been her wedding gift to him, one of the last remaining artifacts from her life as warden of the island. She had not known it held a bit of its darkness, that it soon became a channel connecting the Lion to her beloved.
There was a time when he had been kind, when lines would crease near his eyes as he smiled, when he would hold his wife in his arms, pride and love in the timbre of his voice. Laa, the Lion’s control was a gradual thing, deepening and worsening as the years progressed.
Nasir folded his keffiyah, wound it into a turban, and eased the door closed behind him. The halls were silent save for the
occasional drift of maids and servants who caught sight of him and disappeared just as quickly.
Home sweet home, he thought dryly.
Meaning to search for some sign of the Lion or Altair, he soon found himself in the latter’s rooms. They were ghostly without his riotous laughter and boisterous voice, and an ache began somewhere in Nasir’s chest. He trailed his hand along the table, the vases full of dates and sweets and candy-coated almonds. Every chair was draped with an ostentatious throw, and his gaze softened at the sight of a dallah on a low table. The faint whiff of Altair’s beloved qahwa clung to the air.
Nasir pulled back the curtain and stepped into the bedroom. His ears burned as he remembered the last time he was here.
He had always wondered why Altair’s rooms were different from the rest. Why he had been given first choice— the golden wall latticed in the most ornate of patterns; the sprawling platform bed, twice as wide as Nasir’s own; the circular skywindow cut into the center of the ceiling, providing an unhindered view of the sky.
He knew now that it wasn’t for any reason other than Altair being alive to choose them. How did it feel to live on when the moons rose and fell without end? To see people born and age and wither and die while one still retained one’s youth?
Sad.
That was how it felt to even think it.
It wouldn’t be so foreign a concept for himself, either. Nasir was half si’lah, and though his mortal blood would not allow him to live forever, he would live long enough to be glad of it. Unless he was killed, of course. Always so lively, Altair said in his head.
Nasir tugged his already-lowered sleeve over the words inked on his arm. I once loved. Those years could be endless,
or they could be nothing at all depending on how he lived them, and who he lived them with.
He skimmed the bookshelf, four planks of insanity. Each book brimmed with life—random markers, loose sheaves shoved every which way. Nothing was arranged by size or color or any semblance of order.
What can I say? I like my shelves messy and my lovers well fed.
It was what Altair had to say when Nasir had remarked upon them. Before Sharr, when the oaf had been half-dressed and decidedly not alone.
The reed pen rolled off Altair’s desk, and Nasir bent to fetch it, snaring on a bump in the wool rug. He crouched with a frown, tugging his glove free to run his fingers along a palmette the size of his hand in the corner. It was raised.
With care, he peeled off the motif sewn onto the rug. Large enough to hide a stack of letters.
Nasir paused, glancing from the worn folds of papyrus, earthy and rough-edged, to the doorway.
“I’m becoming a nosy old crone,” he said to himself, and leaned against the bed beneath the night sky. Curiosity made him do this, for Altair was loud and shameless—and smart. He left no trail save for the one in his head. Why hadn’t these been burned? Perhaps there hadn’t been time during the rush of readying for Sharr.
Nasir parted the first fold of papyrus. Then he flicked to the next, and the one after, ears burning hotter and hotter.
They were love letters.
Ours is the most fervent of love … I yearn for you endlessly …
My days pass in waiting for you, my nights in dreaming of you …
Not all were innocent. Some were scant—Does your body ache for my touch as mine for yours?—while others were longer and detailed, the words stirring his blood. He was a prince, an assassin, a monster, but in the end he was still a boy.
And that was when he saw it, tucked between the wanton words and indecent declarations.
The road will be secured two days hence.
Tariffs dropped between Pelusia and Demenhur. Validated by Nawal.
Distribution at Dar al-Fawda. Pelusian provisions.
Trade agreements. Treaties. Discussions. These weren’t love letters. These were fragments of Altair’s web, proof of his labors to unify the kingdom. Nasir could see him gathering ordinary people, arming them with bravery and courage, driving them with his wit and charm. Rousing hope in a way very few could, commanding men in an army and hearts of the common folk just the same.
While Nasir murdered them. While he, the prince born with the obligation to care for and ensure their safety, killed them.
The letters trembled in his hands. Wrinkled in his grip.
Remain in the shadows and serve the light.
He was no fool with romantic abandon. Death was irreversible, and he could never make amends for the wrongs he had done, but he was trying. He gave himself that much. He was trying to make things right, to be part of Arawiya’s change. To stop seeing people by the tendons he should slit and the number of beats it would take to kill.
He would wear the crown of the Prince of Death no longer.
He leaned back on his knees. What was he without the fear people looked to him with? Without the names in his pocket, and the missions that were his purpose? Monsters were
created for a purpose, a destiny to be fulfilled. Who was he without the tally on his back and the weapons on his person?
Nasir gathered the letters and tucked them away, securing the palmette back in place. He had freed his father, ensuring the dignitaries’ safety, but there was more to be done. He set Altair’s reed pen back on the desk and stepped away with a whisper.
“Don’t die.”
