Zafira’s heart stopped when Nasir doubled over. She turned in the direction of the ifrit that had fired at him, but Kifah got there first, spear dripping black. Get up, she pleaded to Nasir’s fallen form. Skies, she was angry at him—she didn’t want him daama dead.
Across the gauzy black, he straightened and wrenched the arrow free, and with relief, she recalled the layer of mail attached to the underside of his robes.
Then he turned to something behind him. Someone.
There, like the golden figurehead of a dark ship, was Altair. The sight of him threw her back to Sharr, Benyamin by her side and Altair’s raillery keeping them afloat. Her heart lurched to her throat. At some point, she had come to care profoundly for the general who had killed Deen by accident.
“Bleeding Guljul,” Kifah rasped.
Nasir looked at Altair with barely contained irritation. Just like old times. “Find a weapon and help us.”
Zafira paused. Perhaps a little more aggressive than old times.
“Focus,” Seif spat, ripping his scythe across an ifrit that had come dangerously close.
Zafira nocked another arrow and backed away, scanning her surroundings. The din was reminiscent of a stage—scores of discreet witnesses to the Lion centered upon an expanse, ifrit stationed around him. She had almost forgotten what it was like to be locked in battle with the beings of smokeless fire.
There was little chance of slipping into the house for the heart and the Jawarat now, but she was the compass in the storm—she felt her quarry draw near when the Lion did. The frenzied pull of dum sihr subsided in her veins, and she knew: neither the heart nor the book would be inside the house.
Laa, they were with the Lion himself.
When the ifrit converged, Zafira took down one after another, making her way toward him. The heat of their staves stung her nostrils, shadows winding around her arms and the bare skin of her neck. She caught sight of Aya’s pink abaya as she and Seif cornered the Lion, her pale staff coming up between a stave and catching the Lion off guard. Yes. Now all Zafira needed was to get in a single shot. Throw the Lion off- kilter to allow Aya time to thieve the heart and Jawarat from him.
“Fair Aya,” she heard the Lion say. “I had hoped to see you.”
Zafira stiffened but could barely see, despite her height. A ladder was propped against a narrow building rising like the chimneys in Demenhur. She threw off an ifrit and hurried up the rungs. What was Aya that the rest of them weren’t? Safin? Whatever she said made the Lion produce a laugh, demeaning and bereft of mirth.
“You’ve come to kill me.”
The fighting came to a jarring halt. The ifrit seemed to coalesce. Zafira held her aim, breathing down her arrow’s shaft as silence spread.
A healer. She remembered Lana’s eerie recollection of the boy who lay supine after the attacks in Demenhur, a boy she had brought back to life—Aya was one of the best, even without magic.
“I merely wish to understand,” Aya said.
Zafira froze. There was nothing to understand. The Lion had strayed beyond reason. He had murdered and maimed and destroyed in pursuit of his madness.
“Do you think your husband thought of you when he leaped to save his zumra? Mortals whose lives will end just like that?” He snapped his fingers, and another ring of his dark soldiers formed, shadowy and volatile. This was a game to him. They were daama mice.
For all her dreaminess, Aya was strong. Resilient. She had lost her son and found a way to persevere. She had lost her husband and remained a member of this mission.
Lies. She was floundering, and Zafira knew it. She was troubled, and they should not have allowed her to come.
“How much longer will the old ways sustain us?” The Lion raised his voice, knowing full well he had an audience as malleable as they were curious. “How quickly the Sisters of Old abandoned their people, leaving behind despair and desolation.” He looked at Aya again, his voice almost tender as he said, “We are the broken ones. Victims of a world that continues to take, and take, and take. To what end, I ask you?”
Skies, the Lion was mad. He had been a part of the problem. It was because of him that Baba was dead. That Benyamin was gone. He had wronged others just as he had been wronged. The cruel cycle had no end.
And yet Aya brought her staff down against the ground.
Zafira felt its thud in her soul.
“The time has come to shape the world into one of our own making,” the Lion said softly.
Zafira recognized Aya’s expression. It was the look of a person who finally woke up.
The Lion smiled at Aya as defeat crushed her shoulders. There was no cunning in it this time, only kindness. Not a
single ifrit attacked her, and when the Lion extended his hand, Zafira saw her go still. Contemplative.
Barely three steps away. “Aya, no!” Seif shouted.
Nasir was locked in battle. Altair was nowhere to be seen. Zafira sighted her aim. They were here for the heart and the Jawarat. Not—not this.
Two steps.
Zafira’s blood ran cold. The Lion’s mouth shaped more lies that Aya devoured like the starved.
One.
Aya smiled that dreamy smile and took the Lion’s hand in hers.
