Chaos spilled like a shattered water pot when Aya took the Lion’s hand in hers. Betraying them. Dreamy, beautiful Aya. Nasir saw it all, even from the distance the battle had carried him to. Disbelief and turmoil made it hard to breathe.
He threw up his scimitar, clashing with a fiery stave as it came arcing for his neck. He needed to get to Aya. Stop her. Immobilize the Lion and take back the heart. The hashashins unleashed arrows from their elevated positions, and bloodcurdling shrieks filled the vicinity. He combed the scene for Zafira, only to find her breathing down the shaft of an arrow of her own, leveled at the Lion.
Shoot, he thought.
She fired. The arrow soared, hope surging in him when it struck the Lion square in the chest. At last. A stroke of luck. He wasted no time. With a racing in his pulse that he was still growing accustomed to, Nasir fought his way forward. He heard Seif shouting, reasoning with her, but he was too far to signal. Nasir felled another ifrit and stumbled to his feet, wiping a smear of blood from his mouth as he ran.
The air stilled, alerting him to a presence, and he whirled to face Altair, whose mouth was set in contemplation as if he had a decision to make. Perhaps he did, for there was a stave gripped tight in his fingers.
And aimed at Nasir.
The breath escaped his lungs, and the sword fell from his hand. His mind blanked. He couldn’t move as Altair let the stave fly.
It zipped past Nasir’s shoulder, lodging in the throat of the ifrit behind him.
Nasir’s breath rasped out of him, relief too far gone to summon. Shadows spilled from his palms, surrounding them. Not now. Altair looked at him strangely, eyeing Nasir’s fallen sword before he disappeared into the dark without a word.
“Wait—” Nasir began, but stopped short when a fine white arrow cut into an ifrit creeping close. Zafira. He couldn’t see past the thick veil of shadows. He couldn’t hear beyond the clashing swords.
“Altair?” Nothing.
“Altair!” he shouted.
The snap of fingers came from a distance, and the ifrit vanished. Nasir stumbled, coming face to face with Kifah and her spear. Seif halted with his twin scythes in midair. The ground was littered with fallen ifrit and hashashins alike, a graveyard stretching between Nasir and the Lion.
The Lion.
Zafira’s arrow was in his hand, dripping black blood while he stood unaffected, almost unharmed.
To his right stood Aya. To his left was Altair.
Altair. Unchained. Content. Barely concerned. Nasir should have known the moment he saw his brother lounging with a book. Still, he felt something crushing inside him.
To what end?
The clouds finally parted for the sun, steeping the street and buildings in gold. Perhaps they were destined to be opposites: Nasir the dark to Altair’s light. The night to his day. The monster to his greatness. And now, once more, they were on opposing ends. Nasir with the forces of good, and Altair with the growing forces of evil.
The Lion tsked. “Such violence, Nasir. What will the people think when they see how little their crown prince has changed?”
“Altair!” Nasir roared, but the general turned with the Lion, and Nasir cursed the pain flooding him.
“Aya? Aya, this isn’t right,” Kifah yelled, frantic. “Altair, stop her!”
But her voice cracked with the same truth the rest of them had already gleaned—they would receive no help from Altair. Nasir’s fingers shook as he felt along his belt, empty of knives. The blades at his gauntlets were of no use at this distance. There was only one way.
Nasir looked to the rooftop and shouted.
