There truly was no fool bigger than Zafira. I love you? She wanted to bash her head against the nearest wall.
If Kifah hadn’t knocked when she did, Zafira’s wayward tongue would have run too far to reel back, though the look on Kifah’s face when Nasir followed her out of the room was mortifying enough. He barely met Zafira’s eyes as he hurried on and turned down a different hall, the guards on either end snapping to attention.
She was aware, then, that those were the last words she would say to him before he was bound to another. Before this night was over, all that they had shared would no longer be the beginnings of a possibility but the end of a memory—unless he spoke out and held his ground.
“So that’s why you weren’t with Lana. Akhh, he’s looking cheery,” Kifah observed as she appraised her. “You, on the other hand, look like you climbed out of someone’s dream. Probably his.”
Zafira felt bare with her hair unbound, lost in the flame of his touch and the yearning beneath her skin. She felt powerful, too, with her new jambiya against her leg.
“I was worried when you weren’t in the audience hall,” Kifah continued. Her own new attire was fierce: A sleeveless tunic dropped at a slant to her mid-thigh, the high neck embroidered in bold gold filigree. She started to say something more, but stopped.
Zafira cast her a sidelong glance. “What is it?”
She pulled a small cylinder of polished wood with golden caps from a loop at her hip. With a flick of her wrist, it extended to either side, a vicious spearhead at the very end.
“I’m impressed.” Zafira’s brows rose.
Kifah flicked a latch and the spear retracted. She attached it to her waist. “A gift from Benyamin.”
Zafira’s throat closed, imagining Benyamin preparing for a matter of life and death, yet pausing to construct a gift for the stranger with whom he would undertake a momentous journey.
“It’s exquisite.”
Kifah nodded, torn. “Calipha Ghada had it with her. She wants me to come back.”
Ah. The Calipha of Pelusia. “But that’s good, isn’t it? It seemed like you wanted her to forgive you.”
“Not with an ultimatum. I’d have to go back with them now. After the feast. It means leaving everything behind. You, the prince, Altair … magic. Forgo my vengeance and regain my place.” She barked a bitter laugh. “My father would love it.”
What could Zafira say? If she had to decide between going back to her home or staying here to restore magic and defeat the Lion, she couldn’t choose one or the other. She wanted both. She wanted more. She wanted to return home without the guilt of Deen’s death. To find Umm alive and Yasmine smiling. She wanted magic returned without the betrayal of Aya and Altair.
No matter what, though, she was a part of this now. She could not see herself stepping away, not after what she had endured and all she had lost.
“Your advice is unmatched, Huntress,” Kifah drawled.
Zafira laughed. “I can’t be the one to decide which is more important to you. Your place in the Nine, which you joined for vengeance against your father. Or your place in the restoration of magic, which you once decided would be an even bigger blow to your father. Big enough that it was worth leaving Pelusia against your calipha’s wishes.” Zafira stopped to look
at her. “If you leave us, you will be missed. If we restore magic without you, it will always be your victory, too.”
Kifah let out a low whistle. “And yet, once magic is restored, who’s to say how Arawiya will be?”
Once, she said, not if. That was Kifah, doubtless and fierce, but Zafira shared her concern. She was no longer the Hunter now that the Arz was gone. She wasn’t even a daughter anymore. What was she to do after magic returned?
She would need to start afresh. She and Lana.
“That’s what makes the future beautiful.” Lana’s voice came from behind them.
Kifah rolled her eyes. “I doubt there’s a fourteen-year-old as ancient as you, little Lana. That’s what makes the future terrifying.”
Zafira stilled.
Lana’s dress was sage, a pale shade of fresh sprigs adorned with tiny pearls. Pleats were set across the length, folds of bronze wound around the middle to accentuate her nimble shape. Brown kohl framed her eyes, and if Baba were here, he would have wept at the sight of his little healer, a woman now.
Lana had always been beautiful; now she was breathtaking. “What do you think?” she asked shyly after the silence
dragged on a beat too long.
Zafira lifted her brows. “I think we ought to hide you away.”
Lana wrinkled her nose dismissively, but she was glowing with pride. Happiness. It was what her sister deserved after what had happened to Aya and Umm, and Zafira decided then that no matter what, she would see this mission through. She would end the Lion with her last breath if it meant a world where Lana could be happy.
She could barely imagine a world such as that. Without the Arz, without the Lion. She wasn’t artless—she knew a world without danger could never exist, but if there was one where death didn’t loom, where a girl didn’t have to fear becoming the woman she once idolized, Zafira would find it.
Before two massive doors, a servant in white garb lowered his head, and the rest of Zafira’s thoughts were lost in a gasp. The audience hall was quite possibly the largest room she had ever seen, flourishing in the latest that art and innovation had to offer.
The floor was exquisite, creamy marble offset with small metallic diamonds lit aflame by the ornate chandeliers. Marble columns supported a domed ceiling inlaid with a mosaic of patterns in an array of deep blues, browns, and rich gold. How odd that something so far out of reach was bedecked with such intricate beauty. Tightly wound swaths of fabric clung to certain angles, rope dangling for a single pull in which the jewel-toned curtains would unfold.
“It’s so neat,” Lana said.
Zafira gave her a look. “You’re making us look uncultured.”
Kifah smirked. “After dinner is when the revelry really starts. The curtains drop, lights dim. Raqs sharqi. Arak.” She lowered her voice, clearly enjoying herself. “Debauchery.”
“Raqs sharqi … Isn’t that belly dancing?” Lana asked, eyes wide.
“Here?” Zafira asked, and Kifah broke out in laughter, making Zafira wonder just how much the Nine Elite had witnessed in the Pelusian palace.
“We’ll make sure you’re tucked into bed by then.”
A man in a white thobe and a russet turban stepped to the forefront of the hall, and Kifah cursed. “We’re late.”
She dragged Zafira and Lana past rows and rows of cushioned majlises set before low ebony tables. People tracked their progress; servants darted to and fro. The air was stifling, heady perfumes stirred with the aroma of the food still to come, and Zafira held her breath at the pungent stench of garlic underlying it all. At the head, steps led to a platform covered in richly dyed cushions and a low table, legs curved like half arches. Behind it, like the centerpiece of a woven rug, was the Gilded Throne.
Zafira could barely imagine how the place would look after the dinner. Was Nasir expected to stay? Her mind raced, imagining him lounging on the dais, eyes hooded as a woman swayed her hips for him, sheer clothes bright as the coy promise on her lips. It wasn’t as if this were his first feast. Skies, he might have attended hundreds of these.
Kifah elbowed her. Zafira spotted Seif on the opposite end of the room, his gold tattoo catching the light of the thousands of flickering flames. He still couldn’t seem to find a shirt, his bold thobe in black and deep gold unbuttoned to his bare torso.
“Calipha Ghada bint Jund min Pelusia, home to Arawiya’s greatest inventions and the Nine Elite!” the man in white announced.
The din settled to a hushed murmur.
“There she is. The source of my worries,” Kifah said, but there was pride high in her voice.
A raven’s coo drew Zafira’s attention as the Pelusian calipha strode down the farthest row in a turban of liquid gold, her abaya wide and sweeping. The dark bird assessed the room from her shoulder, as alert as a hashashin. Ghada’s daughter followed, as dark as the night and her mother, her purple abaya clinging to her generous curves, hair tucked beneath a red turban. There was a playfulness to her eyes and the quirk of her mouth.
She was one of the young women Nasir would choose from by the night’s end.
“Is that Nawal?” Lana asked quietly.
Kifah nodded. “Ghada’s daughter was the closest I had to a friend, and now she’s the only reason I’m being tolerated at all.”
Eight more followed the calipha: their heads shorn, outfits of red rimmed in purple depicting the colors of Pelusia, arms bare except for their golden cuffs. Not one of them was tattooed, and they were all notably calmer than Kifah was. Or maybe Zafira had gotten so used to Kifah’s restless demeanor that it only looked like the rest of the Nine Elite moved like slugs.
“Do you regret it?” Zafira asked.
“Do I regret wanting revenge, you mean?” Kifah snorted. “Never. I just need to decide if it’s still worth it.”
The deep voice rang out again: “Caliph Rayyan bin Jafar min Zaram, where the mighty forged a path through the cursed forest, and none could stop them!”
Perhaps it was because of what she knew of the Zaramese
—that they were brutes who tamed the seas, who fought in arenas and reveled in blood—that Zafira expected their caliph to be a brawny, callous man.
Caliph Rayyan bin Jafar looked like a reed swaying at the water’s edge, his wiry build folding beneath the weight of his jeweled cloak. He was followed by his daughter in a headdress made of shells, more regal than the caliph himself, and his three sons.
“The esteemed Calipha Rania and daughter Leila min Alderamin, where the safin idle in elegance, immortal to the bone!”
No one outside of Alderamin had seen the royal Alder family in nearly a century, and the silence was instant.
Every head swiveled to witness Benyamin’s mother. Safin were always pushing the boundaries of Arawiyan tradition, and the calipha’s appearance was no exception. She was average in height, her long hair unbound and uncovered, crowned with a gold circlet at her temple. Her elongated ears were wrapped in gold, her black abaya studded with rosy pearls. Vanity shrouded her like a cloak, and she carried her beauty with a sharp-edged cruelty.
By her side was another safi, taller by a hand, a tattoo circling her left eye. The neckline of her abaya was cut deeper than modesty would ever allow, and Zafira quickly lifted her gaze from the plunging seams. Her face, unexpectedly, was kind, her eyes a familiar umber.
“Benyamin’s sister,” Kifah murmured. Did Leila know her brother was dead? That her sister-in-law had joined the forces of the Lion? “Bleeding Guljul, that calipha. Can you imagine what would happen if our prince was fool enough to ask her daughter to be his wife?”
“Chaos?” Lana asked. Kifah nodded. “Bloodbath.”
Zafira didn’t doubt it. Wearing the crown of sultana held no merit if it meant sitting beside a mostly mortal husband. Even if he was half si’lah.
“You can’t let him do it, Okhti. You can’t let him marry anyone else,” Lana murmured, gripping her arm. Anyone else, as if she were a contender in a roster of royal women. She, a peasant from the poorest village of Demenhur.
Zafira shushed her.
Like the rest, the calipha, her daughter, and their circle remained standing. No one smiled. Their ears were in full display as if to say Look at my immortality and bow.
“Caliph Ayman al-Ziya min Demenhur!”
Ice flooded Zafira’s veins. Her caliph strode down the row with his hunched shoulders and fading hair. Lana made a sound akin to a growl. Haytham was close at the caliph’s heels, wearing a checkered keffiyah held by a black rope, a sword sheathed by his side with a brilliant moonstone pommel. He was the picture of a dutiful wazir, except for his haunted eyes, hollow circles beneath them.
Zafira remembered his sorrow from when they’d stood before the missing Arz, how terrible it had been. What his face showed now was infinitely worse, and she couldn’t understand what would cause it. Death? More secrets?
He had known all along that Zafira was a girl, and never said a word. He had recognized in her what he had instilled in the caliph’s daughter, discarded for her gender. If not for Haytham, the girl would have lacked the tutelage of an heir.
White-hot rage shot through Zafira’s skull as she recalled that no one in Arawiya, aside from Haytham and herself, even knew that the caliph of Demenhune had a daughter.
Kifah gripped her arm. “Oi, stay calm.”
Zafira swayed back with a low breath and ran her gaze across the gathered crowd.
She hated Ayman. She hated how angry he made her feel, rekindling the rage born from her bond with the Jawarat. The surrounding noise blurred into one, her blood rushing through her ears. The burning rage seared her gaze.
This isn’t like you.
The Jawarat was gone. It couldn’t continue influencing her. But as she fought her anger and her darkening thoughts, she blearily recalled its promise, smug and sure: We will align with time.
“Caliph Elect, Muzaffar bin Jul min Sarasin!”
She exhaled slowly at the sound of the announcer’s voice.
The man, middle-aged and well dressed in a finely spun russet thobe, looked every bit the merchant he was presumed to be. His skin was the same olive tone as Nasir’s, and as if testament to the improvements he was spearheading in Sarasin, his face was pleasant. He was a reminder that there was good in this world. She hoped the sultan would see it and appoint him, and quickly.
The announcer’s voice rang one final time, and not a single guest dared to breathe.
“Esteemed guests, the Sultan of Arawiya, once of Sarasin, and Crown Amir, Nasir bin Ghameq bin Talib.”
Zafira’s heart slowed, pulsing in time to the sultan’s steps. He grasped his gold-banded black cloak in one hand, a white thobe flashing beneath it. How he could spend time and coin on clothing and feasting instead of searching for the Lion and the fifth heart was beyond Zafira. Laa, it made her as angry as the Caliph of Demenhur did.
Lana nudged her.
Behind the sultan, a wraith in the night, was Nasir. His features were stoic, eyes trained at his father’s back. Someone had contained his hair in a checkered turban, neat dark folds held by a silver circlet, though the stubborn strands didn’t want to stay put and a lock curled boyishly at his temple. His thobe was immaculately fitted to his lithe frame, tailored sharp enough to cut. Dark damasks embroidered the panels, the high collar trimmed in silver. He looked smart, princely, and unarmed, but she knew that last one was a lie.
He looks beautiful, her heart whispered to her.
The sultan settled onto his throne. Nasir remained at his side, eyes sweeping the room as the dignitaries took their seats.
“There’s that look,” Kifah muttered beneath her breath, and Zafira met the fervent flint of his gaze with a suppressed
shiver—almost, almost missing the way his mouth quirked at one corner with the faintest smirk before his mask returned.
Cannot all three be one and the same?
A silence fell over the room when the sultan lifted his chin.
