The storm had arrived, the Lion at its cusp. Dressed in splendor like a king come for his throne, with every single dignitary of Arawiya gathered like cows to slaughter.
Zafira should have known. The signs were there: When the sultan remembered one moment but strangely not another from the same event. When he hadn’t lent a hand or thought to finding the fifth heart. When he had called his own son the Prince of Death.
The Lion had been controlling the sultan the entire time, playing them like the fools that they were. The Sultan’s Guard drew their swords and surrounded the platform. Hashashins halted near the walls, and Zafira knew there were ifrit lurking in the shadows. Both sides waited. The air was heavier than her cloak had ever been.
Through it all, Nasir sat on the dais with his father’s head in his lap. Unmoving.
No—weeping.
A boy, orphaned years ago and suffering afresh. The new Sultan of Arawiya, on his knees before his own throne, a river of his sorrow drenching his finery. His brow fell to his father’s with soundless anguish, and when the Lion turned to him with a frown, a warning throbbed in her limbs.
If she drew his attention, there was a chance he would direct whatever dark power he had at her and crush her heart with a flourish of his hand. But the Jawarat, a little voice reminded. He would still have need of it and its infinite knowledge. He wouldn’t risk its destruction by hurting her.
Nasir, however, like his father, no longer had a purpose, and if she waited any longer, he would die.
“Haider.”
In the split breath it took Zafira to push Lana away and say the Lion’s name—his true name—every single member of the Sultan’s Guard turned to her.
As did the Lion.
“Did you enjoy my theatrics, azizi?”
He spoke as if it were only the two of them in the vastness of the room. He looked at her as if she were his, his gaze hungrily roaming the length of her.
“My bladed compass, sheathed in starlight,” he murmured. “Did you hope to compete for the prince’s hand? To wear the crown of the sultana? I admit, that bit about brides was improvisation. To send your heart aflutter. You looked quite pale, if I recall.”
At his feet, Nasir stirred from his wretched stupor.
“I have no interest in crowns,” she bit out, her voice echoing in the hall.
“That remains to be seen, azizi,” he promised, and crossed the final distance to the Gilded Throne, the golden light illuminating an odd pallor to his skin.
Lana whispered a sob, and Zafira knew how she felt, how everyone in this room felt, even the ancient safin. It was one thing to hear that the Lion of the Night was alive. It was quite another to see him in the flesh.
“It won’t accept him,” Kifah murmured with razor-edged hope, banking on a truth every child knew: The Gilded Throne allows only the blood of the Sisters or the ones they’ve appointed.
The room was charged with that very thought.
The thud of his footsteps echoed when he turned, and Zafira thought she caught a hint of fervent green from the folds of his robes, her stomach lurching for the barest of
instances before her heart did the same as the Lion lowered himself onto the Gilded Throne.
Nothing happened—at first. The throne didn’t repel him. It didn’t thunder and throw him off.
Laa.
It changed. The gold became black, color draining from left to right, smoke curling like ashes on the wind. Kifah loosed a strangled breath.
The resulting silence was deafening, the death of an era, and the Lion’s soft, triumphant sigh was a roar immortalized in history.
A silver-liveried guard stirred from the foot of the dais, the thick suspense in the hall slowing time as the fool dropped to his knees, awe hollowing his voice when he said, “Sultani.”
The Lion frowned. “I never did like the word. The sultan is dead. This night, we abandon the old ways and bring forth the new: I am king. King of Arawiya.”
And then he flourished a hand, his command like a knife. “Kill them.”
