Nasir saw Zafira slump over the Lion, and the darkness faded with the suddenness of a blade. Fear cut the air from his lungs. And then she rose with a heart in her fist, blood dripping down the length of her arm. The Lion tried to stand, but collapsed, panting as he struggled without magic, without a healer.
The black dagger was in his chest.
His blood stained the courtyard stone. He was dying.
The safi he called Baba continued to approach. Dark-haired and blue-eyed, aristocratic in a way much like the Lion. And changing—features shifting, figure curving, hair fading to stark white.
Recognition lurched in Nasir’s stomach.
It was his mother. Wronged by the Lion, wronged by the world. She had done as she’d vowed, and Nasir’s pride was fierce.
The Lion rasped a laugh. “That was cruel, Anadil. Even for you.”
He sounded sad, broken.
“You wronged me,” the Silver Witch lamented, and Nasir heard every last drop of pain in her words. “Far more than anyone ever will.”
“I loved you as no one ever did.”
Her mirthless laughter cracked. “You loved my power, as you claimed my Sisters had. You ruined me. Even in death they granted me a second chance.”
Remorse reshaped the Lion’s features. “No. Some part of me loved you, as you had loved me.”
A lie, Nasir thought in his bewildered state, but he trusted his mother. The Silver Witch knew the Lion more than any of them could imagine, and when she slowly knelt beside him, Nasir tried to ignore the warning bells as they tolled.
The Lion rolled his head to face her, and Nasir wondered how different life might have been if the Sisters hadn’t locked the ifrit away. If the safin hadn’t taken to pride so violently.
Perhaps, if Nasir hadn’t given in to wishful fantasy, he would have been ready when the Lion’s amber eyes flashed, an instant before he lunged.
And the Silver Witch screamed.
Nasir’s blood turned to ice, and he acted on instinct. On rage. On memory.
His mother screamed.
