“I refused to kill. My resistance lasted however long I could withstand the pain. You saw all of my disgusting scars. They’re a tally of my kills—only I was tallied before each kill, with the poker, by my father’s hand.” He exhaled a heavy breath. “By the Lion’s hand.
“But the destruction to my body was nothing”—his voice cracked. The Prince of Death’s voice cracked and Zafira’s eyes burned—“compared to what I felt when I saw my mother crying as she watched.
“She was the one who trained me, employing the kingdom’s best hashashins. What was the point? Why does a prince need to be an assassin? Eventually, I could withstand the pain for as long as the sultan would press that poker to my flesh. As long as my body was being brutalized, someone did not have to die by my hand. But then he turned to my mother.” His breath shook. That was why the pain meant so little to him—he had learned to ignore it. “I had to choose between watching her suffer or killing another innocent person. And by the time I decided I would stop fighting, that I would do as he asked, it was too late.”
Kill or be killed.
A rim of red ringed his eyes. He looked at the streaks of shadow trailing up his fingers, blackening his skin, and then beyond her shoulder, to where the Lion’s palace loomed. The master of Sharr, maestro of words. Alive for the past nine decades while the people of Arawiya believed him to be dead.
She smoothed the paste onto Nasir’s skin, and he made a sound before he could stop himself.
“I should be relieved my father didn’t become a monster of his own accord. But … the villainy that took him whittled away at me, too. There’s no Lion controlling me. I became this.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a poet of the kill,” Zafira said softly, using his words. “Remain in the shadows and serve the light. Your father may never have control over his will again. You still do.”
His only response was the twist of his lips, as if what he had already said was enough to suffice a lifetime.
She changed the subject. “The others—”
“Will join us here.” He left no room for doubt.
He trusts Altair to stay alive. His brother. A safi who hid his identity. For what?
And why, when he had the chance to kill Altair, had the Lion held back?
“Why did you come to Sharr?”
She opened her mouth and he stopped her, a gleam in his eyes. “If you say ‘honor,’ I will draw my sword and you will fight me.”
Her eyes widened and something raced beneath her skin. She was fully aware of the way she was pressed against him. The way the insides of her thighs held him in place. The way his eyes roved her, as heavy as a touch. “What’s wrong with honor?”
“Nothing, except that an act done for honor is done for honor alone. Nothing else.”
“I don’t do what I do for anything else. What do you know of honor, anyway?”
The corners of his lips twitched upward. Almost sadly. “A true hashashin follows a creed. I’m nothing but a loyal lapdog. You, on the other hand, you may do what you do for the good of your people, but that’s not the only reason, is it?”
Zafira bit down on her tongue. She thought of the Arz, the moments before her hunts. When she stood in the face of death and uncertainty and rushed into it. When the darkness beckoned.
“The first time I visited the Arz, it was because we were starving,” she said. “I know I could have stolen a goat or lamb, but ‘thief’ doesn’t have the same ring as ‘hunter,’ does it?”
He shook his head quickly when he realized she was waiting for a response.
“After that, I went because I couldn’t stop. When you live a life of endless winter, where the snow drifts the same, where the trees stand the same, where your mother—where ‘methodical’ becomes a daama disease, you … gravitate. It gave me purpose. Because a life without purpose is no life at all.”
“And?” he said, leaning closer. His legs shifted beneath her.
She shook her head, stopping him. Thinking of the Lion folding his fingers as he listed his proof. She couldn’t be doing everything for the mere purpose of being loved. She couldn’t.
“I’ve never seen a face more open,” he said with a soft laugh before growing intent, stealing her breath. “You do it for them. For them to love you.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.
“We’re so quick to dismiss the sentiment as weak, but hearts beat for love, don’t they? A life without purpose may be no life, but a life without love is nothing but an existence.”
She rubbed the backs of her knuckles across the ache in her chest. Something loosened, helping her breathe. He was right. The Lion was right, too. Nasir held her gaze, a strange look on his face.
Almost as if he had come to the same realization as she.