A searing exploded in her chest, her lungs, her heart. Distantly, she heard the shatter of glass, Benyamin going free. The howl of the wind. The roar of a creature that had lived far too long. A reign of darkness.
The Jawarat fell from her hands with a muted thud and a plume of dust. She collapsed to her knees, the stone cruel beneath her bones. She could only stare at the smear of red across the green leather with the knowledge that she had done something very, very wrong.
She had forgotten about the gash in her palm.
The Lion growled. “What have you done?”
/> Benyamin rose on shaky legs. “Her blood. The book bound itself to her.”
I am you, and you are me. The words were a whisper in her heart.
A handful of ifrit surrounded the jumu’a. A stave twirled in her peripheral vision, reminding her that the ifrit didn’t need to step upon the stone to kill her. But they wouldn’t. Not now.
The book’s words spilled from her lips. “Harm me, and the Jawarat will die. What you need will perish.”
The Lion paused. Sharr held its breath.
“Stand back,” he commanded, and the staves vanished.
Triumph sizzled in her veins.
But the Lion was not finished. “Did you expect to retrieve the Jawarat and leave, azizi? You came here upon the witch’s ships, and they are now gone; you will not take your leave that way. Give me the book.”
Illusioned ships. She was trapped.
The Jawarat pulsed beneath her fingers. Fear not, bint Iskandar. We are unstoppable. She remembered then: Benyamin’s ship, the one the Silver Witch ensured he would bring.
As if summoned by Zafira’s thoughts, a woman stepped from the shadows. A cloak of silver sat upon her shoulders, crimson lips curved in a smile. Memories collected in Zafira’s mind as the Jawarat showed her the past once more.
The Silver Witch had come.
“You should not have come, Anadil,” the Lion said.
Which side did the witch belong to now? For whom did she fight?
The Silver Witch dipped her chin and strode toward the Lion. As she moved, her billowing cloak shortened. A crimson sash knotted at her hip. Armor glinted at her shoulders. She flicked her arms to either side of her, twin blades extending in her hands. “Only the lonesome fear the lion.”
The lonesome. She was here for them. With them. The Lion realized it then, too, and he quickly halted her in her tracks. Not with a blade to her heart or a vise around her neck.
He merely looked to Nasir and curled two fingers.
Altair shouted as Nasir flew into the air with a wrangled breath, choking as he clawed at invisible hands around his throat. Panic flared in his eyes.
The Lion’s words still soothed, his whisper still raised the hairs on Zafira’s neck when he directed his command at her. “Give it here, azizi. You know how little his life means to me.”
“D-don’t,” Nasir gritted out.
He wasn’t losing breath if he could speak. He couldn’t die from that height if he fell. A terrible suspicion weighted her shoulders.
The Silver Witch threw out her hand, but the Lion shoved her to the ground with a flick of his other wrist. She fell to her knees, a black dagger impaling the hollow beneath her shoulder. She yanked it free with a hiss, but she was slow, and Zafira realized her magic was already depleting into Sharr. For a witch who had calculated so much for so many years, her decision to show her hand so quickly made no sense.
The Lion laughed. “I never did like your second son.”
Zafira gasped. The sultana. The Silver Witch was the Sultana of Arawiya.
No wonder she was acting recklessly. No wonder she had interfered with the sultan’s orders and aided them. Nasir and Altair were her sons.
A stave of black materialized in the Lion’s hand, sharp points extending on either side. Metal, shadow, darkness—he threw it.