We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

Zafira felt the stirrings of something at her tone.

“And you cannot return home.”

Purpose. That was what she felt. Something dragging her from this sinking, burrowing sense of being nothing.

“If you do, your entire journey to Sharr—including your friend’s death, Benyamin’s slaughter, and Altair’s capture—will have been in vain.”

Perhaps the witch had always known someone with the rare affinity of finding whatever they set their heart to—a da’ira—wasn’t needed for the job. Perhaps she saw in Zafira what Zafira could not see in her, but knew from the memories of the Jawarat to be true. Someone like herself, guided by a good heart and pure intentions, before she fell prey to a silver tongue.

“The hearts are dying. They are organs removed from their houses, deteriorating as we speak. Restore them to their minarets, or magic will be gone forever.”

CHAPTER 3

Under his philosophy, retrospect was the antecedent of wrinkles. Yet shackled and shoved into the dank bowels of the ship, Altair al-Badawi could do nothing else.

He had spent most of his life vying for his mother’s love, trying to atone for the curl of her lips every time she turned his way. Though it hadn’t taken long to understand that she saw him as the culmination of her failures, it wasn’t until Sharr when he learned the extent of it: that she was a Sister of Old and the reason magic was gone, that she had—

Altair halted the thought with a grimace.

It wasn’t often one learned he was the Lion of the Night’s son.

The sun crawled through the tiny excuse for a window, marking two days since he’d labored with the ifrit on Sharr to salvage the ship they now sailed in. And in the two days since, he’d been fed and given a chair to sit upon. Not bad for a prisoner.

If he wasn’t being milked like a prize goat.

Every so often, an ifrit would come to secure his chains to the wall, rendering him immobile before slitting his palm to fill a tankard for the Lion to get drunk on. He loathed being the fuel for his father’s dum sihr, forbidden magic that allowed one to go beyond one’s own affinity. But worse than the chains and the bloodletting, perhaps, were the shackles, spanning at least a quarter of the length of his forearms and suppressing his power. Heavy black ore wrought with words in the old tongue of Safaitic.

The odd push and pull in his veins was taking its toll. It slowed his mind, a thought more troubling than the loss of his physical strength—for it meant the Lion would always be one step ahead of him.

Laa. Half a step.

A latch lifted, and he flopped back in his dilapidated chair, propping his feet atop the worn table despite the rattle of his chains, and when the Lion of the Night stepped into the hold, the flare of his nostrils pleased Altair far too much.

“Your horde is slow,” Altair announced as if he were speaking to his uniformed men. Simply because he was in chains didn’t mean he had to sacrifice dignity. The rich flaunted chains all the time. “We’re nowhere near shore, and with the Silver Witch on Nasir’s side, spinning illusions as well as you do shadows, they’re guaranteed to reach the mainland before you. Time is merely another mirage for her to bend. And when we dock wherever it is you plan on docking, my brother will be waiting.”

This was where Altair’s bluster faltered.

For his half brother was the same Prince of Death he had accompanied to Sharr, fully aware that his orders were to bury Altair upon that forsaken island. He had left him instead.

Nasir and the zumra, strangers who had become family, had turned and fled, abandoning him to their foe. Laa, he didn’t truly know if his brother would be waiting.

But if there was one thing he did better than look impeccable, it was bluff.

“Your freedom, Lion, will be short-lived,” Altair finished somewhat lamely. Akhh, valor was a fickle temptress as it was.

The Lion gave him the phantom of a simper that Altair himself had worn far too many times. Like father, like son. It was unnerving to think the man was his father when he looked barely a day older than him. Then again, Altair himself was ninety, the exact age of Arawiya without magic. More than four times Nasir’s age, and if he was being humble, he’d say he looked a year younger than the grump.

“How should I begin?” the Lion asked. “Anadil will be dead in three days.”

Perhaps he could bluff as well as Altair could.

“And then, when your friends reach shore, you and I will take from them the Jawarat and the remaining hearts.” The Lion tilted his head. “See, I think long and far, Altair. Something you might find familiar.”

Altair’s long and far thinking had never been for his own personal gain, or for incomprehensible greed. Assemble a team, restore magic. A simple plan devised by him and Benyamin that became more convoluted with each passing day.

He refused to believe his mother was dying. He refused to believe the zumra was outnumbered, not when he’d ensured there would be allies waiting for them in Sultan’s Keep with dum sihr to protect their whereabouts. And more: Nasir had magic. Zafira had the power of the Jawarat bound to her blood.

It had to be enough. For the first time in a long time, Altair had to remind himself to breathe.