We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

Zafira had left her day after day after day, choosing a monstrous forest over the sister who needed her. She had left her again for a villainous island, knowing full well that she might never return to the sister who had no one else.

“Did Aya tell you that? This is not the same as aiding in an infirmary. Aya isn’t even here.”

Lana didn’t reply. People continued to scream. The stubborn set of her sister’s jaw shifted to something else. An expression that looked eerily like Aya’s, too experienced for a child.

Give her a chance, Yasmine said. It had been a while since she’d heard her friend’s voice in her head. It was always the Jawarat or, even louder, the Jawarat’s silence. Zafira stepped back and the fountain gurgled, an apt audience of one. Stay safe. Be careful. Watch out—all pairings she wanted to say yet knew were wrong for this moment.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered instead, and disappeared down the narrow path.

* * *

No one was in the foyer when she returned. As if no one aside from Lana had even bothered to worry about her. She washed her feet and hurried up the stairs, dropping beside her bed and thinking of the hearts, safe with Arawiya’s most dangerous assassin.

All that way to Sharr, and the hearts were just idling within these walls.

All that care to find the Jawarat, and she had committed the terrible mistake of binding it to herself.

All that trouble to keep her sister safe, and the girl marched straight into danger. She didn’t know what kind of confidence Aya had fed her, what kind of spiel about duty and obligation, but Zafira wasn’t certain she approved. Skies, listen to yourself. Zafira had disappeared into the Arz around that same age. Who was she to deny Lana?

A knock sounded on her door, as soft as it had been the night before, as if part of him wanted to see her and the other wanted nothing of it. She shoved the Jawarat beneath her pillow, the vision still plaguing her, and opened the door.

The light streaming through her window caught on Nasir’s scar and reflected in his eyes.

“I wasn’t sure you’d returned. I was training with Aya, and it’s impossible to hear down there.” So that was why he hadn’t come when the explosion struck.

“There was a riot,” she said. “Lana is out there.” She didn’t know why she thought he would care—about Lana, about her dead mother, about any of it. She didn’t know why words just spilled from her without prompting when he looked at her the way he did.

“She was supposed to wait for you in the foyer, but we thought as much when Aya noticed her kit was missing. She’ll find her.” Worry not, his tone said when his tongue refused.

Zafira nodded, reminding herself that this was what Lana had been doing while she was away and today was no different. The hall was empty except for the voices drifting from downstairs. Seif’s drawl and Kifah’s lightning-quick responses.

“Is it my turn to look after the hearts?” she asked.

He looked down at the crate in his hands, and she paused when she saw the way his jaw tightened, the way his gaze shifted to her hands, looking for … the Jawarat.

“I’m delivering them to Seif. It’s his turn.”

He was kind enough to sound apologetic, but that didn’t lessen the sting, the revelation. Words collected on her tongue—Do you not trust me?—before dignity stole them away. She couldn’t truly blame him; the Jawarat had used her to speak. What if it used her for worse? To abuse the hearts?

What if they found that vial of blood and the Jawarat goaded her to do something unspeakable?

Skies, what do you want? she snarled in her head. The book pretended it couldn’t hear.

A line strained at his jaw. “Are you all right?”

No, she wanted to say. “Isn’t that what you always ask?”

His dark brows knitted together. “Isn’t that what I should ask? After what happened?”

“Should, must, need,” she droned, her pulse quickening. It was easy to rile him when he looked so bewildered. “Have you ever thought of what you want, Prince?”

His eyes dropped to her mouth and her neck warmed before he looked away, so perplexed by her question that a laugh crept up her throat and died on her tongue.

“What color do you like most?” His words ran into one another.

This time, her surprised laugh slipped free before she could contain it, and his eyes brightened at the sound before he paused.

“Do people not ask that?”