We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“Children, maybe,” she replied.

Sorrow flitted across his face, and she wanted to take back her words. He was the son of a tyrant. Even when the Silver Witch was sultana, Zafira doubted Nasir’s youth had been any more youthful than after her feigned death. Only safer. Far from the consolation a child should have to seek.

“It’s blue,” she said softly.

A faint smile came and went. “I should have known.”

“My baba’s favorite shade. ‘The waters of the Baransea on the calmest of days beneath the cloudiest of skies.’ He’s gone, too. I’m officially an orphan.” Her hand had slipped to her jambiya, fingers closing around the worn hilt. She knew he was reading her in the silence.

“How?”

She thought of how best to string the words together before she realized she didn’t need to coat them in honey. Not for him. “He went to the Arz when I couldn’t and returned months later. Mad. So Ummi stabbed him through the heart, because … because she had no choice.”

“Perhaps he wanted to see you one last time.”

She stared at the sheen on the stone floor, at the faint pattern on his robes, the gleam of his onyx-hilted jambiya. She inhaled the homely scent of freshly baked bread. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. The Jawarat’s vision flashed in her mind and she set her jaw.

“Your turn. What color do you like most?”

His eyes flared before he could mask his surprise. Did he not think she’d ask him in return? It was always a game, capturing the small displays of Nasir Ghameq’s emotions. A game she liked, she realized. One she could play forever and

never tire of.

“You,” he said, so softly it was only sound.

The intensity of his gaze stole the air from her lungs. She shook her head. “That—”

“Every color that makes you.”

She held her breath, waiting, wishing. But he closed his mouth, some part of him retreating.

“Tell me more,” she said softly. She stepped closer and his head snapped up, the sun lighting his eyes in gold.

His lips tightened and the mask carefully settled over his features again, gray eyes hardening to stone as the drag of feet up the stairs signaled the end of their solitude.

“Another time,” he said with the voice he used for everyone but her, less promise and more dismissal. He clenched his fist around a flare of shadow, and with one last glance he was gone.

CHAPTER 16

Altair rested his elbows on the low table as he waited for food. Surprisingly, his father hadn’t bled him since he’d spoken, tentatively, of an alliance. Altair hadn’t seen much freedom either, with his chains hooked and secured to the wall.

When he had told Benyamin of his grand, far-fetched plans to restore Arawiya, he had known there was always the possibility that one day he might have to go through with them alone. He’d been prepared enough—until those damning days on Sharr. With Nasir, then Zafira. Kifah and Benyamin himself.

In that scant bagful of days, he had cobbled together a family and a place within it. People with dreams as insane as his own, driven by factors others would have laughed at.

At least, it was what he’d believed. Now the emptiness was gnawing through him, the loneliness a ball on a string he had swung far, far away, only for it to return in full force.

His one companion scuttled from a hole in the wall, looking for the scraps Altair usually left out.

“So kind of you to visit, Nasir, but I’m all out of food, you see,” he told the little rat as it went about in circles, searching for something that wasn’t. Akhh, Nasir to the bone.

The rat bolted with a squeak, and Altair stood as footsteps approached. The misshapen clay abode stank heavily of age, the corners of the room thick with cobwebs. It was battered and bruised and glaringly unsecure, yet the zumra still hadn’t found him.

If they’re looking for me, that is.

The Lion swept through the open doorway, followed by an ifrit with two bowls of shorba and warm flatbread. The food of peasants, not a shred of mutton in sight.

“Taken to talking to yourself?” the Lion asked as he sat on the cold, hard ground. The ifrit set down the food and left.