We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

Sweet snow below. If she had only held the door closed when it accidentally slipped open, she wouldn’t have had to see that. Nasir, without a shirt, without the shadows of Sharr to cloak him. The lantern light painted him in strokes of gold down to the low, low band of his sirwal, igniting something in her veins.

And her: the slender girl in the yellow shawl who was more beautiful than Zafira’s broad build and unwomanly height could ever dream to be. When had the idea of beauty ever bothered her before? Her eyes began to burn.

Jealousy darkened the heart, and Zafira was not jealous. She was pure of heart.

Her mind flashed to the Lion’s mouth on hers. Nasir without a shred of cloth on his back. This was it. She was going mad.

She had only gone there to check on him, to tell him about their plans. To tell him how she had lost the Jawarat and explain that, yes, he had been right not to entrust her with the hearts that were now being taken away. Because some stupid, naive, childish part of her had believed he would care, he would understand.

How wrong she had been.

She slipped soundlessly back down the hall, running her fingers along the paneled walls, aware she’d never stepped so deep into the house, where many of the High Circle roomed. Were there more of them now that nine had departed? She didn’t know. But most of the doors were closed, and the last thing she needed was to pry one open to another sight she shouldn’t see.

And now footsteps were hurrying after her. Perfect.

She rushed beneath an archway and into a high-ceilinged chamber. For banquets, likely. She wouldn’t know. The largest space they had back in her village in Demenhur was the jumu’a, and that was daama outside.

“Zafira.”

She froze, the stone cool beneath her bare feet.

“Why are you running?”

She turned. He had thrown on a shirt but hadn’t had time to close it up. The muscles of his torso coiled with his breathing and she imagined her hands on his skin, his voice in her ear. Turning her mouth to his. The Lion’s hands on her thighs. No.

Anger. That was what she needed to feel right now. Not … this. But the flickering sconces lit the anguish in his eyes, making it hard to focus.

“I was giving you privacy.” Steel rang in her voice.

He backed her toward the wall, uncaring of the doors that could open at any moment. He pitched his voice low. “The only privacy that I want is with you.”

“No, you don’t,” she said breathlessly, ignoring what the words could mean. She wasn’t half as beautiful as the girl in the yellow shawl. Khara. She wasn’t supposed to daama care.

He stepped closer, pressing the tips of his bare toes against hers. His eyes were downcast. She felt his confusion and the heat of his body as if it were her own.

“What do you want?” she whispered. Their time on Sharr had wound a string between them, knotted and gnarled, the edges fraying even as it tugged them closer.

He made a sound that could have been half of a sob or a laugh, and that was it. Tell me, she pleaded in the silence. The darkness stared. This was as far as they ever got—she would ask, and he would retreat.

“The Jawarat is gone,” she bit out. Because they were a zumra, and she owed him that much. “The Lion came to me, disguised as … someone he wasn’t.”

Nasir’s eyes snapped to hers, but she looked away in a stir of embarrassment and anger. Her mind flitted to the girl in the yellow shawl with her golden skin, shapely features, and full lips. Did he struggle with words when it came to her? Her posture had been at ease, as if she knew his secrets. Her dark eyes had roamed his bare chest, as if she knew the feel of him beneath her fingers.

No, Zafira decided. He did not.

“If you can’t even speak of what you want, then perhaps—” She stopped and tried again. “Perhaps you don’t want it hard enough.” She slid away from the wall. His hand dropped to his side. “Perhaps you don’t deserve it.”

Was he the one the Silver Witch had warned her against? Her own son?

She left her heart at his feet and locked her brain safely away, and she was almost to the doorway when he spoke.

Soft. Broken.

“What do you want?”

The Lion’s death. Altair’s safety. Magic’s return. Baba’s justice. You. You. You. He was a rhythm in her blood.

“Honor before heart,” Zafira said. What work there was to do, she would do herself.