We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

She inclined her head, ignoring the cold fingers down her spine. “Shukrun.”

* * *

Kifah grew less enthused the longer they walked. The town was called Zawia, for the way it curved around the splendor of Almas. It was a charming place unlike the slums that typically surrounded capitals and other major cities. As Zafira gaped at every new street, structure, and scene, uncaring of the burn in her tired calves, Kifah’s gaze turned pensive, trained on the sands they stirred with their footfalls. She didn’t even look up when a girl in an abaya as red as her hair ran up to them with a shy smile and handed Zafira a white-petaled flower. The child’s ears were elongated, the points tender and precious, and Zafira stared as she skipped away.

“Did you see her?” she breathed. Sunlight lit the little safi’s hair aflame before she disappeared between two houses.

Kifah replied with a distracted grunt.

“What is it?” Zafira asked.

“If it calls to those who need it, I’m not sure it’s so great a place anymore,” Kifah replied without preamble.

Zafira paused, twirling the flower’s thin stem between her fingers. The petals cupped morsels of the sun. She had never encountered this Kifah before, weighted by uncertainty and quick to refute.

“Is this about your father?” Zafira asked.

The whip of her spear quickened, answer enough. Zafira remembered that Bait ul-Ahlaam was a place Kifah’s father had frequented. Did it call to monsters in need of its wares?

“I know how they work, people like him. They win the hearts of men, eat the souls of women. Flash a smile as sweet as milk here, rip fragile limbs apart there. Dote on one daughter outside, ruin another inside.” Kifah’s exhale stuttered.

As lonely as Zafira felt, she could not even begin to understand the depths of Kifah’s loneliness. To be abused by her father. To have her brother punished to death for protecting her. To own nothing but the spear in her hands and the desire for vengeance in her veins.

“Forgive me,” Kifah murmured.

“No,” Zafira whispered harshly. “You said you’re beginning to love our zumra the way you loved Tamim. Tell me.”

Kifah’s brow smoothed at the words. Her spear stopped moving. “That’s all there is.”

Zafira smiled, but she understood Kifah’s apprehension. It was why she’d felt a chill down her spine at the Alder woman’s ominous words. “I don’t think we’ll leave the shop describing it as ethical or virtuous. You can’t believe the Sisters filled vials with blood and labeled them for sale.” She gripped Deen’s chain and remembered the Silver Witch’s anger, Seif’s trepidation. “I have a feeling it calls to those ready to pay the price.”

Kifah was silent, and Zafira felt the sting of perspiration along her brow. Had she been callous? Too quick to brush away Kifah’s heavy words?

“You know what I hate?” Kifah asked, giving her a look. “When other people make sense.”

Zafira swallowed her relief, pulse still drumming in her ears. “A simple ‘Yes, my queen, you’re right,’ would suffice.”

Kifah cracked a laugh. “Already wearing the crown, I see.”

“What do you—”

Oh.

They reached the top of the street, where reed-thin buildings rose neatly to the cloud-dusted skies, windows cut in alluring latticework, stone shaped in eight-pointed stars. Beyond them, the sooq stretched in a patchwork of color and bustle as far as she could see.

Zafira hurried beneath the slanting shadows of the buildings to hide the burn of her skin. Whoever said Demenhune didn’t blush was a terrible liar. “I didn’t—that wasn’t what—” She gave up.

“I didn’t think you were serious,” Kifah assured, loping beside her. “But don’t tell me it’s as impossible a future as it was two moons ago. Being queen.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He’s the prince,” Kifah reminded her, though not unkindly. “And quite the eyeful at that. Tall, dark, brooding. Very fit.”

Zafira closed her fingers around Baba’s jambiya, knuckles white. “Do you think I’d abandon my life and my family for a jeweled chair?”

What life? a voice in her head asked. What family?

“That’s for you to answer,” Kifah said, grinning and unaware. “I’m not the one falling in love with him.”