We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

Truly, wholly. Nasir didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed the falsity before.

“Ibni,” the sultan whispered, lifting a trembling hand to Nasir’s hair.

Distantly, chaos erupted.

“Forgive me.”

The hall darkened.

“For the days that I lived to hurt you. For the days that you lived in suffering. Tell your mother—I think of her when the moon fills the sky. Always.”

“No—” Nasir’s voice cracked as a chilling cold swept to him, a presence as familiar as his own. Death.

Not now, he begged as others once begged of him. Wisps of black slipped from his fingers and wound around his father, clutching him as Nasir did. The medallion swung behind his closed eyes. Aya had been right. It had corrupted the sultan beyond return. He was a fool to have believed his father could survive without the Lion’s crippling hold. To have believed his father could walk free after years of imprisonment.

“Every day, I saw you, and every day I wanted to tell you the same: I am proud of you. He would not let me tell you, but it is true. Now, and forever.”

Nasir didn’t care anymore. About approval, about pride. He didn’t want any of it.

The shadows scattered.

“Baba,” he wept, but as always, Nasir was too late.

CHAPTER 52

The storm had arrived, the Lion at its cusp. Dressed in splendor like a king come for his throne, with every single dignitary of Arawiya gathered like cows to slaughter.

Zafira should have known. The signs were there: When the sultan remembered one moment but strangely not another from the same event. When he hadn’t lent a hand or thought to finding the fifth heart. When he had called his own son the Prince of Death.

The Lion had been controlling the sultan the entire time, playing them like the fools that they were. The Sultan’s Guard drew their swords and surrounded the platform. Hashashins halted near the walls, and Zafira knew th

ere were ifrit lurking in the shadows. Both sides waited. The air was heavier than her cloak had ever been.

Through it all, Nasir sat on the dais with his father’s head in his lap. Unmoving.

No—weeping.

A boy, orphaned years ago and suffering afresh. The new Sultan of Arawiya, on his knees before his own throne, a river of his sorrow drenching his finery. His brow fell to his father’s with soundless anguish, and when the Lion turned to him with a frown, a warning throbbed in her limbs.

If she drew his attention, there was a chance he would direct whatever dark power he had at her and crush her heart with a flourish of his hand. But the Jawarat, a little voice reminded. He would still have need of it and its infinite knowledge. He wouldn’t risk its destruction by hurting her.

Nasir, however, like his father, no longer had a purpose, and if she waited any longer, he would die.

“Haider.”

In the split breath it took Zafira to push Lana away and say the Lion’s name—his true name—every single member of the Sultan’s Guard turned to her.

As did the Lion.

“Did you enjoy my theatrics, azizi?”

He spoke as if it were only the two of them in the vastness of the room. He looked at her as if she were his, his gaze hungrily roaming the length of her.

“My bladed compass, sheathed in starlight,” he murmured. “Did you hope to compete for the prince’s hand? To wear the crown of the sultana? I admit, that bit about brides was improvisation. To send your heart aflutter. You looked quite pale, if I recall.”

At his feet, Nasir stirred from his wretched stupor.

“I have no interest in crowns,” she bit out, her voice echoing in the hall.