We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

It was like Lana to claim a room that wasn’t hers. Even at home, she could never sleep in their room, preferring to curl on the majlis in their foyer, and for a moment, Zafira could only stand in the doorway, taking in the gleam of her sister’s hair, the soft curve of her cheek, lit with a line of fire from the crackling hearth.

It reminded her of home, before she undertook the journey to Sharr, when Lana had begged her to stay, saying magic meant nothing without Zafira.

Now it could be gone. Never, ever to return.

“You’re here!” Lana said, leaping to her feet. Her hands were stained with ink. Only then did Zafira realize she had brought the Jawarat with her. Her fear was a viper, sinking fangs and numbing her. “I was just writing down notes. Since you survived.”

“I’m delighted your experiment was successful,” Zafira said dryly.

We like her, bint Iskandar.

Zafira ignored it, or tried to—there was a sense inside her, a foreboding similar to when a storm churned in the distance.

Lana grinned cheekily before concern marred her brow. “Are you all right?”

Zafira nodded quickly, angling her bandages from view.

“It’s the book, isn’t it?” Lana was staring at the Jawarat with fascination and fear. “You act strange when you have it.”

“I—”

She stopped when a knock sounded and the door opened before either of them could answer. Lana looked past her shoulder and quickly smoothed back her hair with an eager hand, leaving a streak of ink on her temple. Zafira’s eyebrows flicked upward. Sweet snow.

“Are we meeting someone special?” she whispered.

Lana glared at her. “It’s the boy Ammah Aya saved.”

Zafira turned to the door, wincing when her wound stretched. The newcomer was slight, with a cloak shielding hunched shoulders and a hesitant step. Zafira was suddenly back at home, staring in her speckled mirror before her hunts. She recognized it all, down to the bare tilt of the newcomer’s hooded head.

“That’s no boy,” Zafira murmured. This was the palace, where the caliph lived. Where Haytham lived. She pieced together the clues. “You’re her. You’re the caliph’s daughter.”

The girl startled like a deer, her carefully draped hood falling back just enough to reveal shapely eyes wide in fear. She lifted her chin in a wobbly display of defiance, full lips pressed tight. With a start, Zafira realized the girl was not much younger than her, possibly even the same age as Zafira.

Lana scrambled to her feet, firelight highlighting her distress. “Khara, you’re a girl?”

Zafira turned to her sharply. “Mind your mouth.”

Lana directed her glower at Zafira. “How did you know?”

“I should think the answer to that question is obvious.”

“What’s your name?” Lana asked, turning to the disguised girl. Disbelief toned her voice, the edges roughened by hurt.

“Qismah,” the girl said in a voice as gentle as first snow. She darted a glance at Lana, but her gaze seemed most comfortable on the ground. “I—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Only Ammu Haytham knows I’m a girl.”

Zafira wondered what sort of life Qismah was leading. Haytham looked out for her, but what did it mean for Qismah to keep her true self a secret? Did she believe herself a harbinger of ill, as many in Demenhur believed women to be?

“And—and Baba.”

Perhaps it was the way she referred to her father, with shame and hesitance, that caused Zafira’s anger to rear. It was a chorus in her skull, wild and grating. The Jawarat fueled it with murmurs, reminders of the way men of her caliphate looked at her. At women. She cinched her jaw tight, willing it away, telling herself to stay calm as the book sat innocently in her lap, as if it weren’t guiding her thoughts.

She smiled at the girl, seeing the resemblance between her and the elderly caliph. “Haytham says you are an apt pupil. You are very brave, doing what you do.”

Qismah’s half smile was fleeting.

It was unfair that girls so young were weathered enough to understand society so keenly. Once, Zafira would have smiled that same fleeting smile. She would have told herself that this, and this, and this was enough.

Enough. The word was a box she had placed herself within, and she would be a fool to let another young girl do the same.