We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

The Jawarat stirred from its somber moping. The zumra has but only one wish.

The Lion’s annihilation.

We can end—

No. She knew what the Jawarat would suggest. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way.

Zafira straightened and looked at her sister, tiny and quick. “Can I trust you?”

Lana studied her, as if trying to decipher if it was Zafira or the Jawarat that spoke.

“Always,” she said, appeased by what she saw.

“Do you know where everyone’s been staying? Which rooms they’re in?” Zafira flexed her shoulder with a grimace. She needed to rest and heal, but she could do neither, not with the caliph’s death on her shoulders. Not while the Lion lounged on his ill-claimed throne.

Lana’s eyes brightened. “You mean the prince’s?”

“I mean Altair’s. I need you to steal something for me.”

CHAPTER 74

It didn’t take Altair long to find Nasir. He dropped the roof’s trapdoor shut with a thud, tugging the collar of his robes against the cold.

“You only drill when you think too much.”

Surprise flitted across the prince’s gray eyes. Did he really think Altair didn’t pay attention? Nasir gathered his belongings and leaped across the rooftop to join him, setting his neatly wrapped bundle beneath the shelter of a latticed archway. He stared into the distance, the perfect depiction of brooding. Altair couldn’t understand why women found that attractive.

“It’s Zafira,” Nasir started, slowly piecing his words together. “I don’t know if it’s right, allowing her to keep the Jawarat.”

Ah. It was natural, Altair knew, to second-guess actions when one had lived a life dictated by orders.

“Every deed has its outcome,” Altair said. “Doubt is inherent. The best of us merely manage to overcome the voice—”

“If I wanted philosophy, I would have sought out the library.”

Altair regarded him. “It’s time now for you to follow your heart. To listen to it.”

Nasir slowly spun the scimitar before sheathing it with a huff that painted the air white. The boy’s nose was an almost adorable hue of pink.

“Teach me,” Altair said suddenly.

Nasir’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

“Remind me what it’s like to use a single sword, because I will never use two again.”

Nasir frowned. “Why not?”

“Oh, because my father stabbed me in the

eye.”

“I’m aware,” Nasir deadpanned. “But even a blind man can use a sword.”

“Perhaps a blind man who doesn’t have a dark army waiting for him. There isn’t time. I don’t have the balance for two.” He didn’t have his scimitars anymore, either, and if he was being honest, he didn’t feel particularly inclined to find a new pair.

Nasir nodded and stepped to the bundle he’d left beneath the archway. He carefully folded back the fabric and drew two scimitars. Altair’s heart stopped. The hilts were burnished gold, the perfect curve of the blades adorned with filigree and branded with names.

“Sultan’s teeth,” Altair murmured, taking Fath from him. “Where? How?”