We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“Peace unto you. How’s Zafira?” he asked.

“Why do you ask?” she replied defensively, studying him with warm brown eyes.

“I’m her friend.”

“A friend wouldn’t have abandoned her the way you did.”

Shame burned his neck. He’d been meaning to see her. To make sense of what she’d done. He hadn’t—sultan’s teeth.

“She left,” the girl continued.

“Don’t lie.”

“Lying is dishonorable,” she said in dismay.

If he’d had any doubts before, he was utterly certain now that the girl was Zafira’s sister, and he was this close to demanding an answer at swordpoint.

He crouched. “If you tell me, little one, I’ll ask the kitchens for an extra piece of kanafah just for you.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “I’m fourteen, and I can weave a needle through your remaining eyelid.”

Altair burst out laughing and threw a glance at Kifah. “As Iskandar as they come. She’s … quite small for fourteen.”

“My name is Lana. And you are quite large,” she replied.

“Not an insult,” he said with a grin, and Kifah groaned. “What do you mean ‘she left’?”

“She’s going to find a lion.”

It took him a moment to realize that Lana had said “the” and not “a,” and that this lion was decidedly not a cat. Altair was suddenly very, very tired.

“So she’s heading to Sultan’s Keep?”

Lana nodded.

“Alone? She shouldn’t even be able to—” He stopped at her wide-eyed look and dragged a hand down his face. Khara. “I should have kept that boy on a leash.”

“He’s the crown prince.” Lana sniffed, offended on behalf of a fool she didn’t even know.

“Crown prince my—”

Kifah cleared her throat.

“My what?” Lana asked sweetly.

Altair growled. “Ask your sister.”

“She also took the dagger from your room. The one wrapped in a turban and wedged between the bookshelves. A terrible spot, really.”

Altair blinked, disbelief slowing his brain. “You—she—what?”

“Lana? Where are you?” A voice called from the hall to their right. Lana gulped, eyes as wide as qahwa cups. She darted a glance to Kifah and fled down the hall before he could stop her.

Altair stomped after her with a frown, but only caught the fluttering end of a blue shawl and heard the swish of a falling curtain. That voice. It had been strangely familiar in cadence, but alluringly melodic and—Now is not the time.

Kifah was watching him with mild amusement and his frown deepened.

“What?” he snapped.