We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

The room was as sumptuous as the ones in the palace. The platform bed was laden with silken sheets and jeweled cushions, wide enough for three of her and surrounded by a thin veil. It was a lavish display not meant for one, she realized with a stroke of heat.

Nasir paused at the sight, and then quickly set her satchel on the low table and turned for the door. His eyes were dark. Fear clamped Zafira’s lips tight.

And then the door closed with a soft thud.

A recreant. That is what you are.

“I don’t even know what that means,” she mumbled.

A coward.

Zafira gritted her teeth. She wrenched the book from her bag and threw it near the fire burning in the hearth, and felt the heat the instant the Jawarat did. With a snarl, she snatched it up

again and threw it on the bed.

Anguish flooded her, an overwhelming sense of hurt—and it wasn’t hers. Skies, had the thing been … teasing her?

Why do you not take what you wish?

It was an earnest question, not one spurring her to action. Harmless curiosity was not something Zafira associated with the Jawarat.

“Like when I killed the caliph? When I took justice into my own hands?”

We speak of him. Your prince.

She ignored it and unsheathed Nasir’s jambiya, the blade a gleam in the firelight reminding her of all she’d done. Then she pulled the black dagger out of her boot with another wince, thinking of how Altair must have reacted to finding it gone.

She should give them both to Nasir to tuck away.

You have killed. You have not been thieved of judgment.

“Oh, so you’re suddenly intent on making me feel good,” she retorted, but couldn’t summon her anger. What had happened to its goading? To its gloating and vile provocations? She dropped down beside it. “Everything that’s happened is your fault.”

She was a fool to assume she could go to Sultan’s Keep on her own. She pressed her eyes closed at the reminder of her brashness, how mindless she’d been to guilt Lana into stealing the dagger, how witless she’d been to sneak away.

Killing the Lion and stealing back his heart wouldn’t rebuild the zumra’s trust. It wouldn’t recover the shard of her soul that was lost when she killed the caliph. Laa, the only way forward was through. To face them. To retain the person she once was.

We know it is the fault of ours. And so we tried to atone.

Atone. She almost laughed. “This is why you need a mother,” she said dryly.

The Jawarat hummed at her joke, too chagrined to do more.

The lantern threw a handful of shadowed stars and shapes across the ceiling as she snuggled into the pillows and cushions with a long sigh. She couldn’t fall asleep, despite the fatigue burning behind her eyelids. Could the Lion sense her, the way she sensed him in every shadow and slant of the night?

Zafira stared at the Jawarat, knowing she relied on its company as a drunkard would rely on arak. She turned on to her side and stared at the stretch of space beside her. It wasn’t the Jawarat’s company she wanted, was it?

She slid off the bed and helped herself to a single ma’moul cookie from the plate the maid had left on the table, glancing at the door and wrenching her gaze away.

She shouldn’t. The Jawarat said nothing, only showing her a memory it hadn’t stolen, but cherished: her and him atop Afya, the freedom in her veins, the balance restored, the happiness, fleeting as it was.

He is a chaos we savor.

Her hand closed around the doorknob, and with a quick inhale, she stepped into the dim hall. She didn’t know where Nasir was. Perhaps he was downstairs, relaxing after a long day of being stuck with her. She took a step forward—

And nearly tripped.

“Khara,” she hissed.