We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“Don’t kill him.”

Nasir frowned. “The plan—”

“Forget the plan, Nasir. This time, we do what’s right.”

He inhaled a careful breath, but before he could answer, the door swung open.

She froze at the sensation of eyes scouring her skin. For ifrit were not like men. They were shrewd in a way humans were not, swifter—and their foe was ready.

With a knife.

CHAPTER 87

The ifrit who had taken the form of Muzaffar moved quickly, his slender knife flashing in the light of a lantern set on the low table, but Nasir was no amateur. He swerved and parried, forcing the ifrit back into the room, and disarming him with ease. The knife clattered to the tile, the thin rug muffling nothing.

Nasir pressed his dagger to the caliph’s neck as Zafira entered and barred the door.

“The crown prince and the re

nowned Huntress,” the ifrit said, unperturbed by the blade. “At last.”

He was stocky and well built, an exact imitation of the dead merchant, but the differences were there for those who looked—the celerity of his movements, the intermittence of his breathing, the occasional flicker of him as a whole, as if it required effort to exhibit a human face.

“Is that you speaking,” Nasir hissed, surprised by his fluent Arawiyan, “or the Lion?”

“Ifrit are not mindless servants,” he replied mildly. “The prerequisite to my accepting the Sarasin throne involved freedom of mind and wit.”

A dark majlis spread behind him, where a platter of fruit sat beside an inkpot and several missives. Fruit, Nasir thought dumbly. Rimaal, what did he expect ifrit to eat—fire?

“Let’s start with your name—what is it?”

The ifrit smiled. “I’ve heard human brains are quite small. In the interest of keeping your affairs simple, Muzaffar will suffice.”

Zafira lifted a brow. “And does your free wit justify the death of hundreds of humans?”

“It’s only natural for one to reciprocate that which is received.”

She gritted her teeth against his calm. “Any harm that comes to your kind is from the self-defense of ours.”

Muzaffar regarded her. “You are young. What you know of the purge of ifritkind is what your schools teach. The Sisters of Old banished us to an island where not even a drop of water could be found. It was not until the warden arrived that we found ways to live. She fashioned systems in which our people were given food and water, housing. Tell me, Huntress: If you were exiled for the skin you were born within, would you not desire reprisal?”

That warden was Nasir’s mother, and he felt a burst of pride. The Sisters were many things: saviors, queens of justice. They were also wrong. They had committed a grave mistake, and more than one race had suffered for it. Perhaps they, too, had even died for what they’d done.

For the world gave that which was owed.

“Then we stop,” Nasir said suddenly. Stop what, you fool?

He felt the ifrit’s consideration in the way his breathing shifted.

“What do you propose?”

“An alliance. You control both the Sarasin army and the ifrit army. Keep them from going to the Lion’s aid, and we’ll spare your life,” Zafira said.

Nasir cast her a look. For once, the book wasn’t in her hand, and the clarity in her gaze was startling in the gray light slanting through the wide window.

Laa, this anger was Zafira’s alone.

“An alliance is not synonymous with a threat, Huntress. If we are to discuss an accord, perhaps you can release me and we can talk in a civilized way.”