We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“Arawiya punishes us!”

Afya wouldn’t calm. Zafira almost fell from her back, grabbing a handful of her mane with a yelp.

“We need to dismount,” Nasir said.

Zafira slid to the dusty ground. The library. Baba. All that knowledge, all that history. The work of scholars, historians, poets, travelers—gone. She wanted to find the person who said there was nothing more powerful than the written word and shake him. Show him what was happening.

Not all were fleeing. The more level-headed people rushed toward the blaze two by two with buckets of water sloshing between them.

It’s useless, she wanted to say as smoke billowed into the skies, great wafts rising.

Nasir nudged her forward with one hand, still trying to calm Afya with the other. Zafira wrenched away. They should be helping, not running.

“Focus. We’re short on time,” Nasir insisted. “Afya, no!”

The fire tore a gash inside her. As they ran, she alternated between looking down at the ground and up at the smoke that berated the sky in angry undulations.

They stumbled past the gates of Aya’s house. As Nasir wrestled Afya toward the stables, Zafira saw men loitering in the courtyard. Demenhune. And there were a number of them. Good. One couldn’t put out a fire on one’s own.

“Zafira?”

“Not now,” she snapped. “We need to put out that—”

She turned when the voice registered in her head, the smoke in the distance doused by her sudden rage.

“So this is what cowards do when they lie to their wives,” she snarled.

Misk, beautiful and weary, had the decency to look ashamed. Laa, utterly and deeply saddened. He shook his head. “No—I did worse.”

The fight rushed out of her. Yasmine had said that he might never hold a secret from her again, and had Zafira been in her place, she would have found a way to forgive him outright. But Yasmine was different; her forgiveness did not come so easily. Especially when the ugliness of a lie was involved.

When Nasir returned with an unsheathed sword, looking for her, Misk’s eyes narrowed. “The Prince of Death is not welcome here.”

It was odd hearing him speak this way. It was odd seeing him at ease before a weapon, as if he were an entirely different person from the one Yasmine had married. He was a different person, she realized. Zafira had known him to be a bookkeeper, a man versed with scrubbing ink from his fingers, not blood. It wasn’t just a secret he had kept from Yasmine, it was a whole daama life.

“I didn’t ask.” Nasir studied him with a tilt of his head. “I’ve seen you before. In the palace. You’re one of Altair’s.”

Misk’s mouth tightened.

“Oi!” someone shouted, interrupting the tension. “Don’t loiter. Get—Nasir? Sultan’s teeth, it’s you! Kifah thought you were dead. Akhh, I’m hurt, habibi. You didn’t even spare me a goodbye.”

Zafira froze as Altair’s footsteps drew near, shadowed by those of another. Her chest was suddenly tight, but she forced herself to turn as Misk sprinted away. Kifah met her eyes and tipped her head in slow greeting. Altair gave her an apologetic half smile. Not a word was exchanged, yet relief flooded her.

You doubted the ones you love.

Zafira felt the urge to fling the Jawarat into the distance. You made me do it.

Altair’s features softened. “I was wrong to have left your side, Huntress. Forgive me.”

“Me as well,” Kifah said, stepping closer.

Zafira smiled around the swell in her throat, clamping her teeth against a mad laugh. She had judged others for less. She had judged Altair for less—for merely turning his back on them when Aya had.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said softly.

Kifah shrugged. “Eh, the old man had it coming.”

She knew that was not what Kifah really believed, which made her appreciate the words even more. Altair, Kifah, and Nasir lingered another beat, silence stretching amid the screams and blaze in the distance, before they began turning away.