We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“And so, in your desire for freedom, you’ve become as cruel and terrible as the ones who wronged you,” Zafira said. “That doesn’t make you deserving of anything but a place in the dungeons.”

He released her in disgust. The Sisters had been wrong to imprison the ifrit on Sharr. They had been wrong to corral them like cattle and abandon them on an island. But one wrong didn’t justify another.

Zafira carefully measured her breaths, aware the Lion was plotting and scheming with every passing heartbeat. He spun his finger, and shadows coiled tighter, making her light-headed.

Bint Iskandar.

She struggled to draw breath. With a sigh that was almost resigned, the Lion reached for the satchel strapped to her side, only to straighten with a croak.

A gold tip protruded from his chest, sticky with black blood.

The darkness vanished like smoke and the palace came into view, as did Altair and Nasir. The courtyard was littered with ifrit corpses.

Zafira stumbled backward and Kifah withdrew her spear, readying to pierce him again. But the Lion—though slumping and out of breath—clenched his fist, and Kifah dropped to her knees with a vise around her neck. He flicked his other wrist, and Altair, rushing to help her, went flying.

Heartbeats later, the hole in the Lion’s chest stitched itself together again, not even a drop of blood left as proof.

When he blinked his amber eyes at her, he didn’t look like a man who had been run through with a spear. He looked almost bored.

So long as the heart provides him with magic, wounding him will be impossible. Until we wound him, we won’t be able to retrieve the heart.

The black dagger pulsed in her boot, cool and ready. But she didn’t dare reach for it, not when he could easily overpower her. Laa, she needed to catch him unaware.

The heart weakens him.

For a stricken moment, Zafira thought the Jawarat spoke of Nasir or Altair, but when the Lion dropped his hands, she caught the sheen of sweat on his brow. The fatigue.

Steal it.

But—the heart was inside his daama body.

The Jawarat laughed. When have we steered you wrong?

Zafira froze at its tone, the terrible beauty of that laugh. The reminder of what she had done with its voice in her mind, splitting a man in two as no mortal should be capable of doing.

The Lion watched her.

“Touching of your friends to run to your aid.” His gaze was intent. “Join me, azizi.”

Zafira scoffed. “Because you can’t kill me?”

“I won’t merely kill them,” he said, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Nasir using a whip of shadow to release the vise that had been crushing Kifah’s neck. “I will cut them open and string their innards together, as I did to the safin less than a fortnight ago. I will sever their heads to adorn the palace gates.”

“And then the people will love you?” Zafira asked, bile rising to her throat.

“Create enough fear, and the people will have no choice.”

His hand cut the air, and strands of shadow rippled toward her. Zafira threw up her arms, intent on protecting the Jawarat, but the shadows stopped before they reached her.

Caught in a shield of black that dissipated as quickly as it had come.

Nasir.

He extended his gauntlet blades as Altair and Kifah came up from behind. The Lion looked among the four of them and laughed, as if their weapons were playthings, as if they were as insignificant as the ground beneath his feet.

From the corners of the palace, ifrit stalked forward. More marched from beyond the palace gates, caging them in. The crackle of their staves echoed in the air. The dagger, the dagger, the dagger—she couldn’t wrest it free now. He would rip her arm from her body the moment she did. Their weapons were playthings.

The Lion half turned to watch his encroaching horde and froze with a sharp breath.