We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

Altair was not proud of his awe.

“Arawiya is ours.”

CHAPTER 6

Death commands the tremor in the living.

Live as if you are death himself. Command him as if you are his master. Depend on no one, for even your shadow will forsake you in the darkest hour.

In the end, it wasn’t death that roused fear in Nasir, for his mother had taught him well. It was the darkness. The isolation it brought, reminding him that he was always alone. The way it thieved his sight, an abyss with a nightmare to tell:

A boy, silver circling his brow, shackled by shadows.

A sun, swallowed whole by gaping jaws.

A girl, hair crowned as regal as a queen’s, the fire in the ice of her eyes bringing him to his knees.

And a voice, saying: You needn’t fear the darkness when you could become it.

Nasir came to with the evening’s light in his eyes, dust frenzying at his exhale and the dull throb of a needle prick at his neck. He dug his fingers into the rug beneath him—woven of the finest sheep’s wool—and noted the high sheen of the stone floor. None of it was familiar, but wherever he was, dinars were not in shortage.

Neither was audacity, clearly. Kidnapping the Prince of Death was no act to be taken lightly. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms in Sultan’s Keep, but he hadn’t expected to find himself in trouble this early.

Zafira stirred with a rustle of clothes. Her hair was coming undone upon the pale wool, and the rise and fall of her chest drove him to the brink. The rug beneath her became qutn sheets within the Sultan’s Palace. Her crowned hair became a circlet of silver and a shawl of silk. He drew a wavering breath.

It wasn’t like him, to dream. To wish.

It was barely a handful of heartbeats, but she stared back with fire in her hooded gaze as if she knew what plagued him. As if she had a thousand and one questions to ask, but it was his fault silence held them captive. Those three words had grown to a day, stretched to the moon’s rising, on and on, an ugly thing festering as the days wove past. This means nothing.

He had never been good with words, but he had never expected to lament the fact.

Kifah groaned from his other side, and Nasir looked away first as she sat up, unsure why he was so irritated. He flexed his unbound wrists. His boots were gone, as were the rest of theirs. It was customary to remove one’s shoes indoors, but less so to have them removed by someone else.

“The hearts!” Zafira uttered suddenly, sitting up.

Nasir jerked, jamming his elbow against a box beside him. The crate. He shoved open the lid, releasing a bated breath when he saw all four organs pulsing inside. His suspicion tripled.

“Oi. Where’s Jinan?” Kifah asked, taking in the ample room with growing trepidation: the majlis seating flush against the floor, cushions barely worn, as if the inhabitants of this construction never sat for long. A scattering of maps and old papyrus, reed pens, an astrolabe, and unfinished notes. Shelves lined the opposite wall, sagging with books and aging artifacts that looked in danger of crumbling. A single door stood to the side, closed.

The Zaramese captain was nowhere to be seen.

“This place.” Kifah’s voice dropped. Slowed. “It reminds me of home.” Her discomfort was a reminder of why the ink of the Pelusian erudites didn’t span both her arms.

Zafira rose with the agility that always made Nasir’s throat tighten, and he noted the quickness with which she reached for her bag to ensure the Jawarat was still inside. Lucky book.

He parted the curtains at one of the narrow windows and looked out: date palms, tended gardens, the ornate edging of a sprawling building. He couldn’t see much, but these were no slums. The palace couldn’t be far from here. His father couldn’t be far from here, controlled by a medallion and a monster.

“Kidnapped,” Kifah said, her voice a tad high. “Of everything that could have happened in Sultan’s Keep.”

“Do you know where we are?” Zafira asked.

It took him a moment to realize the question was directed at him, icy eyes catching him off guard. Rimaal, he was going soft.

“I don’t know the inside of every house in Sultan’s Keep,” he said a little too harshly.

“If you did, I would question whether you were the prince or an ambitious housekeeper.”

He clenched his fist around a flare of shadow. “No, I don’t know where we are.”