We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“My blade is yours. Until every last star is freed, we are bound.”

Zafira warmed at the ferocity in Kifah’s dark eyes, her promise a harsh line across her brow. “Does that make us friends?”

Kifah laughed. “A thousand times over.”

And though Zafira would never forsake her friendship with Yasmine for anything in the world, even now, when she had flung as much pain as Yasmine had flung back, it was a relief to befriend someone as carefree as Kifah, as if her vengeance had encompassed her so deeply that nothing else was ever allowed to fester.

“What about the others?”

“You mean your prince,” Kifah said smugly.

“I meant your general.”

“Oi, I told you,” Kifah protested, and Lana stirred at the bark of her laugh.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t love him.”

“Laa, and that doesn’t mean you don’t love his grumpy brother.”

It felt dangerous to let the words simmer without denying them. A refutation clambered up her throat, but she swallowed it back down. She hadn’t almost died to live a life bereft of danger.

Kifah sombered quickly. “I see those bloody streaks on his face every time I blink. You know what’s worse? My first thought at the sight of them was What if it’s a lie?” She looked down. “I’ve never felt such shame.”

Zafira pursed her lips. The two halves of herself were at war with each other. Half of her knew that Altair had dedicated decades to this cause. To Arawiya’s restoration. He couldn’t have climbed up the ranks to the sultan’s right hand without an atrocity or ten. His every act was deliberate, done for the good of the kingdom. She knew this, and yet the other half of her was trapped trying to decipher why he had turned away when he’d had every opportunity to aid them.

“No word from anyone,” Kifah continued. “Nor did I see either of them when we were escaping, only Seif, who told us to head for the palace in Thalj to recoup, though he didn’t know you were alive. We had to detour here, and we’re lucky we had Ghada’s carriage to quicken our pace, but we’ll circle back when you’ve recovered, and hope they’re waiting for us.”

The moments leading to Zafira’s near death still echoed like a terrible dream, but standing in her old home with the ghosts of her life was somehow worse. The emptiness yawned, hungry and cold.

Kifah followed her to the foyer. “The Lion hasn’t wasted any time. He dropped the taxes, and so the riots have stopped. There’s even talk of a new caliph being appointed in Sarasin soon. It’s only been four daama days.”

Her words made it harder for Zafira to breathe, but they made sense, didn’t they? The Lion had created those riots. He had raised taxes. He’d refused Sarasin a new caliph. All so he could take on the guise of being lenient when he became king.

She loosed a breath. Lana’s stack of books sat on the majlis, the latest pamphlet of al-Habib at the very top. Baba’s coat hung near the door, the hook beside it empty, and she felt her cloak’s absence acutely. Four days. Zafira snatched a shawl and her boots.

“Where are you going?” Kifah asked.

“Outside,” Zafira replied, not knowing it was worse.

CHAPTER 64

Saraab, they had called the western villages of Demenhur once. Before magic left and the snow infiltrated their lives. The old name translated to “mirage,” for that was what the sparse villages were, a haven for stray bedouins or sailors on their way to the Baransea shore.

Zafira always found it strange that there were two meanings to the old name, the second being “phantom.” As if whoever named the villages had known that it would one day become this.

A village of ghosts.

“Easy,” Kifah called when Zafira stumbled down the steps leading from her house. Her voice echoed eerily in the emptiness.

A breeze wound through the dry limbs of the trees, welcoming Zafira—accusing her. For in all seventeen years that she had lived here, not once had ill befell them.

Until she left.

The cold was instant, a familiar sting in Zafira’s nose and a crackling across her cheeks, a whisper of memories from the last time she had stood amid snow. Umm was alive. Yasmine was smiling. Deen was by her side. A hood had shrouded her head and a cloak had hidden her figure. There was an almost dizzying sensation inside her now. As if she were transitioning between two moments, past and present.

She had been two people then, but if she was being honest with herself,

she was more Demenhune Hunter than anything else. A mystery to the people, an empty shell until she donned her cloak. Everything had been stripped away on Sharr, leaving nothing but that empty shell behind.