Nasir nodded. It wouldn’t be a difficult secret to keep. Only the three of them, the Lion, and Ghameq knew. And one of them was already dead. Forever. The word was a pebble smooth and laden.
Outside, the sun was dipping behind the spindly trees, the cold deepening. Haytham used the end of his keffiyah to regain some composure and dropped to his knees. His son understood enough and did the same.
Altair lifted an eyebrow. “You’re welcome.”
Nasir said nothing, but when the boy snuck a glance up at him, he couldn’t help it: He smiled.
CHAPTER 67
Zafira woke to someone rearranging the cushions that had slipped during her slumber. She knew by the soundless movements that it was Nasir, and she opened her eyes the barest fraction as he lit the sconces and drew the curtains before rekindling the fire. Caring for her.
Her monster.
The last time she had spied on him this way, they were on Sharr and she had wondered when he would kill her. She had spent every moment awaiting the cool touch of his blade. Now she expected something else.
“I know you’re awake,” he said in that voice that looped with the darkness, and she felt the familiar simmering low in her belly.
She stretched, flinching when her wound throbbed dully. “You seem to enjoy playing nurse. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“I’m the prince,” he said simply, a note of teasing in his tone. A rogue lock of damp hair curled at his temple, hashashin attire neat and trim. She liked him like this, without a turban and the sheath of his sword, a single button of his qamis undone. It made her feel special somehow, that he allowed her to see this side of him. Unpresentable to the world but perfectly all right for her. “I don’t play the part of my inferiors.”
You’re the king, she wanted to correct. The Sultan of Arawiya with a traitor on your throne. But she wasn’t ready for the light in his eyes to vanish. He sat down and crossed his legs. The brush of his knee against hers was a force made even more startling when he didn’t pull away.
My brother for a monster. Yasmine’s words, rife with anger and disbelief, tied a knot in her stomach. That wasn’t what he was. Not anymore. Not to her.
His fingers twitched, as if he wanted to reach for her hand. There was a nervous sort of energy to him—anxiety.
“It feels as if I haven’t breathed since you fell,” he said finally.
His gaze dropped and his mouth drew shu
t. This boy who had so much to say but didn’t know how. Whose lack of verbosity was something she once criticized.
“It’ll take a lot more than an arrow to end me,” she said lightly.
The corner of his mouth lifted, breaking the tension as neatly as he would a circle of harsha. It made her slide her hand closer to his the tiniest fraction. He noticed.
Zafira wasn’t one to dream, to do much else beside the practical. But reposed here in this homely room, bereft of their weapons and stripped of the hood of the Hunter and the mask of the Prince of Death, she couldn’t help it.
“They say the soul cannot rest until it finds its match. Then it ignites,” he said.
Her breath caught when her eyes met the cool gray of his.
“Do you believe it?”
Do you feel it? was what he asked. Is it true for us? was what he wanted to know. When did he learn eloquence? Where did he find words that cut her as finely as a knife?
Her voice was soft. “I want to believe it.”
Once, all she had wanted was to see her village cared for, her sister happy, and the Arz vanquished. To snare a rabbit or a deer, sating her for the day. To know her people would live for yet another sunset. Now she wanted too much. One kiss had made her crave the next. Yearn for the brush of his touch, anywhere. Everywhere.
She didn’t know what he thought of her answer, because the lines of his face were smooth even as tendrils of darkness wove through his fingers, whispering against hers as softly as a touch.
“Zafira, I—”
“Shh,” she said softly. He stopped, less from her command and more because of her fingers against his mouth. She didn’t want to hear what he would say this time. She didn’t want to hear those words again: my bride, my queen, my fair gazelle.
Because they made her hope. They made her forget who she was in the vastness of this kingdom. Holding his gaze, she crooked one finger and swept it across his lower lip. His breath hitched.