We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“Seif, likely. I found it in the Pelusian carriage.”

“Akhh, I could kiss him,” Altair announced, turning the scimitar over in his hand. He kissed the blade instead, and sank into a stance. “Parry me.”

Nasir regarded him. “What makes you think I won’t kill you?”

“You love me too much.”

He caught the flash of Nasir’s laugh before he swung. Altair dodged it with shameful clumsiness. Both of his arms moved in tandem. They had mirrored each other for so long that it was habit.

“Change is coming, brother. Are you ready?” Altair was aware he spoke to distract others as much as himself sometimes.

“Death will come first,” Nasir said, lunging.

Altair heard the approach of the sword, for turning his head to see out of his right eye took far too long, and ducked. “And then—”

Nasir swung before he could finish, the hiss of his blade as cutting as the Demenhune air. This time, Altair parried it more swiftly. Nasir acknowledged him with a nod and swung the same way from his other side—Altair’s blind side. He parried a little too late.

Nasir lowered his sword. “And then I’ll be king. Or sultan. I know.”

“I always knew you were smart,” Altair teased, hefting the scimitar against his shoulder. In all twenty years of Nasir’s life, not once had they carried a conversation this long.

This was an improvement, and Altair was proud.

As with most of his rare displays of emotion, Nasir’s snort was a sound barely there.

“Oi, it’s the truth,” Altair said. “You excelled in your every class, with every weapon they threw in your hands. You were eloquent. You were brilliant. And even if you weren’t, even if you were the dumbest child ever to curse the earth, none of it would have mattered, because you made our mother proud.”

He hadn’t meant to say all of that, and though Nasir was silent as usual, the silence he held now was one of shock.

Might as well get it all out.

“I hated it. I hated you. I hated how deeply she loved you, but it brought her joy. You brought her joy.”

On the streets below, a crier wailed some nonsensical news and children dashed down from the nearby sooq. Nasir didn’t apologize, as some would. He didn’t breathe a word, the idiot boy.

“And then you stopped using your brain in lieu of your father’s,” Altair said, softer now. “You stopped being yourself.” He looked away, words dropping softer still. “And I hated you even more for it.”

The words clung to the air, bringing with it a gust of the past. Nasir tucked his ridiculously tidy bundle of weaponry away, and a trail of black followed him to the edge of the roof, as if he were fading into the light. Just when Altair thought he would leap off the end, peacock that he was, he spoke without turning.

“I was not made for battle. This is not my fight.”

“Is it mine?” Altair asked with a hollow laugh. “Because I’m his son?”

Nasir stared into the sky as if he hadn’t considered that. As if he’d forgotten. “Destruction follows darkness. You know this.”

And then he was gone, leaving Altair’s second scimitar at his feet.

CHAPTER 75

Of the two Iskandars Nasir imagined standing at his door, the younger one was not it. He did not expect he would be the one she’d come to with such distress, either.

“What is it?”

Lana wrung her hands. “It’s my sister. She—she’s leaving.”

His brows flicked upward. “And where is she going?”

“I don’t know—just hurry!”