We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

Nasir barked a laugh. “The warden is alive—”

The door flew open. Five Sarasin men hastened inside with three ifrit. Nasir didn’t flinch when a sword touched his neck.

“—and I know this, because she’s my mother.”

But he knew it would be a stretch for Muzaffar to believe him unless he saw her with his own eyes. No, Nasir needed something else. He studied him, the way he wore his skin with earnestness. His care for his people. The impeccability of his attire, either real or illusory, and the esteem with which he carried himself.

And Nasir knew how to tip the scales in the zumra’s favor. He was finally neck-deep in Altair’s beloved chance, and he hated it.

“And with the addition of a caliphate will come the addition of a caliph,” Nasir said, inclining his head even as the guard’s blade dug deeper, nearly drawing blood. “You.”

CHAPTER 88

Kifah’s pacing back and forth on the rug was driving Altair to the brink. He kept glancing to the door, as if Nasir and Zafira would materialize the longer he looked. He couldn’t bring himself to remove the note from Hirsi’s leg, as if ignoring it long enough would somehow make it reach his mother.

“They’re late,” Kifah deplored. “Two people—one of them wounded—against an entire cali

phate.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Altair said wearily. Nasir was a hashashin. He wove through death like a needle through gossamer. He had to survive—they were only just starting to be brothers.

Kifah stopped pacing. “We need to discuss how we’ll proceed if they don’t arrive on time.”

Pragmatic as ever, except for the concern in her dark gaze.

But Altair had no alternative ready. That wasn’t how he worked. He chose the best for his plans, and counted on them to perform.

His mind—ordinarily endlessly calculating, plotting, scheming—had blanked.

He bolted upright when the door flew open, both he and Kifah rushing forward. But it was neither his mother nor Nasir or Zafira.

Only one of Misk’s runners, panting.

“The Great Library. It—it’s on fire.”

CHAPTER 89

Saving thousands of lives would never make up for the ones Zafira had taken with such violence, but it meant she was still there. That she had lost the guise of the Hunter, but the person her cloak had fashioned still remained.

To live is to falter, she thought to herself, and she would not stay down.

Light inundated her senses when she and Nasir crossed from Sarasin into Sultan’s Keep. Even Afya stumbled before her Alder eyes adjusted to the light. A commotion echoed from deeper in the city, and Nasir urged the mare faster.

Zafira spotted the palace soon enough. She wondered what Nasir saw when he looked at the glittering domes and the pillars lining the Sultan’s Road: his dead father, or his own throne?

When she looked at the palace, she saw—

Her stomach dropped. Sweet snow, was that smoke? The smell hit her next. Her surging panic was matched by Afya’s, and the horse wrenched to a halt with a neigh.

The Jawarat stirred from a slumber like a cat raising its hackles, eager for the unraveling chaos. But she sensed its struggle and hesitation, the need to match her emotions. It was trying.

People were running toward them, fleeing every which way as screams thickened the air.

“The Great Library!”

“It’s on fire!”

Zafira straightened in alarm. The library?