Through the smoke, Zafira saw it: the iron gates swinging outward with twin groans. Another sound, low and bestial, rolled from its confines like the unsheathing of a sword, and something hummed against her skin. Magic.
The Lion’s barriers were coming undone.
ACT III
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER 93
There were arches that led to the palace doors, and before them was the fountain Nasir’s mother had commissioned long ago, shaped like a lion.
Its water ran crimson.
The hairs on the backs of Nasir’s arms rose at the sight. The clamor of men and ifrit echoed from the streets, and from the deeper shadows along the palace walls, soldiers materialized, human in appearance, though the staves against their shoulders gave them away as ifrit.
Nasir drew his scimitar. Zafira nocked an arrow in an unfamiliar bow.
And a figure stepped from the arches. A place he had no right to stand in. A position he had murdered to obtain.
The Lion of the Night. Perfectly poised and dauntingly dramatic.
Laa—he was neither of those things. Not now. Panic painted his stance, glowed in his amber eyes, because that which he valued most was burning to cinders. He looked worn, surprised to see them; a strange sight, for the Lion was adept at masking emotion.
Shadows gathered in his outstretched palms.
Nasir sheathed his scimitar.
If the Lion desired a game of shadows, Nasir would give him one. He mirrored the Lion’s movements, lifting his own hands, but he wasn’t quick enough. Darkness shot toward them, the fountain falling to pieces in between, stone scattering to the courtyard. Zafira fell with a cry. Nasir stumbled, but held his ground.
The Lion didn’t wait. He dashed for the gates, abandoning them in favor of the Great Library, still engulfed in flames. Nasir watched, and though he didn’t consider himself petty, he took great pleasure in the Lion’s haste, and then in the way his delicate features morphed into horror, cementing him in place.
As the fire, smoke, and every last ember in the air disappeared.
CHAPTER 94
Zafira loosed a relieved breath when the illusion disappeared. The Lion’s horror gave way to laughter, and she didn’t like how p
art of her reacted to the sound. In heartbeats, that relief would turn to anger when he realized he had been made a mockery of. He whirled, darkness in his palms.
Nasir was ready.
Both shadows clashed like thunder in a rare storm, rage igniting the courtyard. Zafira took a careful step away, shifting her bow to and fro as she tried to sight the ifrit, her wound whispering a warning everytime she moved. The shadows wouldn’t still, stirring debris and sand, whipping her hair about her face.
“You think to end me.” The Lion’s voice carried over the chaos. “To take the throne you imagine rightfully yours.”
Zafira looked to Nasir in alarm, but the words fell harmlessly.
“Pathetic.”
Nasir gritted his teeth, and the Lion, despite the distance between them, noticed.
“You will never be enough. The people will never love you,” the Lion spurred in a tight drawl as he drove his shadows with all his strength.
A rasp escaped Nasir, and she knew he saw his father. Heard him. Felt the weight of his dead body. Skies. She needed to do something, stop that monster’s mouth.
“A killer,” the Lion goaded, and she flinched. “A scarred boy king with barely enough words at his disposal.”
Nasir’s shadows began to waver, and she knew. The words themselves hurt less than the reminder that they were once spoken by his father.