We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

It is truth. We are not mortal.

Perspiration trickled down the back of Zafira’s neck as the sun ratcheted up the heat.

We are immortal.

“And suddenly I am, too?” she asked angrily.

We are bound, you and us. The span of our life is yours.

“That … that isn’t how it works.”

Can pith made papyrus speak to a witless girl?

She gritted her teeth, ready to fling the Jawarat into the fountain. “What do you want from me?”

There had to be a reason it spoke to her, goaded her. She wasn’t like the Lion or the darkness in which the Jawarat had festered. She was powerless, as Seif continuously repeated. Perhaps it was time to entrust Aya with the book and—

A hiss reverberated in her ears, and she dropped the Jawarat in her fright. It fell open on the dusty stone. She looked about sharply, but only

the fountain gurgled softly, dust dancing in the slanting sunlight.

Then the book slammed itself shut.

Bint Iskandar.

The words were a terrible moan. Fear crept into her veins.

Let us show you what you can do.

The alcove faded away, ebbing light giving shape to the snowy stretch of a village and a cloaked woman in its center. The sooq looked familiar, as did the scant, spindly trees. Demenhur. Yet Zafira herself wasn’t in the caliphate. It was as if she were looking through a spyglass into another world, an observer.

The green leather of the Jawarat was clutched in the woman’s left hand, the fingers of her right twisting to the skies, and words Zafira couldn’t understand slipping from her tongue. An incantation, almost. A spell.

Shouts rang out as people ran from the sooq in fear, fleeing from her—the woman—as she brought her fist down suddenly.

And the ground surged upward.

The circular jumu’a meant for gatherings erupted. Stone and debris hurtled toward the surrounding stalls and struck down screaming villagers. Several men ran toward the woman, some with tabars and swords, others hefting bricks and whatever makeshift weapons they could find.

Even as they neared, the woman did not move. The biting chill stirred her cloak.

She merely flipped to another page of the Jawarat, and after a few breathless moments, Zafira watched as she arced her hand down.

Rending

the men

in half.

Screams broke out anew, bodies fell to the ground with sickening thuds. No, Zafira tried to shout, to stop this senseless violence, but her mouth was sewn shut. She struggled to breathe, bound to this terrible vision, laa, nightmare. For that was what it was.

A nightmare.

The men fell, one after the other. Halved by her terrible power. By the Jawarat’s power. The grisly image seared itself into Zafira’s skin. More men dropped to their knees, their own swords through their guts. The ruined sooq turned crimson as blood flowed freely, pooling around the woman’s feet.

Silence fell, and with a satisfied hum, she turned, knocking back her hood with a bloody hand.

And Zafira stared at herself.