We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)

“Wait—” Nasir began, but stopped short when a fine white arrow cut into an ifrit creeping close. Zafira. He couldn’t see past the thick veil of shadows. He couldn’t hear beyond the clashing swords.

“Altair?”

Nothing.

“Altair!” he shouted.

The snap of fingers came from a distance, and the ifrit vanished. Nasir stumbled, coming face to face with Kifah and her spear. Seif halted with his twin scythes in midair. The ground was littered with fallen ifrit and hashashins alike, a graveyard stretching between Nasir and the Lion.

The Lion.

Zafira’s arrow was in his hand, dripping black blood while he stood unaffected, almost unharmed.

To his right stood Aya. To his left was Altair.

Altair. Unchained. Content. Barely concerned. Nasir should have known the moment he saw his brother lounging with a book. Still, he felt something crushing inside him.

To what end?

The clouds finally parted for the sun, steeping the street and buildings in gold. Perhaps they were destined to be opposites: Nasir the dark to Altair’s light. The night to his day. The monster to his greatness. And now, once more, they were on opposing ends. Nasir with the forces of good, and Altair with the growing forces of evil.

The Lion tsked. “Such violence, Nasir. What will the people think when they see how little their crown prince has changed?”

“Altair!” Nasir roared, but the general turned with the Lion, and Nasir cursed the pain flooding him.

“Aya? Aya, this isn’t right,” Kifah yelled, frantic. “Altair, stop her!”

But her voice cracked with the same truth the rest of them had already gleaned—they would receive no help from Altair. Nasir’s fingers shook as he felt along his belt, empty of knives. The blades at his gauntlets were of no use at this distance. There was only one way.

Nasir looked to the rooftop and shouted.

CHAPTER 42

Shoot.

Nasir’s command encased Zafira in a tomb of ice. As if the Lion pulling her arrow out of his chest with a frown hadn’t been unsettling enough.

This was Aya. Benyamin’s wife. Her ally and Arawiya’s greatest healer. It didn’t matter that she walked shoulder to shoulder with the Lion, her pale pink silk like petals of a flower withering in darkness.

I can’t.

She couldn’t shoot, despite knowing the Lion needed Aya for something important if he was stooping to the level of safin. Despite knowing she could bring ruin to them all.

“Zafira, shoot!” Nasir shouted again, a note of desperation in his voice.

Baba, help me. She stared down the shaft of the arrow, felt its pulse at her cheek, but she couldn’t. Fear crammed in her throat when someone else’s arrow struck bare paces from Aya’s dress. Zafira tried to find that dark voice in her blood. The newfound whisper that reveled in killing and destruction. But it lived within the Jawarat, far from her reach and easily overpowered by something else. The harsha in Aya’s hand. The word “roohi” from her lips. The pearls in her hair. The way she looked at Lana.

Zafira lowered her bow.

With a curse, Nasir ran. Gold flashed in the gloom as Kifah bounded after him. She pulled her arm back, hesitation freezing her form.

But she did it. She launched her spear, her aim true.

It landed on the stone with a whistle and a thump as the Lion disappeared, taking Aya and Altair with him.

CHAPTER 43

The Price of Dum Sihr is Always Great. Zafira had known this, and yet she’d done it anyway. If only Benyamin were here now, maybe he would help them make sense of what had happened. He would tell them why the Lion had barely flinched though her arrow’s aim had been true. Why his wife had chosen the Lion over them. Why Altair, the brother of his heart, had stonily turned away.