We Free the Stars

by Hafsah Faizal

  “I don’t—I don’t want Lana to see me like this. I’m not going to burden her the way our mother did,” she said, almost reluctantly. “Yasmine doesn’t understand. Kifah and Altair—I saw them yesterday in the caliph’s room. I saw their faces, Nasir.” Her words came in a rush. “I’m losing all sense of right and wrong, and there’s no one who understands. Not—not the way you can. No one else will look at me and know that I’m still here.” She haltingly lowered her gaze to him. “That was why I agreed. Not because I have no respect for you. Not because you’re worth nothing to me.”

  A rider on a bay horse rushed past them, breaking the heavy silence. They needed to move. Altair’s plan banked on proper timing, and Nasir had factored just enough time for them and Afya to rest.

  “You understand, don’t you?” she asked softly. “You know what that means. Don’t you?”

  What you mean to me, her eyes said. Because though she was bold in the face of so much, his presence, he had learned, often drenched her in diffidence.

  And it was only natural that after a lifetime of insults, he did not know how to react to words from the heart. Words that held emotions he had never experienced, no matter what he once believed. She puzzled him, too—one moment she was asking him what he wanted of her. The next, he was baring his heart and she was turning away, confusing him. One moment she refused his crown, the next she chose him over everyone else.

  He took the reins from her outstretched hands.

  CHAPTER 78

  Six safin were dead. The number itself was insignificant, but this was no casualty of one of Altair’s wars. It was slaughter in the main jumu’a of Sultan’s Keep, a square meant for decrees and announcements, a place where his baby brother’s birth was once celebrated.

  All six of the safin had been gutted, their innards smeared across the gray stone, arms stretched and pinned across erect beams, eyes gouged by eager predators. Altair sensed a reason behind such specificity, but it was yet another detail his father hadn’t confided in him. Hundreds of stones littered the ground, tainted red.

  The messenger, panting and shivering in Demenhur’s cold, hadn’t skimped on a single detail.

  They were being punished for abandoning Arawiya after magic disappeared, the new king proclaimed. It should have wrought horror in the hearts of people, a leader fresh on the throne establishing his rule with vitriol and violence. Instead, delight was widespread, and it was only then that Altair realized how angry ordinary Arawiyans had been. They had craved justice long enough that the form in which it was achieved ceased to matter.

  The second messenger arrived immediately after, reiterating Haytham’s message of a swath of darkness bleeding across Sarasin’s skies, confirming their suspicions that the new caliph was indeed an ifrit wearing the mortal skin of the merchant Muzaffar. There was no other reason the caliphate remained silent as fiery-staved ifrit trampled people and, worst of all, children left and right. Confusion held them in a transitory restraint as they waited for their caliph to act on their behalf.

  Chaos Altair could handle, but it was this careful upending from the root that unnerved him, for everything Altair and Benyamin had worked for was slowly beginning to unravel.

  “If you grip that beam any tighter, the entire palace might fall on us,” Kifah called over the continuous whip, whip, whip of her spear.

  If there was one thing that drove Altair’s mind to red, raging anger, it was the death of children, the senseless loss of innocence.

  He loosened his grip and—hating that he had to turn his entire head to see whatever was on his left—looked to Nasir, only to find the prince absent. Akhh, so that was why he was more silent than usual.

  “Where’d he go?”

  Kifah shrugged. “I’m not his mother.”

  Altair scowled and left the war room with its collection of unfurled maps and plans that had once been used to thwart him and his armies. Or to attempt to do so, at least. Altair wasn’t a prize general for nothing. Oh, how the tables had turned. Here he was in Demenhur, bumping noses with the caliph’s wazir and befriending generals he’d once leveled swords with in battle.

  The Demenhune palace was thick with fear. The dignitaries were adamant in their attempts to leave, fearful that ifrit were coming for them, that they were next on the Lion’s list to be halved like fish on a board. Altair had almost laughed. If only they knew the truth.

  “We need to discuss Zafira,” Kifah said, somehow following his line of thought.

  “She’s not some … thing to be discussed.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Just as you know that there’s nothing we can do,” Altair said tiredly.

  Kifah sighed. “We can’t shut her away. If it was really the Jawarat that made her kill him, she needs us.”

  She needed them regardless. She was their friend. A small girl stepped into the hall and stopped short at the sight of him. He recognized her sharp features—she’d been in the room the night before, staring unflinchingly at the caliph’s mutilated corpse. There was something about the way she held herself that reminded him vaguely of Aya, but he brushed it away.

  “Peace unto you. How’s Zafira?” he asked.

  “Why do you ask?” she replied defensively, studying him with warm brown eyes.

  “I’m her friend.”

  “A friend wouldn’t have abandoned her the way you did.”

  Shame burned his neck. He’d been meaning to see her. To make sense of what she’d done. He hadn’t—sultan’s teeth.

  “She left,” the girl continued.

  “Don’t lie.”

  “Lying is dishonorable,” she said in dismay.

  If he’d had any doubts before, he was utterly certain now that the girl was Zafira’s sister, and he was this close to demanding an answer at swordpoint.

  He crouched. “If you tell me, little one, I’ll ask the kitchens for an extra piece of kanafah just for you.”

  She lifted an eyebrow at him. “I’m fourteen, and I can weave a needle through your remaining eyelid.”

  Altair burst out laughing and threw a glance at Kifah. “As Iskandar as they come. She’s … quite small for fourteen.”

  “My name is Lana. And you are quite large,” she replied.

  “Not an insult,” he said with a grin, and Kifah groaned. “What do you mean ‘she left’?”

  “She’s going to find a lion.”

  It took him a moment to realize that Lana had said “the” and not “a,” and that this lion was decidedly not a cat. Altair was suddenly very, very tired.

  “So she’s heading to Sultan’s Keep?”

  Lana nodded.

  “Alone? She shouldn’t even be able to—” He stopped at her wide-eyed look and dragged a hand down his face. Khara. “I should have kept that boy on a leash.”

  “He’s the crown prince.” Lana sniffed, offended on behalf of a fool she didn’t even know.

  “Crown prince my—”

  Kifah cleared her throat.

  “My what?” Lana asked sweetly.

  Altair growled. “Ask your sister.”

  “She also took the dagger from your room. The one wrapped in a turban and wedged between the bookshelves. A terrible spot, really.”

  Altair blinked, disbelief slowing his brain. “You—she—what?”

  “Lana? Where are you?” A voice called from the hall to their right. Lana gulped, eyes as wide as qahwa cups. She darted a glance to Kifah and fled down the hall before he could stop her.

  Altair stomped after her with a frown, but only caught the fluttering end of a blue shawl and heard the swish of a falling curtain. That voice. It had been strangely familiar in cadence, but alluringly melodic and—Now is not the time.

  Kifah was watching him with mild amusement and his frown deepened.

  “What?” he snapped.

  She shrugged.

  “Sayyidi?”

  Altair spun around with a snarl. Zafira was gone, Nasir was gone, the black dagger he ha
d lost an entire eye to retrieve was gone. He forced air through his nose. Panic and stress never helped a soul.

  “We—we found you the—a falcon,” the perplexed guard stammered.

  “Well, where is it?” Altair snapped, the boy’s gray eyes reminding him of Nasir.

  As the guard led them back to the war room, Altair let his thoughts roam. He and Kifah were bound to leave for their third of the plan soon enough, but they were meant to leave together with Nasir. Not like this. Without a farewell. Without even a note. Oddly enough, it stung.

  A blur of brown and cream swooped past the double doors, and the guard ducked with an inhuman squawk. Altair stopped in his tracks. Is that…? He held out his arm and the bird perched on his gauntlet.

  “We found him sitting on the gates, and someone thought he was one of ours,” the guard explained.

  No, not one of theirs. His.

  “Hirsi?” Altair couldn’t keep the strain from his voice. “Akhh, boy, did you follow me all this way?” With a contented, answering thrill, the bird rubbed his golden beak against Altair’s brow.

  Kifah laughed. “Is there anything you don’t love?”

  “My father,” Altair said simply, but at some point during his captivity, he had felt something for his father. Not love, but understanding, in the smallest of morsels. He snatched his letter from the desk, giving it one final read.

  His mother was the last person Altair wanted to address, but Kifah was nowhere near as skilled a miragi as she was, and the Silver Witch was an integral part of making this plan work.

  “Are we certain this will work?” Kifah asked. “How do we know she’ll even be in the Hessa Isles to receive it? How do we know she’ll agree to an illusion on that large a scale? What if she’s still injured? What if we don’t arrive in time?”

  Altair finished tying the note to Hirsi’s leg.

  “I am forever humbled by your unwavering faith in me, One of Nine. Here’s another question for your list: Why couldn’t Nasir tell us he was leaving with Zafira?”

  Kifah pursed her lips. “If there’s one thing the Prince of Death is known for, it’s following orders. He’ll do his part.”

  “A thousand questions for me, and somehow you believe in him without a sliver of a doubt,” Altair said.

  “You believe in him,” Kifah said, meeting his gaze. “That’s enough for me.”

  Altair smiled, taken by the warmth in her dark gaze. A man could get lost in them for days.

  Kifah lifted her brows. “Well? Shall we?”

  Akhh, the woman was not one for sentiment.

  “Wait,” Altair said, remembering something he once never left without. He opened his trunk and drew two blades, strapping on his sheaths and sliding the scimitars snugly into the leather grips. He straightened with a heavy breath.

  This time, Kifah did smile. “Just like old times, eh?”

  “If only,” he said. He would use just one of his scimitars. The other would be for balance, and because he loved both his children equally.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing he’s taken Zafira with him,” Kifah said. “We left her out of our plans when we shouldn’t have. At the very least, we should have been there when she woke up.”

  It wasn’t that he’d purposely avoided her. There were missives to send out, dignitaries to placate, blames to place. And then it was too late.

  He could only hope Nasir would stick to the plan and head for Leil. Not Sultan’s Keep. And that he would keep that daama dagger safe.

  The same gray-eyed guard led them down to the stables. Hirsi perched obediently on Altair’s shoulder, his head darting this way and that.

  Altair pilfered an oily dolma on the way to the stables, swinging onto a dark steed and grinning when Kifah swung onto a flea-bitten gray with ease. “Akhh, One of Nine. There’s no one else I’d rather ride with.”

  She arched an eyebrow into a perfect curve, and Altair learned there really was something he couldn’t do. With a pang, he remembered he had an eternity ahead of him, and only half his sight. He foresaw lament as his close companion for some time.

  “Must your every comment allude to your … tendencies?” she asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I sincerely admire our friendship, and there is truly no one else I would rather make this journey with and—”

  “Tell me one more lie, and I’ll make sure this horse’s shoe is the last thing you see.”

  The stable boy snickered.

  Altair sighed dreamily. “Not a soul treats me as kindly as you do.” He gestured to the entrance and tossed the boy a coin. “After you, sayyida.”

  Kifah looked at freedom the way a besotted person looked at a lover. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  They charged down the snow-steeped hill from the palace, Kifah’s ululation echoing in the frigid air. Hirsi took to the air with a shrill promise, and the streets of the city soon echoed with the clamor of hooves. Spindly trees bent over like old men, and fat camels wended slower than their owners. People greeted them as they passed, smiles wide and eyes bright, for the Demenhune had always been more amiable than the rest of the kingdom.

  “These rebels, do you think we can trust them?” Kifah shouted over the rush of the wind.

  Whoever they were, Altair intended to make use of them. They were short on support, and Arawiya was short on a future.

  “What we do know is that my charm will win them over to our side. We’ll have ourselves a little army in no time.”

  He heard her snort loud and clear.

  They had no choice; this wasn’t a skirmish over territory. It was all of their tomorrows in one fragile fist. They slowed in the thick of Thalj, where the sooq bustled with the midday crowd.

  Kifah drew up her horse with a curse and disappeared into an alley. “Oi, look at this.”

  “I was always warned not to follow strangers into dark alleys,” Altair mocked darkly. “Is that…?”

  Kifah ripped a sheet of papyrus from the wall, and Altair stared at the face he knew as well as his own. Nasir. The countenance was almost exact, even to the scar slashing down his right eye.

  “‘A thousand dinars,’” he read, “‘dead or alive.’”

  “Bleeding Guljul. Should I be insulted that you and I are completely worthless?” Kifah asked.

  “I would never admit this to his face, but my brother looks far better in person,” Altair said.

  Kifah snarled in frustration.

  “What? They didn’t get his nose right!” Altair exclaimed.

  “Could you at least pretend to be concerned?”

  Altair looked at her. “What should I do? Weep?” he asked, more harshly than he should have. “Will that make the posters disappear? Will that make my eye come back? Benyamin, too?”

  Kifah looked away.

  Altair exhaled long and slow.

  “Akhh, let’s leave being woeful to Nasir, laa?”

  Kifah eagerly obliged, passing him the poster.

  “It’s the perfect way for the Lion to turn the people’s fear of the Prince of Death into a reward.” Altair rolled up the poster and tucked it into his bag. “And he’s using the ifrit to spread word. No one else can travel so quickly. Khara, with them on his side, everything will move quickly. He might not see a need to prioritize the hearts, but it’s clear he sees us as a threat.”

  “Then let’s prove him right,” Kifah said. She paused, studying him in the dusty light of the alley. “You’re starting to worry.”

  Altair scoffed. “And risk my hair turning gray?”

  “You’re bursting with quips,” Kifah pointed out.

  Altair was too stunned to think of a comeback. Nearly a century and he didn’t notice that tell?

  “Do you ever think about how the Sisters failed?” she asked.

  “They trusted my charming mother.”

  Kifah shook her head. “We’re a zumra made of mismatched ends, one goal holding us together, unafraid to ask for help. We have the ‘as
abiyyah they didn’t.”

  “‘Asabiyyah?”

  “The essence of our zumra,” Kifah said with a shrug. “Unity based on shared purpose, loyalty to one another over that of kinship.” She looked at her inked arm. “I never really understood the concept until now. Until us.”

  “The Sisters had that, too,” Altair argued.

  “Every rule has within itself the seeds of its own downfall, and the Sisters’ was no different. They trusted their own and no one else. If there’s anyone who can save Arawiya, it’s us.”

  CHAPTER 79

  By the time night fell and the temperature dropped, Zafira was sore all over. She had somehow managed to hurt Nasir’s feelings, and the silence made his presence behind her even more overwhelming. The heat of his chest. The loose bind of his arms.

  It had been more than a week since she’d ridden a horse, and the urge to collapse against him almost outweighed her dignity. Her back ached, and her legs ached. Her chest ached, too, from holding still to protect her mending wound as they crested the sloping hills of Demenhur’s less-populated lands. They were fields once, bearing herbs and other plants harvested for medicinal purposes. Now they were blanketed in white, awaiting the return of magic like the rest of Arawiya.

  When they neared a village at the Demenhune border, Nasir slowed Afya to a walk. The streets were silent except for the whistle of the cold wind. Torches winked like amber eyes from the shadows, and the shops were the kind of dark only ghosts were drawn to, alleys beckoning like the one-legged nesnas out of a child’s nightmare.

  “Why are we slowing?” Zafira asked. There was something about this village she didn’t like. Even the moon had tucked herself behind heavy clouds.

  Nasir sighed, a warmth on her chilled neck that she welcomed in more ways than one.

  “There is a downside to having Afya on this journey.” He slid off the mare’s back and began leading her on foot, studying the surrounding structures. “Had she been any other horse, we could have swapped her and been on our way. She must rest. We’ll continue just after midnight.”

  “Surely she can go a little farther,” Zafira said, aware she whined like a child. “We left before noon.”