We Free the Stars

by Hafsah Faizal

  “The Great Library!”

  “It’s on fire!”

  Zafira straightened in alarm. The library?

  “Arawiya punishes us!”

  Afya wouldn’t calm. Zafira almost fell from her back, grabbing a handful of her mane with a yelp.

  “We need to dismount,” Nasir said.

  Zafira slid to the dusty ground. The library. Baba. All that knowledge, all that history. The work of scholars, historians, poets, travelers—gone. She wanted to find the person who said there was nothing more powerful than the written word and shake him. Show him what was happening.

  Not all were fleeing. The more level-headed people rushed toward the blaze two by two with buckets of water sloshing between them.

  It’s useless, she wanted to say as smoke billowed into the skies, great wafts rising.

  Nasir nudged her forward with one hand, still trying to calm Afya with the other. Zafira wrenched away. They should be helping, not running.

  “Focus. We’re short on time,” Nasir insisted. “Afya, no!”

  The fire tore a gash inside her. As they ran, she alternated between looking down at the ground and up at the smoke that berated the sky in angry undulations.

  They stumbled past the gates of Aya’s house. As Nasir wrestled Afya toward the stables, Zafira saw men loitering in the courtyard. Demenhune. And there were a number of them. Good. One couldn’t put out a fire on one’s own.

  “Zafira?”

  “Not now,” she snapped. “We need to put out that—”

  She turned when the voice registered in her head, the smoke in the distance doused by her sudden rage.

  “So this is what cowards do when they lie to their wives,” she snarled.

  Misk, beautiful and weary, had the decency to look ashamed. Laa, utterly and deeply saddened. He shook his head. “No—I did worse.”

  The fight rushed out of her. Yasmine had said that he might never hold a secret from her again, and had Zafira been in her place, she would have found a way to forgive him outright. But Yasmine was different; her forgiveness did not come so easily. Especially when the ugliness of a lie was involved.

  When Nasir returned with an unsheathed sword, looking for her, Misk’s eyes narrowed. “The Prince of Death is not welcome here.”

  It was odd hearing him speak this way. It was odd seeing him at ease before a weapon, as if he were an entirely different person from the one Yasmine had married. He was a different person, she realized. Zafira had known him to be a bookkeeper, a man versed with scrubbing ink from his fingers, not blood. It wasn’t just a secret he had kept from Yasmine, it was a whole daama life.

  “I didn’t ask.” Nasir studied him with a tilt of his head. “I’ve seen you before. In the palace. You’re one of Altair’s.”

  Misk’s mouth tightened.

  “Oi!” someone shouted, interrupting the tension. “Don’t loiter. Get—Nasir? Sultan’s teeth, it’s you! Kifah thought you were dead. Akhh, I’m hurt, habibi. You didn’t even spare me a goodbye.”

  Zafira froze as Altair’s footsteps drew near, shadowed by those of another. Her chest was suddenly tight, but she forced herself to turn as Misk sprinted away. Kifah met her eyes and tipped her head in slow greeting. Altair gave her an apologetic half smile. Not a word was exchanged, yet relief flooded her.

  You doubted the ones you love.

  Zafira felt the urge to fling the Jawarat into the distance. You made me do it.

  Altair’s features softened. “I was wrong to have left your side, Huntress. Forgive me.”

  “Me as well,” Kifah said, stepping closer.

  Zafira smiled around the swell in her throat, clamping her teeth against a mad laugh. She had judged others for less. She had judged Altair for less—for merely turning his back on them when Aya had.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said softly.

  Kifah shrugged. “Eh, the old man had it coming.”

  She knew that was not what Kifah really believed, which made her appreciate the words even more. Altair, Kifah, and Nasir lingered another beat, silence stretching amid the screams and blaze in the distance, before they began turning away.

  “Wait—what about the fire?” Zafira asked.

  “What about it?” Nasir asked.

  “It’s quite a sight,” Altair said with a tilt of his head.

  “Started just now,” Kifah said with a shrug. “Which means word will reach the Lion soon enough.”

  Not one of them was concerned, or worried, or even upset at the decades of knowledge burning into the ether. Laa, they looked impatient. With confusion, Zafira remembered the Silver Witch at the inn, Nasir asking her to come to Sultan’s Keep, that he had left too soon to know the “exact timing.”

  The daama Silver Witch.

  “It’s … not real,” she realized aloud, slumping in relief.

  “It’s an illusion,” Nasir said unnecessarily.

  Zafira’s features flattened. “Thank you, my prince. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  Altair snickered as Nasir’s ears burned red and Kifah rolled her eyes. Zafira immortalized this moment in her heart. This reminder that the zumra was still a family to which she belonged.

  “Did you have any trouble killing the ifrit in Sarasin?” Altair asked Nasir.

  Nasir glanced at Zafira. “I didn’t kill him.”

  Kifah gaped and Altair looked to Zafira with alarm. “You killed him?”

  “I might have tarnished my pristine reputation, but I’m not some creature of habit,” Zafira said with a lift of her chin.

  “The ifrit is alive,” Nasir said. “I’ve promised residence to ifritkind across Arawiya, and a caliphate of their own. They’ll cultivate the Wastes with aid from the crown and the Silver Witch.”

  Altair’s eye widened in surprise, then softened in pride. “You, brother dearest, are quite the diplomat. I always knew you’d make a good sultan. Not as good as I would, of course, but good enough.”

  Zafira watched as Nasir tried but failed to mask his pleasure at the acknowledgment. She had always assumed it was easy, being sultan—or king, as the Lion had now dubbed the title. For though the sultan ruled over the kingdom as a whole, he mostly presided over the caliphs and emirs, leaving day-to-day governance to the leaders themselves. It was clearly a misguided belief.

  “I didn’t do it alone,” Nasir said, looking at Zafira.

  Altair dipped his head at her, his gaze solemn. “And you would make a good queen.” His single eye flashed a wink. “Every leader has a healthy dose of blood on their hands.”

  She wrinkled her nose, ignoring the weight of Nasir’s gaze. Negotiating with the ifrit had been thrilling enough, but it made her realize the difference between working with common folk and working with their leaders. How a calipha did for her people as she had done for her village.

  “Oi, no time to stand around.” Kifah saluted with two fingers off her brow and jogged backward as she reprimanded them. “We’re counting on the Lion’s love of the written word, and we only have one shot. Yalla, zumra.”

  Swords passed from hand to hand, and grinding stones clattered on the ground. Arrows thudded into quivers, and though Zafira felt the absence as acutely as their impending doom, she wasn’t about to be ousted from history simply because she couldn’t wield a bow. There was glory to be had in battle, victory as sharp-edged as her name.

  We will be with you.

  It was comforting, those words. Zafira and the Jawarat had come to an understanding, one she didn’t fully comprehend as yet. Laa, she could still barely believe the events that had unfolded in the shadows of the Sarasin palace. The peace she had ushered and Nasir had enacted.

  An admirable team, the three of us.

  She wanted to tease it, but a voice slipped from one of the second-story windows, freezing her in place.

  It was impossible for the owner of that voice to be here in Sultan’s Keep and not far beyond these borders, beyond Sarasin, all the way back in the secur
e confines of the palace in Thalj.

  Zafira hurried up the stairs to the open door, heart leaping, crashing, stilling.

  Yasmine.

  There she was, standing before Misk, her tiny figure holding its place against his taller, sullen one. His head hung in shame.

  “We agreed to spend time apart, Misk!” she shouted, her voice cracking. “Not for you to sign your life away. To die in some battle that doesn’t even need you.”

  She caught sight of Zafira.

  “And you!” Yasmine cried, whirling.

  Misk’s head shot up, and Zafira joined his side to make it easier for her friend to shout at them both.

  “I’ve lost everyone, and there you are, running to where men are being blinded and women are being shot and buildings are burning and who knows what else is happening.”

  “How did you get here?” Zafira asked, as if Yasmine hadn’t just upended the entire alphabet.

  Yasmine glowered. “I left Thalj the moment Lana told me you’d left. And I was nearly kidnapped on the way, shukrun.”

  Zafira held her gaze, fighting a wave of guilt. Yasmine collapsed with a sob, the fight rushing out of her. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Why?” she asked in a broken voice. “Why is everyone so eager to leave me?”

  This was the heart of Yasmine’s fears, Zafira realized. She crouched in front of her and Yasmine gripped her hand, sliding her palm along hers until their smallest fingers intertwined. As if reminding her that though one Ra’ad sibling was gone, another still remained.

  “I need to finish what I’ve started,” Zafira said just as softly. “I need to do this, or Deen’s death will have been for nothing. All of this will have been for nothing.”

  “I’m not trying to stop you, Zafira. I only want to be important enough to be spoken to. To not be kept in the dark. Am I not worth saying goodbye to? Am I not worthy of an explanation? Of the truth?”

  Zafira looked away. “You are. Of course you are. I—I’m sorry.”

  Misk mumbled something similar.

  Yasmine reached for Zafira’s hands. “Just—let’s stop fighting, all right? I know you have to go.” She offered Zafira a small smile, and then looked at Misk. He knelt beside her and she kissed his cheek, then the bridge of his nose. Forgiveness was spelled out in the tiny gestures, warming Zafira’s limbs. “I don’t want to lose you, too. So don’t die. Either of you.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Zafira assured her.

  Misk was far more eloquent.

  “I am yours forevermore, in life and in death,” he murmured. He pulled her to his chest and touched his lips to her brow. “What, no words to torment me?”

  “I was so angry, Misk, but when I saw you there, a sword in your hand and—” She broke off with anguish. “The heart cannot forget the one who lives in her soul.”

  He smoothed back her hair, matching her tone. “Such finesse. Which book did you thieve that one from?”

  She hit him square on the chest with a fractured laugh before he kissed her quiet. His hands enclosed her small form, while her fingers strayed to his hair. Zafira looked away, neck burning, and rushed down the stairs so she wouldn’t have to hear or see anything else that she wasn’t meant to.

  She stumbled into Altair, who lifted an eyebrow at her fluster and glanced at the second floor with a studious frown.

  “Are you hoping you’ll blend into the daylight?” Zafira asked, looking pointedly at his clothes.

  He was more haggard than he’d ever been, weariness drawing a circle beneath his eye, but he was dressed as impeccably as always. Zafira hadn’t the slightest idea where the man found such clothes, or the time to maintain them. The entire ensemble was white and black, edged in gold, the filigree a nod to fashion. Laa, it was familiar.

  A tribute—those were the colors Benyamin had worn.

  Altair’s frown deepened. “It’s called fashion, Huntress.”

  “‘Fashion’ and ‘ridiculous’ don’t mean the same,” Kifah said as both she and Nasir joined them. “You don’t have to be a scholar to know that.”

  “Glory is an acquired taste, and one must dress the part.”

  If Zafira knew anyone who would appreciate his mad sense of style, it was Yasmine.

  Life thrives with irony, bint Iskandar. Indeed, it did.

  “When all this is done, Altair, I’ll give you the perfect position in the palace so that you can lead the life you’ve always deserved,” Nasir said, sheathing his scimitar.

  Altair rolled his eye, and Zafira withdrew the stolen black dagger and offered it to him, hilt first.

  “Keep it,” he said with a soft laugh, his warm hand closing her fingers around the hilt. “That was always your part in this plan.”

  She searched his gaze. Had he truly factored her into his scheme? Or was this a moment of improvisation? Before she could find the courage to ask, he was turning and gesturing to the two rows of buildings leading to the palace gates, pausing when Misk sprinted down the stairs.

  His turban was nowhere to be seen, his hair disheveled in a way that was clear it wasn’t the wind that had rifled through it.

  “Sultan’s teeth, Misk Khaldun. Have you no decency?” Altair exclaimed.

  Misk grinned, his gaze bright. Nasir whispered something that sounded suspiciously like You’re one to talk.

  “Station half your archers along those rooftops,” Altair told him. “The rest of us will spread out and regroup—”

  The ground began to tremble. Altair and Nasir shared a look and hurried outside, and Zafira wondered if either of them knew just how much strength they drew from the other.

  “Ifrit,” Kifah whispered. “We’re late. They weren’t supposed to come to us.”

  “Zafira?” Yasmine asked from the upstairs balcony, her face flushed. “What’s happening?”

  “Stay in the room. Lock the door,” Zafira ordered, unsure if that would make a difference. “Don’t leave.”

  But Yasmine didn’t move from the balcony. She was watching her.

  “It’s still new,” she said softly, “seeing you armed and uncloaked. Shoulders back, head high. The bearer of change. I can hear the bards already—‘she was a reed against the harrowing tides, the curve of the moon leading them to freedom.’”

  Zafira bit back her smile, undeserving of that prideful delight. If only Yasmine knew what more she had done to bear that change. The sins she had committed because of their caliph’s bias. Yet the words stirred tears from a piece of her that awaited acknowledgment and praise from her dearest friend.

  “I’m proud of you. Lana is, too. If I hadn’t threatened to lock her in the palace dungeons, she would have come.”

  Zafira laughed through the trappings of her guilt, for Yasmine had protected her sibling in a way Zafira had failed Yasmine’s.

  When she looked back up, Yasmine had fixed her gaze on Misk, who saluted her one last time before disappearing after the others. Fear filled her hazel eyes with tears, and she fled before they could fall, latching the door closed.

  Live, Zafira demanded Misk. Amend your shortcomings. Love her.

  Then only Kifah and she remained. Kifah, armed with her spear, gold-tipped and fierce. Zafira, with only Nasir’s jambiya in her hand, the black dagger tucked in her boot. No bow, no arrows.

  “Oi,” Kifah snapped, startling her. “Don’t slouch. You overpowered the Jawarat, and that thing is as old as the Lion.”

  That was exactly it, wasn’t it? Zafira gripped the satchel strapped to her side. “And as long as I’m connected to the Jawarat, I’ll be a risk. I feel like I’ve been made of glass.”

  Kifah shook her shoulders. “No one walks into battle expecting to die, Huntress, and a book bound to your soul doesn’t make that any different. Now hold that dagger high and stick with me, glass girl. I’ll make sure you don’t shatter.”

  CHAPTER 90

  A dark haze bled into the afternoon light, chilling Zafira’s skin, and worry buzzed through Misk�
��s rebels when the streets erupted with screams and alarmed shouts. Smoke continued billowing to the skies, but this darkness was different.

  This was the darkness that preceded ifrit in their natural form. They flooded the gates, staves flashing, shapeless guises shifting. Zafira locked the house doors. Altair breathed a curse.

  Somehow, that made everything worse.

  “This,” Nasir rounded on him, his voice hushed in anger, “is what happens when you leave anything to chance. People die.”

  The men murmured among themselves, hope spiraling with the sun.

  Altair glanced about sharply. “Don’t. You may not understand the workings of men, and you may not have been made for battle, but I will not let you destroy their hope.”

  “I’m not destroying what never existed.”

  “This battle banks on hope. Humanity banks on hope,” Altair seethed, throwing up his sword. His voice rose over the sudden howl of the wind. “Yalla! It won’t be long before the Lion hears of the fire.”

  Hears of it? Skies, by now he would have to be smelling it, seeing it, feeling it. The world would know of it soon enough.

  They’d barely made it past the gates before the ifrit converged, shrieks filling the air.

  Zafira ducked when an ifrit made it past the ranks ahead and lunged for her. Her heart leaped to her throat as she ripped her jambiya through the dark soldier. Safin steel, unlike Baba’s dagger, now far away in Bait ul-Ahlaam. Even still, it was ten times more frightening than aiming a bow from a distance.

  Beside her, Kifah unleashed a handful of throwing knives, felling three ifrit before turning to impale another. Altair and Nasir, despite their bickering, fought back to back, the prince’s sword flashing quicker than the other’s single scimitar, and she wondered if that was why Nasir was at his side.

  Death sweeps toward us.

  She paused at the Jawarat’s murmur. Already, men and ifrit littered the ground, shadowy forms beside human ones.

  A fire crackled behind her, a warning before she whirled, tackling the stave away with her dagger, singeing the tips of her fingers in the process. Kifah turned to her aid with two well-placed thwacks of her spear.