Malik had no idea where they were or how far they had run. The roads had narrowed into a labyrinth of barely human-width paths with thousands of twists and turns, and wraiths crawled in every corner, their eyes two dots of moonlight in shadow dark faces. The ground beneath Malik’s feet tilted, and Nadia yelled as they swayed to the side.
“Over here!”
Nyeni gestured frantically to the siblings from a doorway of a decrepit house that looked older than Ziran itself. They ran over to her. Somewhere far away, the chipekwe bellowed.
When Malik had regained his bearings enough to look around, hundreds of faces stared back at him. He almost screamed, but . . . wait. Those weren’t faces—not real ones, anyway.
Masks of every imaginable shape and size lined the walls of the house. Malik recognized a few from Eshra, like the special wooden masks their shamans had used before the Zirani had converted his people to the Alignment system, though some resembled creatures he’d never seen, like a mask of a ram with nine curling horns. A row of seven black stone masks depicted the patron deities, and Malik instinctively made a gesture of respect toward Adanko.
“Thank you,” Malik wheezed.
Nyeni turned to face them, her mouth pulled back in a feral snarl.
“It’s not me you need to thank, man-pup.”
And just like that, she vanished.
Malik stared openmouthed at the space where the griot had stood, terror choking his voice as he pulled Nadia closer to his chest. The siblings huddled together as dark shadows curled from the cracks in the wall, and the same too-vibrant blue light Malik had seen in Nyeni’s eyes pulsed at the edge of the world.
“This way!” screamed Leila, bolting back to the door.
Malik threw himself toward the exit but stopped short, teetering on the edge of the door frame. In front of him stretched nothing but open night sky, and all he could see of the ground far below was a sprawling wasteland as barren as the sands that surrounded Ziran.
This time, there was nowhere to run.
4
Karina
Night had fallen by the time Karina and Aminata returned to Ksar Alahari, and the palace was in complete disarray.
Well, perhaps disarray was not the best word. Even at its most chaotic, Ksar Alahari was nothing less than stately and well organized, run by a methodical system that Karina hadn’t bothered to learn.
But there was a tension in the air, a potent mix of excitement for Solstasia and the growing dread all hosts feel when their guests are due to arrive. As Karina made her way through the twisting halls of the palace, servants ran in every direction, yelling that more pillows were needed in the room of this ambassador or that onions had yet to arrive in that kitchen. Groups of servants scrubbed furiously at intricate zellij tiles lining the walls, and even the mighty black-and-white alabaster arches draped with garlands of blooming oleander seemed to shake with anticipation.
And through it all, Farid still found time to yell at her.
“Of all the stupid, reckless, irresponsible, stupid—”
“You already said ‘stupid.’”
Karina had never seen someone’s face turn purple, but Farid’s was quickly approaching that shade. The palace steward was a man of awkward angles and too-long limbs, so even his anger had a comical air to it. Neatly combed black hair and a long face often drawn tight with worry made Farid look nearly a decade older than his twenty-seven years.
Farid ran his hands down his face as he led Karina down a pathway lined with reflecting pools littered with rose petals. He had to take several deep breaths before he could say, “Great Mother help me, a stampede in River Market of all places.”
“You say that as if I knew the stampede was going to happen, which I assure you I did not.”
“You could have been trampled to death! Or stabbed! What if one of your migraines had hit, and you’d collapsed before the Sentinels found you?” Farid clutched his chest. “Imagine if word got out that the crown princess of Ziran had died mere hours before Solstasia. Oh, this is upsetting my ulcer.”
“You don’t have an ulcer, Farid.”
“I will soon at this rate!”
Farid droned on, but Karina was more concerned with the new scratch lining Baba’s oud due to the filthy boy who had crashed into her. Thankfully that was the only injury the instrument had sustained, but there was no telling how many more cracks the oud could handle before it became impossible to play. Compared to the fear of losing the last gift Baba had ever given her, nothing Farid could do or say scared her.
“And Aminata, you should know better than to go along with such reckless behavior,” scolded Farid. The maid looked down while Karina rolled her eyes. Farid had only been palace steward for five years, yet he took the role far too seriously. In Karina’s eyes, he would forever be the quiet boy who had grown up alongside her and Hanane. Besides, she and Farid both knew he was far too soft-hearted to ever punish her in any meaningful way.
That was the Kestrel’s job.
Karina was grateful when Commander Hamidou went to alert the queen that her daughter had returned. The commander was one of the few Sentinels who were stationed around the sultana regularly, but that did not mean Karina felt comfortable around the woman. She had followed them silently all the way from River Market, and now that she was gone, it felt like a pressure had lifted from the air and that Karina could breathe easier.
The second Aminata ran off to prepare for the comet viewing, Farid began fretting anew.
“Is it me? Am I the problem?” he wondered aloud. “Have you made it your life’s mission to ensure there is never a peaceful moment in my own?”
Her mind wandering as it always did when Farid began lecturing, Karina took in the testaments to a thousand years of Alahari sultanas in the artwork all around them. Every queen had earned her place on these walls, and one day Karina’s descendants would stand there gazing up at her own addition to their family’s history.
An addition Hanane would never get to make, thanks to the fire that had cut her life short. The ever-present ache in the back of Karina’s head thudded once more, and she winced.
“Are you listening to me?” chided Farid.
Karina fought the urge to rub her temple. Moon-aligned people were supposed to be calm and composed, but Farid was often anything but when it came to her. “Not at all.”
Chief among the roles of the palace steward was overseeing the day-to-day life of the heiress to the throne. Over the last five years, Karina and Farid had fallen into a comfortable rhythm of him providing her with neatly crafted plans and her ignoring them at every turn. Hardly a day went by when Farid didn’t declare that life as her caretaker was inching him slowly toward an early death.
Farid sighed, his next words soft. “Is something the matter, Karina? Your behavior these last few weeks has been unusually rash, even for you. Missing your lessons—”
“They’re boring.”
“—getting caught with stable boys—”
“Hire uglier stable boys.”
“—all of this would be bad enough normally, but I can’t handle the many demands on the palace for Solstasia if I’m spending half my day chasing you down.” Farid laid a hand on her shoulder. “You know if something is bothering you, you can tell me, right?”