“Was there no other analogy?” Seif asked.
Kifah rolled her eyes. “Prude.”
“The Lion will come for the rest of the hearts,” Aya said, guiding them back to the matter at hand. “A single one is useless without the others.”
It was sound reasoning, Zafira knew, but something told her the hearts were not a priority for him. Not yet. She pulled the Jawarat from her bag, running her fingers down the lion’s mane, instantly at ease. Even on Sharr, the Lion’s focus had been on the book—she doubted they would have escaped with as many of the hearts as they had otherwise.
Your confidence astounds, bint Iskandar.
“Arawiya knows next to nothing of the hearts,” Zafira pointed out. “The Sisters held the knowledge of them close.”
“And now that knowledge is in the Jawarat,” Nasir gathered.
Zafira nodded grimly. “He’ll come for the Jawarat first, if for no reason other than it being what he craves: knowledge.”
Even if she hadn’t seen the tattoo curling around the Lion’s eye, the old Safaitic word of ‘ilm etched bold and bronze, she would have known this, for Benyamin had told them as much. It was what he valued above all else.
Seif eyed the book and extended his hand. “Then it must be under strict supervision.”
No, bint Iskandar.
For an immortal book, it had a knack for sounding like a sulking child.
“Do you think I won’t protect the thing that’s bound to me? If anything happens to it, I could die,” Zafira snapped. “I’m more than capable of keeping it safe.”
Seif barked a laugh. “You bound yourself to a hilya?”
Zafira had no notion of what a hilya was, but the look on the safi’s face was enough to make her resolve waver.
He drew a breath, ready to spew more, but Aya spoke first. “That is enough. Protect it well, Huntress.”
Zafira nodded once, uncertain if her smug triumph was her own or prompted by the book sitting gleefully relieved in her hands.
Seif looked as if he had more to say, and from the way his pale gaze flicked to Aya, Zafira guessed it involved twistedly pinning the blame on Benyamin, the fallen safi who had spent the past nine decades blaming himself for the Lion’s betrayal, doing all he could to make up for the tragedy of his good intentions. It was clear he had even fronted Altair’s gossamer web to protect him, for it couldn’t have been easy being a spymaster and the sultan’s right-hand general at once.
Aya gripped Seif’s arm and drew him away.
“There is one more thing,” Nasir said slowly, halting them, and Zafira could tell that whatever it was cost precious dignity. “The Lion controls my … father. If you’ve safin we can trust, it would be ideal to station them across the city. Near the palace, the Great Library, everywhere of importance.”
Zafira’s heart stuttered at the mention of yet another place Baba had longed to see. It was history incarnate, scrolls and parchment preserving every last bit of knowledge that ever meant anything. She wondered if the Lion had made use of it through his control of Ghameq. It was likely. Greed had no limit.
Seif pursed his mouth and spoke to Aya in low tones that not even Zafira could catch. Then he sauntered away without a backward glance.
Kifah lifted an eyebrow. “Bleeding Guljul, if I thought Benyamin was vain, this one can’t even keep his clothes on.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to look,” Zafira returned, and Kifah shot her a murderous glare.
“Seif is captain of Alderamin’s royal guard and will take care of everything. I am sorry he is not the most affable of us,” Aya said. She gestured to the crate with the hearts, clutched in Nasir’s hands. “Until we determine the best course of action, we will keep the hearts close and in constant movement. Change hands every half day. Never leave them unattended.” She paused. “Benyamin thought highly of you. He and Altair had done as much to keep Arawiya from crumbling as the sultana did, though it was never enough. He always said the world was meant to be salvaged by the ones it had wronged. Life makes a mockery of us, does it not?”
Death, Zafira corrected in her head because she was mortal. Death makes a mockery of us.
Aya pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, but not before a murmur slipped free. Roohi.
Outside, the final stretch of the sun washed the world in deep gold. No one knew what to say in the silence. What was it like to be burdened by an eternity of sadness? They mourned Benyamin, but none of them could begin to understand how much his wife mourned him.
Was that how Zafira was to live the rest of her days, burdened by the death of her loved ones?
“Okhti?”
Zafira went still. Now I’m hearing things. But Nasir looked past her, then Kifah.
“The kingdom is indeed a small place,” Aya said with a soft smile.
But Lana couldn’t be here; she was in Demenhur, with Yasmine and Umm and Misk. Where she would be safe. Zafira held her breath as she turned, as if by breathing she might lose the delicate cadence of her sister’s voice.
A girl, too small for fourteen years, stood frozen in the doorway, her shawl sliding back from her dark hair. She was freckled and slight, soft brown eyes wide and disbelieving, features Zafira could have painted blind.
Lana.
Zafira ran, bow and quiver falling to the polished stone as she threw her arms around her sister, burying her nose into her hair with a broken sob. “Ya, sweet one.”
Lana laughed as tears streaked her cheeks. Zafira wiped them away with her thumbs. Pressed a kiss to her brow. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” Lana said with a shy smile as the others continued to stare. “I missed you, Okhti. I’ve been so alone.”
“Liar,” Zafira teased, and she didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to see her. “I left you in good hands. You had Yasmine and Misk, and I’m sure Ummi kept you busy. I was the one who—”
Zafira stopped when the color drained from Lana’s face. She pulled back, dread coiling in her stomach at the weight clinging to her sister, a prudence she should not have had to bear. “What is it? Lana, what happened?”
“Ummi,” she said, almost soundlessly. “She’s dead. She died the day you left.”
CHAPTER 8
Nasir didn’t hear what her sister said, but when Zafira dropped to her knees, her sheathed jambiya striking the floor, it was telling enough. Go to her, you fool. His feet grew roots, tethering him to the ground, and the crate in his arms readied to shatter, so tight was his grip. Aya’s inhale shook. If there was any more melancholy within these walls, they would collapse.
Kifah broke the silence, shuffling forward and making him feel infinitely worse. “Zafira—”
“How?” she whispered, tugging the shawl from her neck as if it were a noose.
Her sister’s eyes widened in fear and anguish.
“Lana,” Zafira ground out, lifting her head, and Nasir was surprised by her anger. “How?”
“Okhti,” she whispered, gaze darting from Nasir to Kifah to Aya. “Not here—”
“Tell me.”
It wasn’t anger, Nasir realized. It was an attempt to hold herself together, to stop from falling apart. She held her shoulders tight, though he saw the ripple across them, the tremble that worsened as the heartbeats ticked on. He thought of closing the distance between them, reaching for her and rubbing the tension from her shoulders. That was what people did, wasn’t it?