“Might as well unbutton the rest of it,” Kifah murmured behind Nasir, too low to be heard. By a human.
“I can, if you’d like,” the safi drawled, and Nasir nearly risked his dignity to see her obvious mortification. “A prince goes off to Sharr and returns a savage. I cannot say I’m surprised. Is this any way to treat your host?”
“A host doesn’t imprison his guests,” Zafira pointed out.
“Yet here you are, mortal. Unbound and unharmed,” he said, echoing her earlier words. He touched the back of two fingers to the cord knotting the center of his dark beard; it was the same shade as his ivory turban.
“Then where’s the Zaramese girl who was with us?” Kifah asked.
“Back at sea, if I am to guess. Once she pocketed the ridiculous amount of silver promised, she left without a backward glance. Did you expect any more from a Zaramese?”
Nasir knew how people eager for coin worked. They lined their pockets and turned tail, regardless of whether or not their employer had died on a villainous island.
“Who are you again?” Kifah asked.
“Seif bin Uqub,” he replied. With that, his almost nonexistent amiability disappeared altogether. “Step back, Prince. You may have royal blood in your veins, but I’ve decapitated worse.”
The silence pounded with the promise of bloodshed. And bloodshed there would have been, had Nasir not trekked to Sharr. Had he not found himself a brother there, and friends, and a certain blue-eyed huntress, who stared at him with a command in her gaze. He gritted his teeth and lowered his blade, giving the safi one last glare before stepping back between Kifah and Zafira.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Where is Altair al-Badawi bin Laa Shayy?” Son of none.
What did a safi want from Altair?
“You mean Benyamin?” Kifah asked, finally drawing a reaction in his unnerving eyes. They were the palest gold, so light that they eerily blended into the surrounding whites. “The tattoo,” she explained, spear still raised. “Benyamin had one, too. You’re part of his circle of safin.”
“High safin,” he corrected as if any of them cared about Arawiya’s oldest families—rich, influential, and knowledgeable. “We are of old blood. Headed by Benyamin, we protected Arawiya’s secrets and counseled Alderamin and beyond, until we disbanded when he brought a traitor to our fold. The High Circle formed once more, quite recently, at Altair al-Badawi’s behest.”
Something stuttered in Nasir’s chest.
Altair had brought them together? That meant Benyamin had gone to Sharr because of Altair, not the other way around as Nasir had assumed. That meant Benyamin was Altair’s spider. As was the girl in the tavern, Kulsum—possibly even Jinan.
For a moment, Nasir’s mind blanked, making way for memories of Altair acting like no more than an inebriate and philanderer. He almost laughed at his ignorance, at these feelings crushing his lungs.
Of course it was Altair. No one else had a prime position beside Arawiya’s throne. No one else was a general with the freedom to traverse the caliphates. Altair had been pulling the strings from the very beginning. He had spun a meticulous web of secrets and lies under carefree grins and silver-tongued words. There was no one else whose every exhale was deliberate.
Altair had planned it all, down to being a thorn in the sultan’s side to ensure he was sent with Nasir to Sharr. Nasir fought the surge in his throat—who was he to feel pride for an oaf such as his half brother? You love him. He rent that thought in two.
Rimaal, and they had left Altair and his endless volley of secrets with the Lion of the Night.
“Even so, neither are present, and you, Prince, are not a welcome sight.”
“Last I recall, you attacked me and brought me here. So spare me your hate,” Nasir said, voice low.
“Seif,” a new voice warned.
A second safi swept into the room in a flurry of pale pink.
“Marhaba, my loves,” she said with a small smile. “I am happy to have you.” Her voice was something out of a dream, abstract and melodious. Her wide brown gaze would have looked innocent, if her elongated ears and the defining tattoo around her left eye hadn’t spoken of her ancientness. Sharp cheekbones framed her face, unbound bronze hair threaded with pearls. She was the most beautiful being Nasir had ever seen. “Your little companion left once we had paid her dues. She journeys for the Hessa Isles now, with Anadil.”
Someone had changed plans, it seemed, but Nasir admitted he could breathe easier knowing the ship’s captain would be taking his injured mother to the Isles.
“It is unfortunate that I do not have the resources on hand to cure an injury inflicted by cursed ore, or I would have performed the recovery myself,” she added.
Nasir lifted his brows, but there wasn’t a hint of pride to her voice, only a pragmatism uncharacteristic of safin.
“Forgive us for the way you were received. The city is no longer safe, and discretion is of utmost importance.”
“Was Sultan’s Keep ever safe?” Kifah asked, and Nasir shot her a look. Ghameq was many things, but never a fearmonger. It was why an assassin like himself was so useful.
“Safer than this,” the safi ceded. “The sultan has announced a sharp increase in taxes, and there is talk of rebellion as people grow restless. The Sultan’s Guard loiter, and the city holds its breath. Even Sarasin fares better as of late.”
Before Nasir could ask why they should trust her, he saw it: the simple circlet of black at her temple. He’d seen it before, on a safi with a feline grin and sage umber eyes.
CHAPTER 7
The moment the melancholy tune had struck Zafira’s ears, she was there again, in that gilded balcony of Alderamin.
“You’re her, aren’t you?” she asked, and felt herself relax for the first time since they’d left Jinan’s ship. “Benyamin’s wife.”
“Don’t sully his name with your mortal mouth,” the safi named Seif snarled, and Zafira resisted the urge to snarl back. Beauty could take a person only so far. “Look at them, Aya.”
“Would you rather I spell out his name when I speak of him?” Zafira snapped. She met Benyamin’s wife’s eyes. Aya’s eyes. “I heard your voice. In—in Benyamin’s dreamwalk.”
“He walked with you?” she asked, canting her head in surprise.
Zafira suddenly felt as if she had done something untoward. Benyamin was right: She was the most beautiful person Zafira had ever seen. There was something ethereal and dreamily distracted about her, too. As if she existed in a world apart from them.
“Being able to dreamwalk again was all he spoke of when we left Alderamin. He and Altair were certain that magic and the reason for Arawiya’s downfall would be found on Sharr, for that was where it began. We parted ways in Pelusia—he remained there to seek aid from one of the Nine Elite; Seif and I rode for Demenhur, to find you, though we arrived after you had left. We were to reunite here in Sultan’s Keep once the Arz fell.”
But he wasn’t here. He would never be here.
Aya tried but failed to offer them a smile.
Hanan, the old Safaitic of her tattoo said. It meant, most simply, “love”—warm and compassionate. Kind. The letters curled around her eye, at home on her skin.