We Free the Stars

Honor before heart, said the girl.

Delicacy fosters death, said the lion.

Destruction follows darkness, said the boy.

Power begets pain, said the king.

And they were all horribly right.

Roohi, roohi, roohi. He stitched her soul anew.

“Because my heart cannot contain it.”

“Roohi,” he rasped, feathering her jaw until they were both panting, until a hot tear rolled down his face and fell to the hollow beneath her shoulder, searing her bare skin.

“Why do you cry?” Zafira whispered.

“Hayati,” he breathed, pressing another to her ear and stealing her thoughts.

Around her, silver gossamer. Above, a painted sea of stars.

“Habibti,” her husband said, touching a kiss to her lips.

There was a scar at her breast, and another in her heart, for people had died because she lived.

He brushed a trembling thumb across her lower lip. “If anyone can change the fabric of the world, it is you, fair gazelle. I have seen it.”

He lifted her arm and touched his mouth to the skin inside her wrist. This was what he feared more than the dark, more than the power at his grasp: the whisper of her pulse, petering to silence. Taking her from him.

Fear made his love grow. To fear was to live and to strengthen. It was maddening as it swelled in his heart, and yet, amid all his feelings was one more, stirring foreign and raw: contentment.

I once loved, he had inked on his wrist. I will again, he inked on the other.

The guards drew their spears as a hooded figure stepped inside, moving with gazelle-like grace and snatching the air from Nasir’s throat.

“The caliph is no longer holding court,” one of the officials barked.

“Protect the king,” a gold-cloaked guard commanded.

“Drop your hood,” another one snapped.

The children paused in their chores to stare.

The newcomer lowered the fine hood of their cloak, exposing the delicate features that had plagued his nights and days and his every waking moment.

Nasir’s heart saw it fit to pause here. To stop and chronicle this instant in time.

And then he was running, stumbling, racing toward her, missives scattering behind him to Yasar’s disappointment and Altair’s laughter. His hands skimmed her shoulders, her neck, cupped her face.

“Zafira,” he whispered as papyrus drifted around them.

“Nasir,” she replied, as if she had never left. As if he hadn’t forgotten how to breathe.

His lips molded to hers. His life began afresh. Twin sighs escaped them, as if they had both been starving and salvation was finally theirs. The men murmured among themselves, and at the sound of Kifah’s ululation, Zafira pulled away.

“I hear Sarasin is in need of a calipha.”

His mother’s lips twitched in the faintest of smiles as the throne room doors swept open, bringing with it a gust of the revel and three others. His family. His zumra. His lifeline.

Nasir looked surprised to see their mother, and Altair gave him a sardonic smile.

Zafira bowed first. “My king.”

Nasir followed, then Kifah, and Altair leaped off the throne and rushed toward them.

“No!” he commanded. “You will never bow to anyone, least of all me.”

Kifah smirked. “I only did it so Zafira wouldn’t feel awkward.”

Zafira rolled her eyes, and Altair was struck by how much he would miss them. Ruling a kingdom was lonely like that. He couldn’t expect Nasir to govern Sarasin from Sultan’s Keep. He couldn’t keep Zafira from her home, or Kifah from her calipha.

The others sobered, realizing the same.

“Strange, isn’t it,” said Nasir, who was never one for contemplation. “How the darkness brought us together, and the light will let us fall apart?”

Zafira shook her head, looking among them. “We’re not falling apart. We hunted the flame on Sharr, set free the stars across the skies, but it was only ever the dawn of our zumra. Now we make sure that light doesn’t go out. Forever. Together.”

“Darkness doesn’t need to be destroyed. We need the dark as much as we need light. It makes us bold, as much as it makes us afraid.” She smiled. “Darkness needs only to be tamed.”

“Tame me,” he said in desperation. Shadows bled from his fingers.

Marry me. Love me. Be with me.

“Be mine, wholly and utterly.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “What if I want you to be mine?”

“Fair gazelle, jewel of my soul, I was already yours. I’ve changed for you. I’ve—”

“But I like you just the way you are,” she whispered. “Scarred, deadly, and beautiful.”