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Haytham’s strangled cry sent a sob through the boy, and Nasir tightened his grip around his shoulders.
“Give him to me, I beg you,” said the wazir. Pathetic.
“Begging changes nothing,” Nasir said, and the sultan stepped forward.
Men cowered before Haytham. His strength as wazir was the only reason the Caliph of Demenhur still stood. Yet even with an entire caliphate between them, Haytham’s fear was instant. Nasir noted it in the stilling of his form and the tightening of his jaw.
Haytham dropped to his knees. “Sultani.”
“Get up,” Ghameq said in staid condescension. “Has the Silver Witch approached Ayman?”
Nasir stiffened. Those were not two people to appear in the same sentence, let alone the same room. Ayman was a good caliph, if there was one. He wouldn’t tolerate a meeting with the likes of the silver-cloaked witch. Even so, she was familiar enough. Ghameq could have asked her himself.
He doesn’t trust her.
Haytham stared at his son. His loyalty to his caliph ranked higher than loyalty to his sultan, but his love for his son exceeded all else. He closed his eyes and the answer was yes, or there would be no hesitation. The sultan turned to the boy, and Nasir wanted to shove him into the shadows, away from that malevolent gaze.
“She has,” Haytham said. “They met in the House of Selah by the western villages. We do not know to whom her letter was delivered, but we hope it was the Hunter. I know nothing else, Sultani.”
At the mention of the Hunter, the sultan’s eyes lit up. If there was anything more unnerving than the Demenhune, it was the Hunter. Nasir didn’t know if everyone in Arawiya knew of him, but Nasir knew enough.
No one else could do what the Hunter could. Nasir had tried it himself. On an assassination errand, he had detoured to the Arz. The moment he set both feet into the forest, an impossible darkness had swarmed and the way out had disappeared. It had taken him hours to get back, and he had been breathless for days, heart stuttering at every little sound.
He was an assassin, stealthy, deadly, feared. Yet he had never felt such fear in his life—he had very nearly drowned from it.
The magic of the Arz and the magic of the medallion around Sultan Ghameq’s neck had to be one and the same. It wasn’t fueled by what once lit the minarets. This magic was limitless, dark, endless.
“Does the quest begin in two days?” the sultan asked.
“We believe so,” answered the wazir.
What quest? Haytham’s fiery body wavered, flames casting long shadows in the room. Nasir tugged at the neckline of his thobe as sweat beaded on his skin.
“My son, Sultani. Why have you taken my son?” Haytham blustered.
Not even Nasir, the daama crown prince, knew the answer to that.
“Ensure the caliph will stand before the Arz when the quest begins, and your son will be returned to you unharmed.”
“Before the Arz? But—” Haytham stopped, and Nasir made the realization as he did. “You mean to kill him.”
The sultan denied nothing. First the Caliph of Sarasin. Then the army and the gas from the Leil Caves, and now this mysterious quest. The Demenhune caliph. Haytham looked at his son again, and amid the fire, the pain in his eyes shone.
“Accidents happen often in these strange times, wazir,” the sultan mused. “And if you find your throne cold and empty, sit on it.”
Understanding dawned in Haytham’s eyes. He was to be a pawn. Because a throne with a pawn upon it was infinitely more useful than an empty one. The sultan could control Sarasin easily enough from Sultan’s Keep, but Demenhur was much too far and expansive, and the people less in favor. With his son in danger, Haytham would be the perfect, obedient puppet.
Haytham threw a glance at something behind him, his hair glowing purple. The shift bathed the room in purple, too, and the boy drank in the sight with wide eyes and parted lips. Nasir loathed his childish innocence.
“Will you or will you not do as I’ve asked?” The sultan’s voice was hard.
Haytham paused. His son leaned closer, catching every word.
“He will be there.” Haytham’s voice cracked with his oath. “Please—please don’t hurt my boy.”
If Ayman was soft, Haytham was hard. He was the one who kept Ayman standing, who kept order in Demenhur, one of the largest caliphates of Arawiya. But in that moment, Nasir had never seen a weaker man. Love makes men weak.
“He is safe so long as you cooperate,” the sultan said, as if promising Haytham he would
