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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?
Nasir gripped the crate tighter. He wouldn’t know—he was typically the one doling the killing strike, disappearing from the repercussions. Altair would know what to say and what to do, how to make her feel like living again.
“Do you remember when the Arz came back?” Lana asked. She shared Zafira’s delicate features, but where Zafira’s were sharpened by her colder coloring, the younger girl’s were warm, down to the bronze glint in her hair. “Right after you and Deen left.”
Nasir clenched his jaw at the mention of Deen. Zafira’s shoulders fell even lower.
“Soldiers started pouring into the streets, in black-and-silver uniforms, and … and masks. It … People stopped what they were doing. They couldn’t breathe, they collapsed in the middle of the street and choked until their lungs stopped working. I heard it. Saw it.” Her gaze flicked to Aya’s and back.
Nasir’s own lungs ceased to work as he pieced together the girl’s words.
“How is that possible?” Kifah breathed.
“It was a vapor,” Lana murmured, an edge to her voice. “It destroyed my entire village. I watched people die.”
Nasir had never detested anything as much as he detested himself in that moment. For though he had never had a hand in the vapor, in the fumes that had been harvested in Sarasin, his cowardice was to blame. His inability to stand against his father.
Kifah crouched beside Zafira. Aya strode to her, brushing a hand over Zafira’s hair. Lana held her hands.
Nasir remained where he was, the crate in his hands, the truth on his shoulders.
Because he had done it. He had killed Zafira’s mother.
CHAPTER 9
Zafira thought of her people, of the ones she had scorned for their jubilation, for their laughs and their glittering eyes when the snow hindered their lives as the Arz crept close. She thought of Bakdash’s lavender door. Of Araby’s sweet shop, and old Adib’s stall. Of the Empty Forest, where Deen chopped wood, and his little creations sprinkled throughout hers and the Ra’ads’ houses.
She thought of everything but Umm, anything to keep her alive a little while longer.
Black and silver, Lana had said. Sarasins.
Zafira remembered Benyamin’s warning, of the sultan turning to Demenhur once Sarasin was under his thumb. Arawiyans, just like everyone else, whose only crime was the soil their houses stood upon.
Ummi, Ummi, Ummi. With her cold blue eyes and her warm smile. With her strength and resilience. With Baba’s blood on her hands.
“And your mother,” Kifah prompted Lana gently from Zafira’s right. “Was she not able to escape with you?”
Lana crouched, and the wide hem of her jade abaya, one Zafira had never seen before, fanned around her. “She’s like you, Okhti. Laa, you’re like her.”
Zafira tried not to listen to the words. Tried to stop the pain.
“She went to the old schoolhouse. You know the one near our street? She took thirteen elders and six children and whatever food they could find, and helped barricade the windows and the door.” Lana dropped her gaze to her hands. “Then she went to the well for more water.”
That was the Umm Zafira remembered, with her head held high and her knife-grip sure. The Umm Lana was less acquainted with. In the pause that followed, Zafira realized she was waiting for Lana to say more. Like a child hoping the truth wasn’t so.
