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She was better at this than he could ever have imagined. She glided closer, and he marveled at how much hatred he could summon for someone so beautiful, but was it hatred for her or himself—or for them both?
Her gaze dropped to his chest, to the fresh burn near his collarbone. He should have reached for his shirt, but what was the point? She had seen him this way countless times. She had seen more than this.
“Why did you do it?” he asked softly.
She didn’t answer. She would never answer in a thousand years.
“What could compel you to feign love for a monster?”
He studied the way she stood, straight-backed. The way she walked, head high, dress free about her legs.
She was not lowborn, a thing he should have realized years ago. And if befriending Kifah had taught him anything, it was the lengths a person would go for vengeance.
“You weren’t always Altair’s spy. He saw an opportunity and took it, but you…,” he said slowly, and faint lines of shadow painted his arms. He heard Zafira’s soft laugh in his ears. Breathe. “You had plans of your own.”
The glitter in her eyes was confirmation enough.
“I killed someone,” he reasoned. What else could he have done? He had never plotted or connived or brought anyone down. He killed them, simple as that. “Your father.”
She shook her head.
“Mother?”
Another shake. No—she had forsaken a good life for the purpose of growing close to him. To make him love her with the intention of breaking his heart.
“A lover,” he realized with a hollow, contrite laugh. “I killed the one you loved, and so you forsook your life for a path of vengeance. Admirable. Was it worth it, love? Did you laugh as my father branded me? Did you gloat as I came back from my missions bereft of another piece of my soul? Did my sorrow bring you pleasure, Kulsum?”
She reached for him, and Nasir stepped back.
“I would choose death over your touch.”
He was no saint. He was well aware of the irony in his disgust.
“You should have thought it through. You should have realized the sultan hated me more than you ever could. You might have kept your tongue, then.” He shook his head in the silence. “None of it hurt more than that, did you know?”
None of it had hurt more than the belief that she had lost her tongue because she had dared to love a monster, when in reality, it had been the price of her revenge. The curtains fluttered, eager for more, and the breeze tugged on the door he had been too scattered to shut.
“But if you were willing to sacrifice so much to bring me the level of pain you suffered, then mabrook. Your vengeance is complete.”
Some part of him was glad of this conversation, glad he was able to finish and lock away whatever had once stood between them.
“Now get out,” he commanded. “When Altair returns, there will be a line. Join it.”
But Kulsum didn’t move. She only looked at him, dark eyes bright. Regretful, almost … hungry. He imagined what she would say, had she been able to speak. Perhaps, despite her vengeance, some part of her had loved him, in the way that only time spent isolated with another could foster.
Nasir looked away.
And as if—as if—his day wasn’t going terribly enough, he heard the creak of his door and a sharp draw of breath, because no one thought of knocking in this forsaken house.
Khara.
Zafira was frozen in the doorway, hair mussed, mouth swollen. The sight ripped him to shreds as she looked between Kulsum and his shirtless state, her brows falling in two shattered slashes.
It isn’t what it looks like, Nasir wanted to say, but when did anything ever go his way?
CHAPTER 21
