Malik stopped, silently chastising himself for giving away so much information. A true noble family would be able to afford actual healers and wouldn’t have to rely on provincial methods to deal with their ailments.

“Camel’s hair,” mused the girl. “So you sew and you dispense medical advice. Exactly who are you?”

“Someone who shouldn’t be here,” Malik replied. He was nearly to the top of the rip now, and trying hard not to think about the rich brown of the girl’s skin right beneath his fingertips. “And you?”

“Someone who shouldn’t be here.”

The servant girl held herself with such an easy confidence, as if the world existed solely for her to move through it. A dizzying desire to know her name ran through Malik, though he sensed she would not give a real one if prompted.

Instead, he asked, “Why did you help me earlier?”

The girl shifted slightly, and Malik’s fingers grazed her thigh once again. His face flushed, though she didn’t seem to mind. “Not too long ago, someone I know was injured, and I couldn’t do anything to help them. I don’t . . . I never want to stand by and do nothing while someone gets hurt ever again.”

Malik was so close he could see the steady rise and fall of the girl’s shoulders as she breathed. He wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t break the strange spell that hovered between them.

“Say,” said the girl, and Malik wasn’t sure she was talking to him at all, “if someone you loved needed your help, but helping them meant doing something they’d hate you for . . . would you do it?”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“Even if they never forgave you?”

“Even if they never forgave me. Even if they hated me for the rest of their life.” Only a few inches remained in the tear. Malik focused on bridging the gap between the two pieces. “I think anything is worth protecting the people you love.”

A sharp pain jolted through Malik as blood pooled on his fingertip. He had never pricked himself sewing before, especially not on such an easy fix. Malik brought his thumb to his mouth and sucked on the wound. His eyes flickered to the servant girl’s again.

“Why are you trembling?” she whispered. Was he? He hadn’t noticed. For once, the frenzy inside Malik’s mind had fallen silent. Here, with this girl he didn’t know, the world was . . . quiet. His world was never quiet.

Malik began to say something, but the girl turned to the window.

“Do you hear that?”

He paused to listen. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. I think the raid is over.”

They exited to a world of silence, discarded items and smashed windows the only signs of the carnage that had taken place. Malik and the servant girl picked their way through the remains carefully, ears trained for any sound that might signal that they were not as alone as they thought they were. Even the grim folk had returned. They followed Malik at a wider distance than usual, and hissed whenever the girl unintentionally looked in their direction.

The pair skirted the edge of River Market, where almost a fifth of the tents had been ripped or displaced in some way. Dazed children wandered around crying for missing family, and those who had escaped the raid unscathed shrank back as they passed, eyes fearful.

“How did this happen?” asked the servant girl, taking in the carnage around them with wide eyes.

“How? Who is going to fight a Sentinel?” muttered Malik. Any sort of perceived misbehavior triggered a raid back in Eshra; one could end up the target of a raid for something as simple as falling behind on payments to the palace or looking at a soldier the wrong way. All Eshrans understood from birth that a sword to the neck felt the same whether deserved or not.

But that still didn’t explain why the Sentinels had been deployed at all. Something strange was going on, and a feeling of dread told Malik that he did not wish to know what. “This is what Ziran does to its poor and its foreigners and anyone else too weak to fight back.”

“This is—I have to get back to the palace.” Anger flared in the girl’s amber eyes.

Only then did Malik realize he’d missed a vital opportunity to learn more about Princess Karina from someone who actually lived in Ksar Alahari. Perhaps if he revealed that he was one of the Champions, she’d want to help him.

Before he could ask, the girl interjected, “Are you any good with riddles?”

“Relatively.”

“What do you think of when you hear ‘the darkness beyond the darkness’ and ‘the gods who weren’t’?”

That seemed an odd thing to worry about at a time like this. Malik skirted around a pile of shattered glass and thought. “I’m not sure about the first part, but the second one sounds like something or someone people worship, even though it isn’t really divine.”

“Someone worshipped that isn’t divine . . .” The girl’s eyes lit up. “Like the pharaohs of Kennoua?”

Malik shrugged. He knew little about Kennoua.

As they crossed into one of the souks surrounding Jehiza Square, they passed by a large group of people standing outside what looked to be a tanner’s shop. Their voices were loud and bawdy, and they either did not know or did not care about what had just occurred a few neighborhoods over.

“My sister works at the palace and says the Kestrel is dead. Said she saw her go down with her own eyes.”

The servant girl froze and leaned toward the group.

“I heard the daughter did it,” mused a man with more gold teeth than real ones. “You know that’s how the Kestrel got into power back in the day: murdering her own kin. It’s just too convenient that everyone in the line of succession before her died at the same time.”

“Don’t talk about Haissa Sarahel like that!” An old man exited the store, wiping his hands on the front of his apron. “She is our queen, and she deserves our respect.”

Half a dozen soldiers entered the area from the other end, and Malik bit the inside of his cheek. He shuffled back the way they’d come, his fingers reaching for the elastic around his wrist.

“We should go,” Malik whispered, but the girl ignored him and stepped toward the drunken group. The air around her crackled with dangerous energy.

“Who are you to tell me what to say?” snarled the man who had accused Princess Karina of murder.

“You should be ashamed of yourself. Haissa Sarahel has ruled over us with grace and wisdom since she was little more than a child. She is the only reason we have prospered as long as we have.”

“If she cares so much for us, where was she during the Opening Ceremony? The bitch is dead.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

What happened next was a flurry of movement and weapons. The soldiers were edging closer, and someone needed to do something before it all descended into chaos, but what could Malik—

“EVERYBODY STOP!”

Everybody stopped.

Malik gaped as the girl jumped onto a stand, commanding the attention of the crowd with her voice alone.

“Look at yourselves! Grown adults fighting like schoolchildren!” she yelled. “Haissa Sarahel is fine.”

“How do you know that?” roared a voice from the crowd. Malik’s heart hammered in his ears as he backed away from the servant. Lion eyes or no, this girl wasn’t worth dying over.

There came a taut silence of bated breath. The servant girl pulled off her scarf.

Coils of thick silver hair the color of moonlight tumbled down her back as Princess Karina surveyed the people with an unflinching gaze.

“I, Karina Zeinab Alahari, swear to you tonight as both my mother’s daughter and your future sultana that Ksar Alahari has not abandoned you.”

Every story, every tale Malik had ever heard about Princess Karina paled in comparison to the reality standing before him. With her eyes blazing down at the crowd as the wind whistled through the small street, she looked every bit like the queens who had ruled over the Odjubai for so many centuries.

And her back was to him.

With their attention latched onto the princess, no one in the crowd noticed that the Mark had swirled into a blade in Malik’s hand. Knuckles in a death grip around the dagger’s hilt, he reared his arm back. Nadia’s screams ran through his ears as the same anger he’d felt on the Widow’s Fingers burst forth from within him.

One strike. That’s all it would take to end her life.

“This chaos and violence, this isn’t what Ziran was meant to be,” cried Karina. “Our ancestors didn’t defeat the pharaoh so we could turn on each other at the first sign of strife. Ziran can be a haven for all people, no matter who they are or where they come from, but only when we stand together, not apart!”

The crowd murmured, and Malik realized just how many people surrounded them now. What would happen if he killed her only to get himself mauled for doing so? Would Idir still free Nadia then?

For a fraction of a second, Malik’s resolve wavered, and the spirit blade shook in his grip.

And in that fraction of a second, a rock sailed through the air and hit Karina square in the forehead. With a strangled cry, her body crumpled to the ground before his eyes.

18

Karina