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 water his weeds.

Safe? In a damp, cold dungeon that would kill him before anything else?

Haytham opened his mouth, to beg again by the look in his eyes, but the sultan threw a single black seed into the flames. The Demenhune and the fire disappeared.

“Take him back,” Ghameq said in the sudden silence.

There were a million things Nasir wanted to say. A million words and a hundred questions. “He will come prepared,” he managed finally. Haytham. Ayman. They weren’t fools.

The sultan didn’t even spare Nasir a glance. “He will come prepared for you, not for an entire contingent of Sarasin forces armed without blades.”

Nasir froze. Slaughter and suffocation. That Sarasin contingent hadn’t gone missing; Ghameq had merely given them a new order. He was already commanding the army he lawfully could not.

The Sultan of Arawiya planned to have them suffocate the innocents of Demenhur’s western villages and make sure the caliph was among them.

With the attack coming from a caliphate, rather than the sultan, there would be no more skirmishes for expanding borders. There would be war.

The caliphs existed to hold the sultan in check, just as the sultan existed to hold the caliphs in order. They were very nearly kings themselves, the sultan merely stewarding them all. A fail-safe left by the Sisters to ensure balance.

What was Ghameq trying to do?

Nasir opened his mouth, but he was an assassin, and his hands were steeped in blood—how could he argue against the death of innocents? He pressed his lips together.

And like the mutt that I am, I will do everything he says.

CHAPTER 5

Zafira’s house was the last in the village and closest to the Arz, making it easy for her to switch between herself and the Hunter. Still, she breathed a relieved sigh when she snapped the latch of her front door into place.

A fire crackled in the hearth, and Lana was sprawled across the cushions of their majlis, asleep. The village news scroll lay in her lap, along with the latest edition of al-Habib. The periodical was worn and tattered from the many hands that had perused it before hers. It was full of gossip, short stories, and the latest happenings from around the kingdom. The faltering caliphates and lack of magic meant the editions were few and far between, but that only made them more cherished.

Al-Habib was aniconic and abstract, rife with calligraphic art. Zafira never had the patience for them, but she had always wished for depictions giving faces to the names, if only so she had an image of the caliph and the sultan in her head to hate. The crown prince to fear. The immortal safin to understand.

Light freckles dusted Lana’s glowing skin, and the orange of the flames danced in her dark hair. If life were simpler, Zafira might have envied her sister’s beauty.

She slipped out of her boots and crossed the foyer, digging her heels into the little bumps so she could feel the stone. Hanging her cloak on the polished knob by the hall, she went to remove her satchel and froze. A square was tucked between the folds. Parchment.