Zafira chose her words carefully. “He loves her as she is. Why would she need to be any different?”

“I don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip around her finger. “I just think that once you’re bound to another, you change. That for the happiness of the one you love, and for your own, you change without knowing it.”

Like Umm. Like Baba.

The elder was nearly finished. Lanterns flickered to life as the sun dipped away, the musty odor of oil clogging the air. Zafira tilted her head, wanting and not wanting to know more. “How?”

He looked at her, but she couldn’t turn her face to his, because now, there were other words involved. Questions and pleas. Thoughts and futures. Invitations and denials.

His answer was soft, a brush of words against the small hairs at the shell of her ear as ululations and song permeated the still air. “I wish I knew.”

CHAPTER 6

When night fell, Nasir did not expect to find the lanterns lit and the curtains parted, a late breeze chilling his chambers. Nor did he expect to find Altair lounging on his bed, calfskin sandals resting on his sheets.

The filthy scum.

“What are you doing in my rooms?” Nasir growled. “Who let you in? Don’t you have some poor soul to seduce?”

Altair opened his mouth and paused, lifting a finger. “Which question do you want me to answer first?”

He took his time sitting up, fluffing up the pillows behind his back, making Nasir feel like he was the one trespassing.

The general was dressed in a deep blue turban and a russet thobe, the cuffs embroidered in gold. He caught Nasir surveying his attire. “There’s a party flourishing in the Daama Faris, and I’ve come to ask you to join me.”

You. No respect, no etiquette, no princely titles. Just you.

“I will not dabble in debauchery, let alone set foot in a tent full of drunkards,” Nasir said as calmly as he could. “Now get off my bed.”

Altair swept off the bed with dramatic movements and a heavy sigh. “It will be fun, Nasir. You could use some fun. Why, all that killing must be making you an old man. What are you now, anyway? Two hundred, two hundred and one?”

His voice was cheerful, always loud and carefree, whereas Nasir’s was quiet. Too quiet, his mother used to say.

“Twenty,” he spat, annoyed at himself for answering.

Altair laughed, deep and slow. And Nasir, failure that he was, remembered that he liked Altair’s laugh.

“Akhh, I knew it had those two numbers in there somewhere. Where is that lovely servant of yours, by the way?” Altair clasped his hands together as he peered around the empty room. “The one you stole from your mother?”

A tremor passed over Nasir’s fingers. He unclasped the outer layer of his robes, exposing his weapons to Altair’s watchful eye. Despite the general’s larger size, the two of them were roughly equal in skill, but Altair had his boundaries, and Nasir, hashashin that he was, had noticed them.

Altair repeatedly opened and closed the door of a lantern, filling the room with the exaggerated squeak of its hinges.

“In your own time,” Nasir deadpanned.

“Your manners astound, as always,” Altair proclaimed. “Where was I? Ah, your servant! I should like to witness her perfection, for she’s the reason you don’t ‘dabble in debauchery,’ isn’t she?” he drawled in a comical imitation of Nasir’s voice.

It wasn’t. Nasir hadn’t spoken to Kulsum in months. Every time she came near, he would retreat.

“Leave,” Nasir said after a long pause filled with the swooshing of steel as he removed his weapons.

“Pity. I thought you might want to know about the mysterious mission, journey, quest—thing—the sultan is so keen about.”

Nasir felt a vein feather in his jaw. Altair watched carefully, not bothering to even move toward the door as Nasir hung the rest of his weapons on the wall above his bedside table. The bastard always knew what to dangle in front of his face.

“What do you know about it?” he asked carefully, pouring himself a glass of water. Though he could have a throng of servants pouring him water, helping him change, setting his bath, he had ordered to have no one in his chambers. Monsters preferred solitude.

He sat on the edge of his bed.

Altair leaned down with a conspiratorial whisper. “More than you.”

“Start talking, then,” Nasir said when the water had laved his parched throat.

“Yes, my liege,” Altair said mockingly, a twinkle in his eyes.

Nasir bristled at his tone and nearly tossed the glass at the general’s head. “Do I need to pay you to speak? Because I’m afraid that won’t be happening.”

Altair scoffed. “I have an abundance of gold, shukrun. I find the best payments are always the most difficult to extract. So come with me to the Daama Faris, and we can talk over a drink.”

Nasir clenched his teeth as Altair lifted two fingers to his brow in a mock salute and strolled from the room. Weasel.

* * *

The traveling tavern slouched across the uneven sands not too far from the palace. How Altair had found this place was beyond Nasir, but that was how soldiers and their betters worked.

Stepping into the Daama Faris was like stepping into a different world, for no other place in the sultan’s city was this alive. Nasir’s ever-present irritation was placated by unfamiliar longing. His step faltered.