“I’m sorry,” she said, her hand hovering over his chest as though she wanted to take back the lightning thrill of her magic as it blazed through him.
“I’m not.” He held himself steady as the blaze settled into a hum that prickled under his skin with a strange heat. “I wanted you to see for yourself. You don’t need words and promises. You need truth. And your magic can give you that. Tell me.” He swayed as her hand came to rest on the bare skin above his tunic, dragging the prickling heat through his blood and back into her.
She sucked in a little breath, her eyes gazing at something far away as she took what he’d offered and sifted through what her magic was showing her.
“Tell me,” he repeated quietly.
Her voice was soft and full of hesitant wonder. “You don’t want to leave Maqbara.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m here,” she whispered.
“And?”
“And you blame yourself for Tarek, which you shouldn’t. You’re afraid you can’t save your father. And you’re afraid that if you fail in the tasks Yl’ Haliq has given you, you’ll lose yourself. That you’ll be broken.” She flinched. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at that.”
“I showed you willingly,” he said, though meeting her eyes with all his secrets laid bare took more courage than going into the arena on combat day.
They locked eyes for a long moment, and then he said, “What else did you see?”
Pink blossomed on her cheeks. “Nothing.”
He smiled. “Nothing?”
She shook her head, but she didn’t move away as he leaned in. Framing her face with his hands, he said, “You didn’t see that I want to sweep you out of this place and lay the world at your feet?”
The pulse in her temples sped up, and he pressed his lips to her forehead before saying, “You didn’t see that I think of you every hour of the day? That when I catch myself staring at your mouth, I lose track of everything except how much I want to kiss you?”
He traced his lips down the bridge of her nose. “Or maybe you saw how winning a single smile from you makes me feel like I’m already a king. How you inspire me to be better, and how until I met you, I never knew I needed a girl who would constantly challenge me on every level.”
“Javan—”
He moved to her mouth and hovered a breath away from kissing her. “You didn’t need to hear my promises. You needed to see the truth for yourself. And you have to know now that I will come back for you. That I will take you away from here and give you the stars and the wide-open spaces you long for.”
“I know.” Her voice shook.
“And you have to know why I will come back for you.”
Her lips trembled, but she didn’t speak.
Closing his eyes and praying that she would accept the truth she’d seen in him, he whispered, “Why am I coming back for you, Sajda?”
She was silent for seconds, moments, years, and every breath he took was agony as he waited for her to accept it—to accept him—or to walk away from the risk that once again her heart would be shattered.
Finally, in a voice full of wonder and peace, she said, “Because you love me.”
FORTY
IT HAD BEEN three weeks since Tarek’s death, and Sajda still expected him to show up every morning with an orange for her breakfast.
She still noticed interesting things about the other prisoners that she wanted to share with him. Still thought of her workload in terms of what she would do on her own and what she would delegate to him.
And she would give anything to hear him call her little one again.
Her grief refused to subside, no matter how much calm she tried to borrow from the stone. It was a hollow space that remained black even when she swallowed the starlight.
The only comfort she’d found had been Javan’s steady, solid presence—a bedrock she could stand on when everything else seemed to be shifting beneath her feet. He’d quietly begun to bring her something for breakfast every morning after she fed the beasts, even though it meant daring Hashim to attack him in the kitchen. During his chore hour, he’d taken on the tasks she would’ve usually given to Tarek. He’d sparred with her daily in preparation for the final round of the tournament, and he’d welcomed her strength and her speed, even when she left bruises because something inside her could no longer stomach the thought of holding back.
Every afternoon, she’d used the prisoners from levels fourteen and fifteen to help set up for the final round of competition, and she’d stolen a few moments between tasks with Javan to escape to the room on the third level.
Sajda hadn’t wanted more lessons at first. It felt wrong to be planning to leave, to do more than just survive, when Tarek couldn’t plan for his future too. But Javan had challenged her—bragging about the scores he received in mathematics, astronomy, and history—until she was irritated enough to show him she was just as good, if not better.
Now, she had a head full of facts she hadn’t known before. She understood the history of the surrounding kingdoms; she could name the constellations as they spun past her place in the rafters; and she’d become so good at doing complicated math problems in her head that Javan had started getting grumpy when he needed to use a piece of parchment.
And now, grief had given birth to anger. She woke with her magic scraping at her skin, hunting for a target. She moved through her day with rage bubbling in the hollow space that had opened within her at the sight of Tarek’s body. She lay down at night with a buzzing, humming power pressing against her cuffs in a futile effort to tear apart the things that held her back.
Soon she would be free.
Javan would come back for her. She knew he would. And the warden would pay for everything she’d done. And then Sajda would have her stars and her wide-open spaces. Then she could leave the dust of Akram behind and never look back.
The thought sliced at her heart, a flash of pain she didn’t want to examine closely.
But for any of that to happen, Javan had to win the next day’s combat round, which meant he had to stop trying to talk her through what would happen if he lost and focus on the beasts he’d be fighting.
She faced him across the couch in the room on the third level as he said, “Just in case. It’s the only thing I can think of to—Are you listening to me?”
“No. We aren’t going to talk about you losing. We’re going to—”
“We are absolutely going to talk about me losing.” He leaned close, a feverish light in his eyes. “I plan to win, Sajda. You know I do. But we’d be fools not to have a contingency plan in place in case I lose. In case I die.”
“Stop it!” She glared at him, and his expression softened.
“It’s just in case. I need to know that I was able to do something to help you.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest where the hollow space was now swirling with panic.