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For in a caliphate where a woman’s actions were always in danger of being turned against her, there was nothing easy about pretending to be a man.
Paranoia had a way of visiting when he was least desired.
She hated the Arz. She hated it so much, she craved it.
She saw with her ears in the Arz.
didn’t live. He existed. And no one understood the difference between the two until they ceased to live.
where a person encountered today could be a maggot’s feast tomorrow.
These were the small ways in which he could feel like the human he was born as. A leftover cake saved for later. An aging sundial from moments past.
Monsters bore no duty to the innocent.
The one solace she had was knowing that not all of the five caliphates held the same twisted views. In Zaram, women could fight in arenas, equal beside men. In Pelusia, a calipha governed alone, surrounded by her Nine Elite.
Demenhur would not praise her. Her accomplishments would shift into a cause for blame.
This was what was expected of women. To look pretty, to be married.
It doesn’t matter what you are. You are your strength. Why must you prove the lie that they are better than us by deluding yourself and hiding beneath a man’s clothes? Think of all the women you can help by being you.”
“One day, someone will bring color to those dead cheeks of yours.”
Zafira would never make the mistake of falling in love. There was no point to a feeling that fleeted. To a love she would be destined to lose.
He swallowed and blinked—a weakness, there and gone between heartbeats.
Nasir could always count on Altair to do: never lie.
Love makes men weak.
She no longer had a tongue, and it was because of him that she did not.
creating a name for herself that was never quite her own. It belonged to a masked figure. A person who, at the end of the day, did not exist.
“And when you are ready?” “I will marry you,”
Her heart told her brain she was lying, but she ignored it. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t.
Running is not a life.”
“Death will be her companion. He’s kept her safe all this time. Why stop now?”
“I won’t be like Baba. I won’t return to hurt you. I will be victorious, or I will die.”
“Be as victorious as the name I have given you, and bring the desert to its knees.”
It was her most damning feature, having her face speak before she did.
All she did was hunt and get ready for the next hunt.
“Allowing their sister to work with them isn’t a glorious feat.” “No—but defying your caliph is,”
She was afraid of being a woman.
Compassion kills.
What bothered her most was what the return of the Arz had shown her: it was a wall, beyond which stood all her yesterdays. Her voyage would take her to her tomorrows.
“If only you knew what it was like to feel the weight of your gaze,”
And Deen, loyal as he was, followed.
The sound of someone trying to stay silent.
with ethereal skin and aristocratic features,
The gold band swayed, perfect and unblemished. Nothing like Zafira.
“One moment, you wanted to explore past Arawiya, you wanted marriage, you wanted me. Then you turned around and joined this journey. You threw everything aside for—for this.”
If only you knew.
“For you, a thousand times,”
A thousand leagues and a thousand sands. For you, a thousand times I would defy the sun.
“Today was that day,”
They’ll tell stories about us, he had said. There once was a boy with a future. Until all he had left was his past.
The one man who loved her was dead.
“for you, a thousand times.”
Sharr had been fed.
“Kulsum,” Nasir rasped. “She’s your spy?” Altair watched him. “Did you think she came to you of her own accord?
He loved none, and none loved him. Love was a fantasy.
the compass had changed direction, twice. That it had led him to the Hunter, twice.
Sharr hadn’t buried Deen’s body, or even eaten it. It had stolen it.
It was new, to be assessed by a man when she was a woman.
