Niko smiles down at him, eyes glittering like sapphires and diamonds. “In a sense.” “Am I dead?” “No. And you’d better stay that way.” Salim decides he must be hallucinating, that he’s probably still waiting to die on the sands of the desert. But he doesn’t want to wake up just yet, so he rests his head back onto Niko’s chest. “My friends,” he says. “They will be fine. Don’t you see? You did it, Salim. You ended the war.”
