We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)(26)
In the end, Zafira chose fear. She donned a man’s clothes and continued to hunt in the Arz with her father, 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.
It was a life Zafira could have lived with, if it meant seeing Baba’s proud smile and the villagers’ full bellies. Until the day when she, Umm, and little Lana fell ill with the flu that had been spreading throughout Demenhur.
While Zafira lay bedridden at home, food became scarcer. Meat ran low.
Baba had thought he could hunt as his daughter did. Instead, he returned crazed and barely human.
Zafira’s breath now puffed in the darkness. She made her way carefully up the stairs reeking of mold, knowing which slats were broken and which were weak. Each of the three stairwells ended in a level of empty rooms. It had been an inn once, welcoming people of other caliphates who used to visit for trade and leisure. Or pleasure, as Yasmine would say with a suggestive gleam in her eye.
At the top level, Zafira pushed open the door to the roof and tightened her cloak against the sudden gust of air.
This was where she came to be free of the world that expected so much from the Hunter, from herself.
But tonight she was not alone.
A silhouette stood at the end, profile cast in the light of the stars. It seemed someone else couldn’t stand enclosed walls, either.
“I just came to—” she started.
“Think,” Deen finished for her. He inclined his head, and the clouds parted so the moon could see his smile. “I know. But if you’re feeling anything like I am right now, I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Zafira didn’t know what to say. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but after the way he had looked at her this evening, that didn’t feel so good an idea. Instead, she moved to his side, pressing her shoulder to his as she fought the swell of elation in her chest, and together they looked down at Demenhur.
Tiny houses sprawled to their left, shadowed by a crescent of darkness where the Arz encroached. The sooq parted directly below them, and the House of Selah rose to their right, periwinkle in the moonlight.
The House of Selah was a humble name for something akin to a palace. Its stone walls were crumbling, and dark veins of rot stood stark against the cream, for it had been built for the desert, not to withstand an unending wet climate. Yet despite the decay, it was magnificent—twin spires in brilliant ivory rising to the snow-heavy clouds. Between them, the main building arched into the sky.
If this was a beauty, Zafira couldn’t imagine the magnificence of the palace in Thalj, where the royal minaret stood, a beacon bathing in shadows ever since magic had disappeared. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the palace in Sultan’s Keep.
“Do you know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Deen asked. He slid closer and slipped the hood from her face.
Zafira felt exposed beneath the moon. Out of instinct, she glanced around quickly, but they were alone. “What?” she asked, thinking she knew.
“Explore,” he said, expression wistful.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. He drew lines on the ice-covered railing with one gloved finger, deep in thought. “There’s more than Arawiya, Zafira. There has to be. The world can’t be just five caliphates, a wasteland, and one deadly sea. I want to travel, discover new places. Meet new people.”
She liked that plan, and so did her heart, if the warmth she felt was any indication. If life were simpler, she would want to explore, too. She stared into the distance, where they were blocked by a growing forest. A forest that might be stopped, if she accepted the invitation.
“You’ve been all over—Zaram, Pelusia, even the barren Wastes to get to Alderamin. You’ve seen sand,” she said, a note of envy bittering her tongue. She imagined a world covered in it, baking beneath the sun. Creeping between her toes and scurrying between her teeth. “What’s it like?”
“Beautiful. Endless. Freedom wavering beneath the relentless sun,” he said softly. “The heat is a pest, but then again, isn’t the cold?” He sighed. “I’m content, I am. But there’s this … this need for something more.”
It was the first time Deen wanted what she did: more. But something else was bothering him. She could see it in the heaviness tugging his lips into a frown. “What is it?”
He dropped his knowing hazel eyes to her, and she felt herself stepping closer. In this space, so close to the moon, anything felt possible. The wind whipped her hair. Deen lifted a careful hand and tucked the ebony strands behind her ear. He inhaled slowly, a shuddering draw that made her keenly aware of their solitude.
“Will you marry me?” The words swooshed past his lips in a rush, as if his heart wanted to savor them but his brain was too frazzled to allow it.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. She had known this was coming. She had known. But today of all days? Now of all moments?
His eyes fell from hers. How many times had she watched his lips widen into effortless smiles? How many times had he run after her, snarling and pretending to be the Arz monsters their parents had warned them of as children? How many times had he held her against his chest, sharing his warmth when she shivered in the cold?
He was the one who used what little money he had to buy rich safin chocolate and make the best drink Zafira had ever tasted. He was the one to hold her when Baba had died and her heart had hardened.