We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)(65)

Nasir cut him a glare. “I need her more than I need you.”

“I am going to pretend you didn’t just insult me.”

Nasir shifted some sand with the toe of his boot, but the five slain safin and their rusted scimitars were gone, all five consumed by the island.

“Sultan’s teeth, did Sharr eat the woman, too?” Altair asked, looking about.

The Pelusian was nowhere to be seen. Had Altair not mentioned her, Nasir would have thought Sharr had conjured her, playing tricks on his depraved mind. Sharr, which was always watching. While the Huntress displayed her weaknesses for the island to revel in.

“Huntress,” Nasir said, but she only closed her eyes and tilted her head to the skies. He could have sworn the temperature rose without her cold gaze. His eyes fell to the smooth column of her neck, unblemished except for a small speck of darkness above her right collarbone. A birthmark.

He forced himself to look at her face.

“Odd spot for safin to hide,” Altair commented, kicking something to the shadows, where it clattered noisily.

“Sheltered, secluded from ifrit. Near enough to an oasis for water and game. Not odd—prime. They never had hopes of leaving, or they wouldn’t have been so violent,” Nasir said.

The Huntress reached for her satchel but dropped her hands and closed her eyes again when she saw their bloodied state. Rimaal. They needed to get moving.

Nasir stalked to her. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

Her eyes flew open and she shot to her feet, her lips raw and red. “Oh, laa. I’m not here to be ordered around. I am daama tired of you and your beloved general telling me what to do, where to go, when to move. Your threats mean nothing to me.”

She stepped closer and he pulled back, regretting it instantly.

“If you want me obedient, Prince, kill me and carry my corpse.”

Her voice echoed in the silence. Her mouth was crooked in rage, her eyes ablaze in a fire of ice. Nasir should have turned away.

He should not have given in to the sensations of how she looked. Of how, in one fell swoop, she had thrown the Prince of Death to the ground and trampled his existence with her words.

But he did. So his traitor of a chest made him laugh.





CHAPTER 39


Zafira had tensed for a fight. For the prince to shove her to the ground and chop off her head the way the dead safi had wanted to do. She hadn’t expected him to laugh in her face.

It was a raspy sound tinged with surprise, as if his throat weren’t used to laughing, as if he had forgotten what it meant to laugh. Then his heart chastised the absurd thing his mind had allowed him to do, and he stopped.

If he had a heart, that was.

But the laugh still glittered in his dark eyes when Altair capped his goatskin and smacked his lips. The prince—no, Nasir; calling him “the prince” in her head was too much to bear—looked at Altair’s goatskin before uncapping his own and extending it to her.

“There’s blood on my hands,” she said softly.

He held her gaze and splayed his long, clean fingers. Gloveless. “Mine, too.”

The Prince of Death. She would have thought it a reminder, if a chasm hadn’t opened in his eyes. He was adept at keeping his features clear of emotion, but those stone eyes had betrayed him more than once.

“Are you immortal?” she asked out of nowhere. “Like full-blooded safin are?”

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” he said in that voice that looped with the wind.

He tipped the goatskin over for her, and when the last of the red stains left her fingers, she tucked her stark hands away. If she felt like an anomaly in Demenhur, where everyone was pale, she felt even worse here, among the umber sands and darker skin of the Sarasins.

Altair held out her cleaned jambiya. “Congratulations, Huntress. You’re officially a murderer. Welcome to the club.”

Nasir looked at him coldly. She almost didn’t take the blade back. Baba’s blade.

I’ve killed a man. An immortal safi. His crimes didn’t matter—he was another person who had breathed like she did, who might have once had a family and dreams of his own.

“We shouldn’t have met them armed. They could be alive now,” she said, momentarily forgetting that these two Sarasins were as much her enemies as the safin were.

“They attacked first. Kill or be killed, remember?” Altair said.

“What, you’re his mouthpiece?”

The general gave her a sly grin. “Are we talking about talking? Or other mouth adventures? Because—”

“No one wants to know about your mouth adventures,” Nasir interrupted.

Altair sighed and sauntered away. “Another time, then. Maybe when the grump’s asleep.”

Zafira found it odd how easily Altair insulted the crown prince. He might be the general, but the prince wasn’t known to have friends. Or admirers. No one liked him, and he liked no one, khalas—the end. And considering how quick he was on the draw, it was surprising Altair had survived this long.

Poets of the kill. The ring against her chest was a reminder: She was never safe.

“Ah, princeling?” Altair called, and Nasir’s features tightened. “As much as I loathe to admit it, I seem to have lost count.” Zafira turned to where Altair stood amid the safin camp. “How many safin did we kill?”