We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)(76)

He blinked against the remnants of the weighted darkness and took in the scene as it flashed in flares of orange. The creatures of smokeless fire appeared unarmed at first, until Nasir realized they were weapons. They darted between the palm trees and glided over the sands as if they were ethereal. Staves of fire appeared in their hands, flickering in the darkness. Heat sweltered and made it difficult to breathe.

From their reactions, it was clear the others saw the ifrit as people they knew, but Nasir saw them as they were: faceless beings, always disappearing from view. Just when he thought he saw one, his vision wavered. They were there, always there, but never in full sight. It was the gift of having a heart as dark and closed off as his.

Altair made a sound. Anguish.

“Do you see someone?” Kifah asked him softly. Her dark eyes glowed in the sudden flares.

“My mother, before she was murdered by the man I hate.”

Nasir didn’t know anything about Altair’s parents or the people he disliked other than Nasir. The general released a breath and fired his first arrow, which whizzed into the shadows. One day, Altair would learn he simply couldn’t be an archer.

Nasir twirled his sword as a howling wail pierced the sudden darkness. He calmed his thoughts and everything blurred, the others forgotten. A hashashin worked alone. A hashashin didn’t pay heed to anyone but himself. A hashashin put the mission before anything else.

A stave of fire came swooping toward him, and he ducked, knee brushing the sharp leaves littering the ground before he swung his scimitar up and to the left. It hissed through the air, the ifrit out of reach.

He darted forward, but the ifrit had disappeared. The heat of another stave kissed Nasir’s neck, and he turned, but only darkness blinked back. He caught a glimpse of gleaming hair, double scimitars raised to strike. Altair. But the general disappeared from his vision between one breath and the next.

A chill settled in Nasir’s spine, despite the heat and the burning air.

The ifrit weren’t only using their weapons to attack; they were using them to blind.



* * *



Zafira knew the game the ifrit were playing. Every time her eyes adjusted to the darkness, they flared their weapons of fire, attacked, and began the cycle anew.

They meant to intimidate, but she was the Demenhune Hunter. She knew the bleeding black.

She inhaled slowly. Baba’s voice was by her ear. She may have been the one to find her way in and out, but he had helped her become one with the darkness. Let it in, abal. Become what the heart asks of you.

In the chaos surrounding her—the shouts, the flickering flames, the stench of sweat and fear—Zafira found that vein of stillness where the shadows beckoned and whispered. Zafira breathed the darkness.

She was the darkness.

Marhaba, darkness, my daama friend.

She felt a swell of elation, despite the battle surrounding her. With each careful inhale, the world pulsed into focus, until Zafira made out the ifrit surrounding them.

Not two paces away, an ifrit swung a stave at Nasir, which he avoided in one fluid movement as if he were made of the darkness himself. Zafira shifted her focus to another ifrit, this one brandishing a stave. She had two, maybe three shots before they noted her ability to see, and she would make the most of it.

For a startling moment, she didn’t see the face of anyone she loved—she saw nothing. A faceless face. It turned to Kifah, whose skin glistened with sweat as her spear danced in her hands.

Before the ifrit could flash its stave, Zafira released her arrow, which struck the creature between the eyes. Its dying howl shattered the chaos.

Everything, and everyone, paused.

Steady now. She noted the pulsing ebb and flow of the darkness. Tendrils of black curled around her arms, nuzzled her skin.

She loosed another arrow, striking an ifrit dangerously close to Altair. That did it: the ifrit turned to her.

The others caught on. Benyamin pulled vials from the belt at his hip. He wound strips of something around needle-pointed knives before tossing them effortlessly. So that was how the slender safi fought without a fighter’s build. Banes. Poison.

He raised his head and flashed her a smile, which was notably directed too far to her left, tattoo ablaze in the firelight. Zafira bit back a grin. Despite his feline grace, he certainly couldn’t see as well as a cat.

On her other side, someone roared, likely Altair, and Zafira heard the quick swoops of a single scimitar that could only be Nasir. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kifah drop to a fighter’s stance, twirling her spear fast enough to create a moving shield.

Zafira reminded herself that they only needed her to find the Jawarat, and that no one was helping her because they cared. But she was grateful for them then, for the creatures’ focus had shifted away from her.

She nocked another arrow and fired.



* * *



Nasir knew the Huntress was skilled. He had seen her aim when she was in the midst of falling, when her Demenhune companion had taken an arrow for her. She was agile, lithe in war. But seeing it again: her rapid stream of arrows—each one finding its mark—made him feel … he didn’t like how it made him feel.

They were down to four ifrit when the creatures doubled their weapons to a stave per hand and even the Huntress began to grow tired. Nasir tore his scimitar through an ifrit and shoved Benyamin away from another’s oncoming stave.