We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)(88)

Which was why, the moment they had distanced themselves from the wily creatures, something in Nasir’s calm snapped. He shoved Altair aside and flung Benyamin against a remnant of a wall, a plume of dust showering them from above.

Everyone froze.

Altair laughed. “I was waiting for this. Habibi Kifah, you owe me that spear.”

“The only way you’ll ever touch my spear is when I shove it through your throat,” Kifah snapped.

“Charming. Then you owe me that gold cuff.”

“Go sink yourself.”

Nasir brought his face close to Benyamin’s, who stared back without a hint of emotion. “First you convince everyone to traipse behind you, and then you befriend the foe of Sharr? Next you’ll be holding hands with ifrit.”

Benyamin didn’t answer.

“Ten paces down this very desert, the kaftar could be waiting to kill us for your kindness.”

The safi’s face turned mocking. “Like you? You know, I keep wondering when you’ll do the same, yet you continue following me around.” He worried his lip. “Laa, you just keep traipsing behind me.”

Nasir growled. “I’m not following you. No one is following you. Thanks to your big mouth, everyone is following the Demenhune.”

A small click of metal punctuated his words, and Altair yanked Nasir back, easing the gauntlet blade back down.

“Come now, Nasir. You’re ruining his keffiyah.”

Nasir shrugged him off but kept his distance with narrowed eyes.

“Why are you really here, safi?” Nasir said, voice low. “Your lot has evolved past magic. You can live perfectly fine without it.”

“I could ask the same of you. What need does Sultan Ghameq have for the Jawarat when the Demenhune intends to use it to return magic to the same kingdom he governs?”

Nasir gritted his teeth in the sudden silence. His neck burned.

Because he did not know.

He never knew. He was no more than his father’s errand boy. A prince kept in the dark. A pawn who moved without question. A jaban.

He did not know why the sultan wanted the Jawarat. He did not know why the Silver Witch—Sister of Old and warden of Sharr—wanted the Jawarat. He knew only that the Huntress bore no evil, not the way he did.

“Tell us, Crown Prince Nasir. What does Ghameq want with the lost Jawarat?” Benyamin repeated.

He didn’t think Benyamin bore evil, either, despite the knife of his words, cutting into Nasir’s chest.

Never had his father’s hate and disrespect mattered as much as they did now, here, with people from nearly every caliphate watching him. Never had the words I don’t know felt so damning. The ruins darkened, or maybe it was his vision.

One thing was certain: Control was only slipping further from his grasp.

Altair watched him, and he had the acute sense that the general was sifting through his thoughts. For once, Nasir didn’t know if his mask was in place, or if Altair could simply see past it.

You are weak. A mutt.

A lapdog.

“He doesn’t know,” Altair said.

To Nasir’s surprise, there was no mock or amusement in his tone. Only steel and the harsh edge of protectiveness. Shame penetrated Nasir’s every bone.

Benyamin laughed without mirth and adjusted his keffiyah. “Do you truly expect me to believe the prince isn’t privy to his sultan? Knowledge without action is vanity, but action without knowledge is insanity.”

Altair stared. “If you were son to the Sultan of Arawiya, safi, believe me, you wouldn’t be privy to anything. Laa, you’d be a husk, begging to be tossed to the rats.”

Nasir’s exhale trembled along with the tips of his fingers. Weakness. Cursed emotion. He clenched his fists, willing his control to return. He could feel the Huntress studying him and wished, for once, that he could vanish.

Altair sliced the heavy silence with the draw of his scimitars. He swooped them through the air and disappeared into the trees. When no one followed, his bored voice floated back, “Yalla, Huntress. Everyone moves only when you do.”





CHAPTER 58


Zafira hurried after Altair, steps echoing along the stone of the ruins. She couldn’t stomach standing with them any longer, where the air was rife with awkward tension. It was pride. Pride had sparked that ridiculous conflict no one had needed.

“You defended him,” she said, trying to understand.

Altair grunted, as grumpy as Nasir, and kicked at a pile of debris before barreling forward. They were in a hall of sorts, a maze of rooms where stone walls had collapsed. Zafira looked back, where the others were starting to follow. Altair was right: Everyone moved when she did.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did you defend him?”

“Am I not allowed to defend anyone?” he asked with mock innocence.

Zafira scowled and followed him up a short run of crumbling stairs. “Why did you defend Nasir?”

“Why are you so adamant?”

“I just want to know,” she said, ducking beneath a dangerously unstable archway. She heard a hiss in the silence, a reminder that this was Sharr and they were never safe.

Altair stopped and pinned her with a look of anger she’d never seen on him. Was he angry he had defended Nasir? Or angry Benyamin had pushed Nasir to the point where Zafira saw fear in the prince’s dead gaze?