We Hunt the Flame(100)

“On Sharr.” He smiled. “But your friends—laa, exploiters—cannot find you.”

“They aren’t my exploiters.” Her brow furrowed. Nor are they friends.

He tipped his head. “Are they not? Each one of them is the very definition of an exploiter: one who uses another to gain a selfish end.”

That was how it had seemed. But somewhere between the first time she set eyes on Nasir and the moment she had gotten lost, leading the zumra astray, Zafira’s feelings had altered, and she still hadn’t sorted the disarray of her emotions.

She steered the conversation back to the Shadow’s invisible house. “A tracker could find this place. It isn’t exactly discreet.”

He almost laughed. He set his cup on the ottoman and leaned back, lacing his fingers around his upright leg. One crepe-thin end of his black turban peeked out of the layered folds. It curved around his right ear. Such a tiny, mundane thing to capture her attention. She almost didn’t notice the elongated points of his ears, marking him as immortal.

“Do you not trust me to care for you, azizi?” he asked in that voice of velvet.

She pressed her lips together at the nickname “my darling.”

“You are not a captive. You may leave whensoever you desire.”

“How can you speak of trust when I don’t even know you?”

The Shadow’s amber eyes turned liquid with hurt. He took another sip of his qahwa, and Zafira watched the shift of his throat and saw his tongue sweep his lips. Yasmine’s stories returned to her head.

“Ana Zalaam. Ana Zill.”

I am Darkness. I am Shadow.

She shivered. “I don’t understand.”

“You should not.” The words were punctuated with barely concealed intensity.

Again, she was struck with that strange feeling of familiarity. As if she had known this strange, beautiful man all her life.

He spoke. “I was your succor in the Arz. Your soother on Sharr. The one who kept you company, always and always.”

Zafira’s pulse fluttered.

“The darkness,” she said slowly, trying to comprehend. Piecing together the years of shadow and black and welcoming night. The voices. The shadows shifting in elation, kissing her, caressing her. The answer when she greeted the benighted trees, here on Sharr and at home in the Arz. “It was you.”

How did the darkness that encompassed all become a man? Why was he on Sharr?

“You believe me to be wicked, azizi,” he mused. “Darkness is the absence of light, the mere reason light exists. Without darkness, light would have no confines. Laa, it would be a curse.” He straightened the cups and pressed a single pomegranate seed to his tongue. His fingers were long, aristocratic, but when she blinked, they looked almost clawed. “Everything that exists does so to repress its opposite.”

She clamped her lips against a slew of thoughts. The Shadow studied her, seeing her conflict.

“I am as you see me now, and when the need arises, I am zalaam. I am zill.”

A man who could shift into darkness. Wonderful.

He rose and extended his hand. His tattoo winked. She stared at his outstretched fingers and curled her tongue. If she refused, he might not speak so readily anymore. If she accepted, he could take advantage of her easy trust.

His hand held steady, even as she wavered.

She accepted.

He pulled her to her feet. Only, he didn’t pull her upward. He pulled her toward him, and she threw out her hand to stop from toppling them both. He looked down at her fingers splayed across his chest, and Zafira froze at the wicked twist of his lips when he gripped her wrist.

“Why am I here?” she breathed, eyes wide.

“We have known each other a very long time, azizi.” He spoke just as softly as before, and Zafira’s pulse quickened. “I thought it was time we met.”

He was too close. She was too close.

“Aren’t you pleased to have met me?” he asked. His lips brushed her ear, and she nearly came undone.

She couldn’t think straight. She knew she should pull her hand away, but the warmth of his skin through the linen of his thobe held her in place. Until another realization chilled her blood.

He had no heartbeat.





CHAPTER 65


She was gone. Gone. Nasir trekked ahead but didn’t see the flash of the Huntress’s snowy skin or the glint of her ring. Not that he needed to.

He felt her absence in the depths of his bones.

When he returned to the others, he paused at the expression on their faces: expectancy. Nasir had never been the recipient of that before, and he shook his head, destroying their hope in breaths. That’s more like it.

“She was right there,” Kifah said, using the tip of her spear to shift the sands. “There isn’t a trace.”

The shadows deepened and sand spun. A storm was coming. Benyamin’s dismay was wrought on his face. “We’re too late. We’re too late. She’s—”

“Don’t make me slap you, safi,” Altair snapped, an edge to his voice.

Kifah climbed the outcropping to search.

Laughter rose in Nasir’s throat. They were lost. They were without a compass to help them find their compass. The compass. He locked gazes with Altair’s knowing look, and he wondered how long Altair had known that it had always pointed to the Huntress. Nasir pulled the disc from his pocket, loosing a breath when the whizzing settled on a point northeast.