We Hunt the Flame(103)

It was the first time an ifrit had shown him a face, but there was no time to ponder that. As he stood with a shaky exhale, something slick wrapped around his ankle and pulled him toward the steep drop, his shouts drowned out by the shadows.





CHAPTER 68


Zafira came to in darkness.

Her back was to a cool wall. Circlets of metal encased her wrists and chafed her bones. Her arms were stretched and pinned on either side of her. The same had been done to her legs: pinned too far apart for comfort. When she tried to roll her shoulders, she heard the protest of chains.

Pain reigned over her emotions. The angle of her arms pulled at her chest, her throat, her skin. The stretch of her legs wrenched at the insides of her thighs.

The familiar jab of her bow was gone, and the weight of her jambiya at her waist was a cruel joke when her hands had been rendered useless.

A stale breeze feathered her skin before the scritch of a match broke the silence. Zafira locked her gaze on the tiny flame as it moved, the tang of sulfur tainting the air.

A wary light allowed Zafira to drink in the rectangular room in which she hung. She was in the center of a longer side. Opposite her was a chair grand enough to be a throne, with gleaming black wood and adornments in tarnished silver. It was empty.

A rush of air, laa—her heart stuttered—darkness whispered past and gathered before her in a swirl of ink, transforming into a man before the throne. A king, crowned in shadows.

He sat, amber eyes appraising.

“Had a change of heart?” Zafira rasped. “Ya laa, I forgot you don’t have one.” The only creatures she knew of without heartbeats were ifrit. But ifrit needed to be commanded. They were not so sharp. So ancient.

“So bitter,” the Shadow mused in a slow drawl.

She raised one eyebrow, proud of herself for not shrinking back from his assessing gaze. “I’m not in a position I’d consider sweet.”

Amusement shifted his features. “Fair enough. Are you thirsty, azizi?”

A girl materialized to his right. She was the picture of Arawiyan beauty—dark skin, dark eyes, the soft curve of crimson lips. She wore robes of blue, an orange scarf around her slender neck. She gripped a misty pitcher of water in one hand and an empty glass in the other. Zafira failed to mask her surprise.

“Relax. She is ifrit,” he soothed. “I couldn’t stand them shifting their faces every few minutes, so I had them”—he looked to the girl—“alter their ways.”

“What do you want with me?” Zafira croaked, drawing his attention away from the girl. Ifrit. Whatever she was.

“I told you what I wanted,” he said, tilting his head.

“So you decided to chain me before I could accept your deal?” She hoped the others wouldn’t come for her. She hoped Nasir wouldn’t come.

“Oh, you already refused. Now you are in no position to negotiate.”

He took the glass from the girl. “You were like this glass once—icy, empty, a vessel of eagerness waiting to be brimmed.” He gestured for the girl to fill the glass. “Once I learned of what you are, I called to you from the Arz. Whispered to your father. I honed you into the bladed compass you became. I created something from nothing.

“But I am a patient man, and darkness is eternal. If you cannot do what I ask, after all I have done for you, azizi,” he paused and ran his tongue along his lips, “it is of no loss for me.”

He dropped the glass.

Zafira flinched as it shattered, scattering shards and bolts of water across the copper ground.

Like the shards of her heart, dispersed into the shadows.



* * *



Later, much later, the Shadow returned. Zafira felt his fingers grasp her chin, gentle and cool, before she opened her eyes. Every part of her became aware of the five points of his fingers, and her traitorous pulse raced when he swept his thumb across the side of her jaw.

The strain from her arms and legs was blurring her mind. She would do anything for a moment’s relief. She wanted the others to find her. No. She didn’t want to watch them be skinned alive.

But they couldn’t find her. Without her, they were blind folk in a cage of wolves.

“Let me go,” she murmured.

“You’ve had the entire night to think. Will you bring me the Jawarat?” His voice was as gentle as his touch, and she wondered how someone so beautiful could be so cruel.

She almost said yes. “I will kill you.”

His soft laugh was lazy. “Death is for fools, azizi. Darkness is indestructible, eternal, unconfined to human limitations. Your weapons cannot harm me.”

To define is to limit.

“You’ve been planning this for years,” she said as she realized it. “Ever since I returned from the Arz for the very first time.”

For as long as the sultana had been dead. Before Baba had died. Before Umm went mad.

Who was this man?

“The Silver Witch,” she rasped. How did she factor into all of this?

“A most beautiful woman, no?” he said, sinking into his chair. “She was adamant in her quest, but she was bereft of love, alone in her work. I placed my traps and spun my words, and soon enough, my patience was rewarded. The sultan of Arawiya, on the other hand, once he was gifted the medallion he adores more than his own son, the rest was quite simple.”