We Hunt the Flame(116)

He didn’t want to hear the rest. “I don’t want your tales.”

She knew what he wanted.

She knew, because he saw the havoc in her dark eyes as she lifted her hand to her left sleeve and drew up the silver cloth, unveiling a burn. A teardrop of black marring the skin near her elbow, from the first time she’d stepped between Nasir and the poker.

“I could wear a thousand faces and don a hundred names,” she said, her voice soft, “but scars are eternal.”

Nasir breathed past open lips. The baba he loved had become a monster. The woman he loved had used him, spied on him. Everyone else shied away, fear in their eyes, hate in their hearts. He had endured it all, every fabricated instance of love and respect and emotion.

Because no matter what, his mother’s love had always been real.

“You were all I had,” he said. “Everything else could fall to ruin, but you—even dead you were mine.” He tried to make sense of the way his fingers could not stay still. His voice rose in a way that it never had before. “But you didn’t even exist.”

“The face I wore changes nothing.”

Nasir gave a hollow laugh. The Arawiyans believed their beloved sultana had been safin. He had believed he was half safin.

Yet another lie.

“I had never known true love until I met your father. I had never felt true adoration until I birthed you. I gave him that medallion, hayati. My one last relic of Sharr. And through it, the Lion found his way to him, and when the Huntress set foot in the forest, the Lion knew the Jawarat could finally be sought. He had found me, and it wouldn’t have been long before he reached her. A sultana cannot leave her place, and you were in no position to lead. I granted Ghameq the crown. I fabricated my own death.”

“Oh, you did far worse,” he said. He was crumbling inside. His tone was cruel. “You made me into the greatest hashashin alive and left me in his hands. You made me into a monster and handed him the leash.”

She shook her head. “That was not my intent.”

His head was tight. His vision burned dark, and only when he lifted his hand did he see the shadows rippling from his skin. “I know you immortals think long and far. Why did you do it, then? Why make your son a monster?”

He didn’t think she would answer at first. She looked away, her silver cloak shadowed by the night. He wanted to grab her shoulders and demand an answer at swordpoint.

But he heard a whisper then, despite their distance. A murmur in his head.

Because the only way to end a creature who sees everything is with that which he cannot see.

By the time the full force of her words struck him, she was already retreating into the night, pain wrought in her features.

She had been grooming him to take down the Lion from the moment of his birth.

“I am sorry, my sons,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

Nasir swiveled to where Altair watched from the shadows, silhouetted in gold against the firelight of the camp. When he turned back, the Silver Witch, the Sultana of Arawiya, was gone.





CHAPTER 79


Zafira wended her way on the path, listening to the whispers. In the benighted terrain, thoughts and memories rose to life. Baba and Umm. Lana and her books. Yasmine and Misk. Deen and his ring. The Lion and his promises.

His words. About how she was merely a creature craving love.

It didn’t matter in the end. She was Zafira bint Iskandar, with magic in her veins and a book of whispers calling her name, begging her to free them.

She would do as they asked. For her people.

But something warred within her, and when it raised its head, it said, Laa.

She would do it for herself. For the voices.

For zill and zalaam.





CHAPTER 80


She wanted Nasir to kill the Lion. His mother wanted him to kill the Lion. She believed he could kill the Lion.

Altair studied him, surprisingly void of emotion.

Nasir fisted his trembling hands. “You knew.”

He nodded. “Sharr is full of revelations.”

Nasir did not want to react to that, or he would tear Altair’s hair from his head.

“I don’t know how to put this lightly,” Altair started, and his mock-cheerful tone made Nasir decide maybe he should tear the hair from his perfect head, “but our compass is missing.”

“Zafira,” Nasir corrected before he registered the rest of what Altair said. He snapped his gaze to him. “Missing?”

Nasir shoved past Altair and rushed into the camp, where Benyamin was pacing back and forth and Kifah was rubbing her arms, gold cuff glinting.

He whirled back to Altair, who held up his hands and started with “Kifah—”

Nasir had Kifah against the tree in a heartbeat. His voice was crisp. “Where is she?”

Distantly, he heard Altair mumble, “What is it with Nasir and shoving people against things?”

Anger flared Kifah’s nostrils, but Nasir didn’t care.

“Start talking,” he said, voice low, “or I’ll knock out your teeth and you can use your blood to write your answers.”

“Get your hands off me,” she seethed, but this time a flicker of fear touched her bold face.

Panic struck him. He released her.

She straightened her sleeveless blouse and hoisted her spear, a sheen on her black skin and bald head. “Next time you touch me, Prince, you’ll be without a hand.”