We Hunt the Flame(117)

“We have a more pressing matter, One of Nine,” Altair drawled.

Kifah growled. “She heard whispers when there wasn’t a bleeding sound. And then she just started walking away as if I weren’t even there.”

“Cut the gibberish, woman,” Nasir snapped.

“All truth. Then she started whispering to the trees and said she was coming—and the bleeding trees moved, almost like a door was closing behind her.”

Nasir turned to Benyamin, whose golden skin had lost its pallor. “The Lion?”

The safi shook his head. “He isn’t strong enough. Not yet.”

Not yet. “What does that mean?”

Benyamin started going through the vials at his waist. “It means the lost Jawarat won’t be lost for long.”

“Reassuring,” Altair said.

“Can you walk?” Nasir looked to Altair’s leg.

“Planning on carrying me, too?”

Nasir sighed.

“Worry not, princeling. Thanks to your tender care and my mighty strength, I’m good to go.”

Mighty strength indeed. His blood flowed with that of the Sisters, too. Altair met his gaze, teasing eyes now staid, and Nasir knew what his half brother’s next words would be. They curdled in his stomach.

“Will you kill her?”

Nasir wouldn’t allow himself to consider that just yet. “I’m afraid she’ll kill us.”





CHAPTER 81


Nasir’s impatience had worn threadbare by the time they uncovered some semblance of a path. Zafira’s light tread was barely traceable until they reached a set of imposing doors. Odd that they hadn’t seen this structure before, a looming mass of marble whose only entrance was a set of heavy green doors, brilliant in the night.

“The trail ends here,” Kifah said with a frown.

Flickering torchlight cast eerie shadows across the zumra’s solemn faces. Darkness was creeping up the green surface.

“How did she get past these doors?” Altair asked after pushing and pulling to no avail. He even pounded upon them for good measure until Benyamin asked him to stop.

“If Altair can’t get them open, we’re all doomed,” Kifah said, using the tip of her spear to try to pry them open.

“There must be a way around,” Nasir murmured.

Kifah brushed her hands across an inscription on the stone beside the doors. “I don’t think so. There are words here. Safaitic? I don’t even know half of them.”

Altair hurried to the inscription while Nasir tried to make sense of the writing.

The color drained from Benyamin’s face. “There’s only one way in.”

“Dum sihr,” Kifah said, a note of eagerness in her tone.

Benyamin shook his head, the whites of his eyes bright in the darkness. “I told you, the price of dum sihr is always great. I can’t do this.”

“We have no choice,” Altair said, and Nasir envied how easily he forgave the safi. “This isn’t a test of conscience.”

“The last time I used dum sihr,” Benyamin started softly, “I killed my son. No good can come from such an act.”

Nasir hadn’t known Benyamin once had a son. He knew little about the safi who knew everything. Who wasn’t even truly his cousin.

“I do not have the strength to do this again,” Benyamin murmured, staring at the inscription.

Altair gripped his shoulders. “Strength doesn’t come, brother.” He touched his forehead to Benyamin’s. Nasir watched their gazes crash, and he didn’t know how long they had known each other. Loved each other. “It must be seized.”

Benyamin’s sage eyes flickered closed as he took a steadying breath.

Kifah nudged him. “Just imagine the tales they’ll tell.”

He lifted a corner of his mouth in a smile and held out his hand for her lightning blade.



* * *



The doors yawned open with an echoing groan, welcoming them to a gaping pit of black.

“You don’t think you can do more of that dum sihr to shed some light on the place, can you?” Kifah asked, spinning her spear.

Benyamin shot her a glare as he wound a strip of cloth around his slit palm. Altair remained silent.

“The darkness speaks to those who listen,” Nasir murmured. “Those who listen are those who’ve accepted the darkness.”

Nasir had accepted the darkness. After the ill of his deeds that led to his mother’s supposed death, after the loss of Kulsum’s tongue, after the threats against the others in the zumra of whom he had grown unwittingly fond. Darkness was his destiny, his father had said, and now, with the black that crept up his arms, he believed it.

“Darkness is my destiny,” he whispered. The words cracked as they fell, winding around the marble walls, around his heart. He didn’t need a torch or a light of dum sihr to see.

He would not fear the darkness. He was the darkness. A razor-edged smile cut across his face. He stepped into the void, footsteps sounding in the silence.

He felt her presence, just as he felt her loss when she had disappeared to the Lion’s den. Perhaps it was the acceptance of the darkness that connected them. Perhaps he was imagining it.

But he saw her. She straightened like a gazelle at the sound of their approach, dark hair gleaming in the torchlight. Nasir had the absurd desire to reach out and run his fingers through the strands.