We Hunt the Flame(42)

What other plans did she spin in her web of silver, deceiving without lying?

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” someone asked, stepping to her side. Haytham. A wicked sword hung from his side, the white hilt carved with words from the old tongue.

Could she describe the sea as beautiful? Yes, very much so. But was that a word a man would use? Her brain refused to think, so she settled with a nod.

This close, it wouldn’t be difficult to discern she was no boy, so she held herself carefully. Haytham smiled, his eyes darting a path across her face—her lips, her nose, the hood that concealed the rest of her. She was lucky her delicate features were a commonality in Demenhur, and that—

“You’re younger than I thought.”

She stopped breathing. I could pass for a young boy. Albeit a tall one. Haytham opened his mouth. Zafira swallowed.

“The caliph is an old man,” Haytham said finally, and she exhaled in relief. “He is disheartened over the ruin of our lands and the whole of Arawiya. He appreciates what you do for the western villages, but he has not had a chance to reward you for your deeds. This was not how he wanted to meet you for the first time.”

Zafira kept her lips thinned and forced a smile. “That’s all right, effendi.”

“Please, Haytham will do,” he said.

Some ways behind them, the caliph hacked a cough that rattled down to his bones.

Haytham looked back at her. “Did you know there is an heir to our ice throne?”

Zafira blinked at his change of thought, and unease skittered across her skin. “I thought the caliph was childless.”

“As does the rest of the Arawiya,” Haytham said. “You see, the heir is a girl. Cast away by her father, because how can a girl take control of an entire caliphate?”

“How can a woman do anything at all?” Zafira bit out, anger masking her surprise.

“I have always wished for someone to take matters into her own hands,” he said, an odd tone to his words. He studied her as he spoke. “To prove to our caliph that a body is only a body and that a soul determines one’s actions. Yet here we are, aren’t we, Huntress?”

Panic gripped her, climbed her throat. “How?” she whispered.

“Experience. What better way to allow a woman before tutors of politics and battle strategy than to dress her as a boy?”

Zafira thought of that girl, the calipha-to-be.

“You have made a place for a man who does not exist,” Haytham continued. “I will do what I can, readying the caliph’s daughter for her role by right, but if you can find it in your heart to embrace what you are, the world will be better for it.”

Snow flitted from the skies, and anger burned her sight. How could he impose that responsibility upon her? Wasn’t she doing enough?

“May I borrow our esteemed Hunter, Haytham?”

The caliph. Haytham froze for the barest of moments before stepping away, and the caliph smiled as he took Haytham’s place by Zafira’s side. Deen joined them, trying to catch her eye.

She ignored him. One moment he had wanted to marry her and explore the world, the next he was ready to lie down and die like an old man.

But if Deen had a death wish, who was she to stop him?

She had one to match.

The caliph caught a snowflake in his weathered palm. “I have faith you will claim victory over the lost Jawarat. We may not have the brutality of the Zaramese, the cunning of the Sarasins, the wisdom and might of the Pelusians, or the experience of the Alder safin, but we have good intentions, good hearts, and the two of you.”

Two men handed Zafira and Deen each a satchel.

“Salves, dates, and preserved meat,” the caliph explained.

“I have a request,” Zafira said quickly, voice hoarse. “If I may, sayyidi,” she added.

He inclined his head, and she took it as permission to continue.

“I-I would like for our families—mine and Deen Ra’ad’s—to be given shelter in your palace.” She kept her voice in a careful rasp. “In Thalj. And care for my mother, who is ill.”

The caliph was silent.

Zafira felt she had overstepped. Skies, Zafira. Thalj? She worried her lip and flicked her gaze to Haytham, but he was a picture of nervous emotion now, looking into the distance as if he were expecting someone. Zafira looked away, before his jittery stance could transfer to her.

“Granting your families residence in the palace of Thalj is the very least I could do for saviors with the hearts of lions,” the caliph said finally. “And finding a nurse for an ill mother is a simple matter.”

She jerked a nod, tamping down her relief before it could twitch her lips into a smile. “There is one more thing. Without my hunts, the western villages won’t—”

“We will take care of that, too,” he said. “It will not be easy, but we will provide more grain from our stores, and venison when possible.”

Zafira exhaled.

“Rest assured, my fearless, we will take care of everything,” the caliph promised.

Everything. All she needed to do was get through the Baransea, venture across Sharr, and return with the book. Or die. Simple enough.

Zafira’s chest constricted. Deen returned to the others and bumped noses with Misk in farewell, then lingered in a fierce embrace with Yasmine, the look on her face crushing a weight against Zafira’s chest. He drew Lana into a hug, straightened her shawl, and gave them some last-minute instructions on caring for Sukkar and Lemun.