We Hunt the Flame(52)

“You know this won’t last forever, yes?” he said, limiting himself to a sip.

“Until I’m dying of thirst and hunger, I’ll pretend it will,” she said, capping the skin.

He twirled his jambiya and looked ahead. “Let’s hope it never comes to that.”

If there was one thing Zafira didn’t do, it was hope. Hope was as much a disease as love was.

They trekked onward in silence, jointly attuned to the desert around them and the eyes that tracked them soundlessly. An ifrit? Worse?

“How does your compass rate our progress?” Zafira teased after a moment.

Deen slipped the disc back into his pocket, looking up at her with a rapid blink of his eyes. “My what? I’ve no idea what you’re blabbering about.”

She thwacked him on the side of the head, and he laughed, the sound filling her with remnants of home. She was glad he was here. Glad she wasn’t alone in this uncharted place.

Zafira kept her arrow nocked, tensed and ready, but after at least a league of walking in silence, with no way to tell where the sun now hovered, she let her shoulders relax. Perhaps she imagined the eyes following them, because one moment they bored into her from behind and the next they pierced her from the front.

Maybe the tales of Sharr were mere exaggeration. Maybe the extent of the danger was falling prey to a mirage or getting caught in a sandstorm.

Or so she made herself believe, until she heard the sound she had been waiting for. Far off, but near enough to make the hairs on the backs of her arms stand on end.

The sound of someone trying to stay silent.





CHAPTER 26


The two Demenhune drifted together like ghosts, with ethereal skin and aristocratic features, though much of the Hunter, Nasir noticed, was obscured beneath a heavy cloak and hood. No doubt the fool was suffocating in this heat.

If what Nasir had heard was true, however, the Hunter would sooner become a pool of perspiration than reveal his identity. He just hadn’t expected the Hunter to come accompanied—a slip easily remediable.

The Hunter drifted through the ruins soundlessly, and his companion prowled after him. Nasir unhooked his bow.

Altair followed his gaze. “Eyes on the prize?”

Rimaal, this man.

Altair nocked one of Nasir’s arrows. “You never know,” he explained with a forced grin. “I’ve heard the Hunter never misses, and I’d hate for my dearest prince to be impaled by one of his fine twigs.”

Altair seemed to have heard a lot of things, and since that night at the tavern, Nasir had begun to wonder about the general he had thought oblivious to everything but women and drink. Whom did Altair share his knowledge with—Ghameq? Unlikely.

Altair ducked beneath a weathered archway. Nasir moved aside a clutter of debris, readying an arrow of his own. He exhaled and aligned his aim to the second Demenhune, who stared after the Hunter with a look of … yearning in his eyes.

The intensity of it gave Nasir pause. This was his chance to stop. To shatter the hold of his father and retain the fragments of humanity he still clutched in some corner of his black heart.

But Nasir had one shot, one arrow before they lost the element of surprise. He breathed. Cleared his mind.

The hashashin bowstring, engineered by the Pelusians of Sultan’s Keep, stretched without a sound. He sighted his aim and was about to release the string when he heard it: the sound of another, less silent bowstring being pulled tight. The Hunter and his companion were in front of him, and Altair was to his left, which meant—

Someone else, shrouded from view. His pulse quickened. One of the others Ghameq had warned him of. Or, worse, an ifrit. The dark tip of an arrow peeked between the columns of limestone.

Leveled at Altair.

Nasir set his jaw but did not shift his aim.

If the unknown archer killed Altair, Nasir wouldn’t have to see the light fade from the general’s twinkling eyes. Twinkling? Nasir was no coward. The only reason Altair wasn’t yet dead was because Nasir needed him. Altair was Nasir’s to kill. He didn’t want someone else to do his work for him, as tempting as it was.

He heard the archer’s bowstring tighten, the aim shaky but true.

He saw Altair, oblivious to the arrow pointed at his heart.

Nasir exhaled.

Three arrows flew at once.





CHAPTER 27


Zafira heard the snap of a bowstring: thrice. Everything happened quickly after that. She saw the arrow, spiraling toward her.

Then Deen, yelling. Hands on her shoulders, pushing her away. Her own bow was nocked with an arrow that she let fly, letting her heart lead it because she couldn’t see, couldn’t think. A rustle of something else behind her. The ground, rushing to her face. Sand, gritting against her cheek. Stone, hard against her bones. Sound, sound, sound, beating against her eardrums.

And then,

silence.

Before everything rushed back with a noise: a choked gasp for air. No.

Zafira scrambled to her feet. The greedy desert was already swallowing up the blood, sand reddening to black. Her vision wavered.

No. No. No.

“You fool. I told you, I told you.” She dropped beside him and searched for the arrow. She dared to hope, to wish, only for a moment.

Only to suffer. For the arrow had struck directly beneath his heart. Deen. Deen. Deen.

He tried to smile, but it looked like a grimace. His face had paled, hazel eyes dim, skin coated in sweat and a smear of blood. She shook her head. It was too late. Like when Baba had stumbled out of the Arz and she couldn’t save him. Like when Umm had pierced his heart and Zafira couldn’t save her.