We Hunt the Flame(54)

A sound that made something in Nasir rear its head.

Altair was dying.

An arrow had reciprocated from the Hunter, too. It had zoomed into a dark window, but it would have struck Nasir’s heart had he not turned at the last moment. The fact was not lost on him that the Hunter had aimed true in the midst of the fray.

The general stared up at him from the shadows of the cramped archway.

Nasir forced words from clenched teeth. “Are you out of your mind? You nearly killed the Hunter.”

Altair stretched a horrid smile across his face. “But I didn’t, did I?”

They had been this close to losing the Hunter, their one ticket to finding the Jawarat—and the bastard was smug?

Nasir grabbed the arrow protruding below the general’s shoulder and twisted. Altair heaved upward, teeth gritted in pain, hands trembling.

“Fight,” Nasir said, and cursed. He wanted pain. He needed pain to help him remember and forget. Had the other Demenhune not intervened, the Hunter would have died. The entire mission compromised.

Altair didn’t move.

Nasir growled, reaching for the arrow again. Altair’s eyes flashed in the dark, and Nasir felt a spike of satisfaction when the general shoved him to the stone, dust clouding from the impact. The exertion sent blood spurting from Altair’s wound, and Nasir jerked his head from the dripping red.

“Don’t touch me,” Altair snarled, breath warm on Nasir’s skin. Flecks of darkness swam in the blue of his eyes.

“Go on,” Nasir taunted softly. “Inflict pain the way your heart begs to.”

Altair’s massive hands closed around Nasir’s neck, fingers pulsing against his slick skin, tightening until Nasir felt a prickle of … fear.

It was a welcome rush, a spike that heightened his senses. He nearly smiled.

But then Altair blinked, remembering something, and fell back onto the stone as if nothing had happened. “I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

Nasir sat up slowly, confusion dulling his senses again. He eyed the general warily. “That’s what happens when you unleash an arrow. Something will die. It’s no one’s fault you’re a terrible shot.”

“Kill me,” Altair grunted suddenly, pressing the skin around his shoulder with a grimace.

Of everything Nasir had expected from Altair—

Altair breathed a mirthless laugh. “Did you really think I would come here oblivious to your father’s plans? I know about the Hunter and what Ghameq thinks he is. I know what he told you to do. Get it over with, Sultani.”

He spat the title with vehemence.

“You know nothing,” Nasir said, voice low. “You only assume.”

Altair pulled the arrow from his shoulder with a hiss, and blood flowed freely. The shaft and fletching were crudely built, as nondescript as the ifrit had been. But why had the creature aimed at Altair and not Nasir? It wasn’t as though Ghameq had any control over Sharr.

Altair’s mouth twisted into a snarl before he contained himself. “I … have eyes … everywhere.”

He tossed the arrow among the debris and heaved to his side, pulling his satchel closer with his tongue between his teeth. The perspiration on his skin glistened with the light filtering through the small archway.

“You mean to tell me you have a spy,” Nasir said.

“Many,” the general huffed as he dug through his bag.

Nasir thought back to that morning two days ago, when the sultan had summoned him. When he had knelt on the hard ground of Ghameq’s chambers, listening to orders about this trek. When a servant had swept into the room, a fruit tray in her hands. When she had lingered, lighting bakhour and filling the room with its sensuous scent.

When she had been in Nasir’s rooms while he was at the Daama Faris with Altair.

Rimaal.

Kharra.

It couldn’t be. Disbelief wrapped dark hands around his lungs.

“Kulsum,” Nasir rasped. “She’s your spy?”

Altair watched him. “Did you think she came to you of her own accord? Did you really think someone stolen from her family and enslaved to the likes of you could fall in love with a monster?” He scoffed and tore a strip of fabric using his teeth.

Nasir felt something within him tearing the same way, jagged edges and limp remains.

He knew he was a monster. Acknowledged it, even. But Kulsum …

“You’re even dumber than your father says you are.”

Nasir stared back dully. He liked to think he had taken care of the weakness that was emotion, after all that he had been through and all that he had shunned. But Kulsum. Kulsum was different. Kulsum was the one who had pulled him out of that endless despair.

Kulsum had loved him. She had come to him, even after that wretched night when his father had gifted him that silver box.

Or had that, too, been Altair’s doing?

Nasir knew that finding a person he could love, who could love him, was near impossible. He knew, yet he had been too blinded by mere affection to see clearly. Fabricated affection.

He fisted his hands and tugged at his already-lowered sleeves. Those years lay in the past for a reason. The words on his right arm had been inked for a reason. What mattered was now: He loved none, and none loved him. Love was a fantasy.

Life, this terrible existence, would go on.

“Get up,” Nasir said.