We Hunt the Flame(68)

“Very few know of the mission,” Nasir pressed. “News couldn’t have reached Alderamin in time for you to have crossed the Wastes, Pelusia, and Zaram.”

“Befriend enough spiders, and one will garner enough gossamer,” Benyamin mused.

The words slapped Nasir with sense.

Altair.

Altair was one of Benyamin’s spiders. Altair, whose every action was painstakingly deliberate. Nasir remembered the server girl and the scrap of papyrus—Altair didn’t even step into a tavern for the sole purpose of a drink. How much of Arawiya spun in a direction the sultan did not order?

He should kill them. Kill them and take the Huntress. It was the right thing to do—in the sultan’s eyes.

Nasir hadn’t looked through his own eyes in a very long time.

Benyamin watched him closely, and Nasir noted a shift in the safi’s umber gaze. Something had softened in them.

“At ease, Prince. I’m afraid we have a lot to talk about.”





CHAPTER 42


Zafira held her distance as Benyamin led them past an outcropping, all jagged points like a crown. She kept expecting Nasir to do away with the safi, but the hashashin seemed docile for once.

An expanse of stone widened in a circle, the soft gray vaguely familiar and equally out of place among Sharr’s many shades of brown.

“A jumu’a?” Altair asked.

That was where she had seen it before. It was nearly identical to the one on which Yasmine’s wedding had taken place. Zafira didn’t know the Sisters had laid jumu’a stones on Sharr, too.

“Indeed. We passed it on our way to save you,” Benyamin said.

“Don’t get too conceited, safi,” Nasir said. “We could have handled two more of your kind.”

“Semantics,” Benyamin replied with a quirk of his mouth.

Zafira froze when the ground shook—so fiercely, she felt its tremor in her jaw. The carvings along the stone deepened and undulated.

“Kharra,” Nasir murmured, throwing a sharp glance at Benyamin, who shook his head quickly, denying all blame.

Zafira never imagined the collected prince would curse, but she supposed even he had his limits.

Altair chuckled under his breath. “You’re getting worse, Sultani. Next—”

The gray stone flooded in darkness. Shadows. Wind battled with her clothes, tugged at her hair, and a scream cut the quiet. Zafira ducked as the night became impossibly black.

A creature hurtled across the skies, long wings shifting like the waves of the Baransea, power rippling across razor-edged feathers dark as a falcon’s. A beak in the hues of sunset shaped at its mouth. Altair whistled.

“A rukh,” Zafira marveled as it screamed again and lifted to the clouds.

“It doesn’t need a name besides ‘gigantic bird with daggered claws,’” Altair said.

“It helps to know what you’re facing,” she countered, referring to more than just the bird as she leveled him with a look.

“She’s right,” Kifah said as the skies cleared. In moments, the rukh was barely a speck in the horizon, a black star in the dark sky. “But let’s hope we won’t be facing that thing anytime soon. I didn’t leave the calipha only to become fodder.”

“The stories always described them as large and strong enough to grab an elephant in its talons. I never knew it was that big,” Zafira continued.

“The stories also say elephants tromp in a mythical isle far east, but only you would find any of this interesting, Huntress,” Altair said with a yawn.

They spent the rest of that night on the jumu’a. Zafira reclined against the surrounding outcrop, trying to stay awake while her eyes drifted closed. Benyamin claimed to be tired from his journey and slept right in the middle of the stone without a care for the murder blazing in the prince’s eyes.

She had so many questions that needed answering. Too many questions. A safi wouldn’t come all this way based on a cacophony of rumors. Regardless, both Benyamin and Nasir were more capable than she was, so why had the Silver Witch sent her? The more she tried to make sense of it, the more her head spun.

She would get her answers, even if she had to hold her jambiya to the safi’s perfect neck. Someone’s getting violent, Yasmine sang in her head.

She must have dozed off at some point, because soon, light was skittering through the sparse clouds, the early sun’s miserly heat sending a warm shiver through her.

It reminded her of chilly mornings in Demenhur, when Lana would place steaming harsha in her hands, buttery and grainy, the cake melting in her mouth as she readied for another day of hunting. She missed food that wasn’t dried dates and bread hard enough to knock a man senseless. She missed her sleepy village.

The Prince of daama Death leaned against the outcrop on the other end, one leg folded, arms crossed. His head was tipped to the sky, eyes closed. He hadn’t attempted to kill anyone overnight, which likely meant he was scheming. He could easily slip into the ruins beyond and vanish, but more than once she caught him on full alert, scanning the jumu’a until he settled on her and his stance grew lazy again.

Why would the Prince of Death seek her out if not to kill her?

She rolled her shoulders and downed a trickle of water before climbing the stone. She pressed the cool metal of Deen’s ring to her lips and surveyed the terrain, quelling the grief bubbling up her throat.