We Hunt the Flame(70)

Nasir pressed his lips together. Kifah folded her arms and tapped her foot.

Benyamin looked between Nasir and the Huntress. “Both of you met the liar who cannot lie. Neither of you received the full truth. Yet you fell prey to the allure of her words.”

The Huntress drew a sharp breath, and Nasir felt the weight of her gaze, slowly dismantling him.

He had received his orders from the sultan, who had counted on the Silver Witch to aid him. Had he fallen prey to her words? To the compass she had pressed into his palm?

It still pointed to the Huntress no matter how hard he shook it.

“Do you know where magic went that fateful day?” Benyamin asked as the sun lifted higher into the sky, the beat of its rays quickening.

“It disappeared,” the Huntress said.

“You’d need magic to make something disappear,” Kifah pointed out.

“Akhh, I love conundrums,” Altair said.

“If you want us to hear the end of your story, safi, we need to leave, or only our crisp corpses will hear the last of your words,” Nasir said. He did want to hear the rest of the story. He wanted to understand before he continued on his father’s orders. But he would slit his own throat before he admitted that.

Kifah chortled. “Who knew the crown prince had a sense of humor?”

“Oh, he’s even funnier after he’s had a proper breakfast,” Altair offered.

Something played at the corners of the Huntress’s lips before she looked at Benyamin. “We can get to the shelter of the oasis. Then I expect to know everything.”

The safi flourished a bow. “But of course, sayyida.”





CHAPTER 44


Beneath the draping shadows of the palm trees, Zafira refilled her goatskin after Kifah reassured her that the water was safe. Sand drifted into her boots and pooled in the folds of her sash. She tasted its bland weight on her tongue and felt the grit of it against her cheeks. It was everywhere.

A breeze whistled through the trees, and she reached for her hood before she remembered that her cloak was in her bag. Deen’s fingers ghosted her chin before she could fold into herself.

Altair found a lone peach tree, where he gathered a slew of the fuzzy fruit and distributed it among the five of them.

Kifah drummed a rhythm with her spear, and Zafira steered clear of the Pelusian, watching as she tugged a small black blade from one of the several sheaths along her arm. A lightning blade, Zafira realized. Forged by nature’s wrath, with balance matched by none. Blood sharpened it; age strengthened it. The blades were rare, for blacksmiths had to lie in wait until lightning struck a mountain before rushing to collect the black ore beneath the roar of thunder and pelting rain.

There were benefits to being one of the calipha’s Nine Elite, it seemed.

Benyamin pulled a fold of cloth from his bag. Zafira knew safin were vain, but enough to bring a rug to Sharr? He carefully smoothed out the creases and gently brushed aside a beetle before sitting cross-legged in the center of the red weave, trickling sand from his fists as he waited for everyone. Nasir crossed his arms and leaned against a jutting stone, making it clear he wasn’t going to be a happy participant.

“Magic did not disappear, zumra. It was relocated,” Benyamin started, skipping a peach pit across the blue waters. He called them “zumra” as if they were a horde of children, not a number of mismatched people wielding weapons against his thin, unarmed self.

“When the warden of Sharr called for aid during the second battle against the Lion of the Night, the Sisters brought magic here. And with their demise, magic did not disappear, but it fell to Sharr, which happily bore the burden.

“It swallowed the creatures of the prison—humans, safin, ifrit, bashmu—everything that stood in its path, and still, the island’s hunger could not be sated. It tainted the Baransea, it birthed the Arz. And the longer Sharr remains in control of magic, the farther the Arz will grow, and the worse our lands will become.”

“For what?” Zafira asked. “What does Sharr want?”

There was a glint in Benyamin’s eyes. “You, Huntress, are too smart for your own good.”

She shrank back and nearly missed the look Altair and Benyamin shared.

“If magic exists on Sharr,” Altair started, and Zafira had the distinct feeling he was hurrying to mask something, “then we should be able to wield it.”

“Through dum sihr at least,” Kifah said.

“No!” Benyamin looked as if someone had slit his palm and forced him to use it. “Blood magic is forbidden. Strictly forbidden. There’s no reprieve for the one who commands it. The price is always great.”

“Is that why it’s only done in Safai—”

“Superstition. Blood magic is forbidden because it’s uncontrollable. The price is a sampling of blood, nothing more,” Nasir said boredly.

“We are not going to discuss blood magic any further,” Benyamin said harshly before turning to Zafira.

By the look in his eyes, she suspected there was something more to Benyamin’s fear of dum sihr. Something personal.

“Altair was referring to the affinities we were born with,” the safi continued tranquilly, though Zafira heard the slight undercurrent of unrest. “Particularly the specialty you were born with, dearest Demenhune.”