We Hunt the Flame(72)
Skies. Affinities, powers. Magic that had ceased to exist.
She needed to lie down. What was she, an old man? She didn’t need to lie down.
Glorious slants of gold shone on the green foliage ahead of her, where a path unfurled in the stillness. Colorful flowers spread petals, coaxing her near with soft chimes. Be free, Huntress.
She didn’t need the others, the shadows reminded her. She could make her own way from oasis to oasis, ruin to ruin, and find that wretched book. She could single-handedly restore magic to Arawiya without worrying about who had allied with whom and which of the others were plotting her death.
But.
She remembered the gentle stroke of that cloth on her skin. The sorrow in the prince’s eyes. Altair’s laugh. Benyamin’s persistence. The shadow haunting Kifah’s dark eyes.
She needed answers. Answers that Benyamin had.
She turned back, hoping this wasn’t a decision she would come to regret.
CHAPTER 46
Nasir stared into the trees, waiting—hoping—for her to return. A rare thing, for him. Hope.
As much as it was Benyamin’s fault, Nasir had … learned something from their little chat. The safi had given him answers to questions he could never bring himself to ask.
“All this tension is making me old,” Altair said, flexing his arms, blades in hand. It was alarming how jovial and deadly he could be at once.
“Age typically leads to wisdom,” Kifah pointed out, the look on her face suggesting Altair was anything but wise.
“Says the girl who tagged along with a chattering safi. Why’d you come, anyway?” Altair asked, turning to her. She didn’t flinch from his extended blades.
Kifah studied him a moment and then shrugged. “Magic. Revenge. The usual.”
Altair laughed, and Nasir tried to stop his own lips from quirking up. Rimaal. He’d never had to stifle so many smiles before. Benyamin paced along the oasis, brow furrowed.
At last, the Huntress emerged, looking upon everything with an eerie stillness. Unease stirred in Nasir’s stomach. Her shoulders curled forward before she came aware of it and straightened, lifting her chin.
Benyamin leaped to attention, relief casting his eyes in burnished gold. “I wanted to offer an apology,” he said to her slowly. “Safin tend to overlook human sentiment. I should have ruminated before depositing such a hefty revelation upon you.”
It was easy to forget that Benyamin wasn’t human. Like the Silver Witch. Like half of Nasir’s self.
“I’m no hashashin, but in my humble observations, it seems you can’t take your eyes off her,” Altair drawled in Nasir’s ear.
“Jealous?” Nasir asked. The torn end of his turban flickered in the gentle breeze, the cloth soft against his neck.
“I would be, if I didn’t know you stare at me just as much.”
Nasir’s brows flattened. “I need her.”
“Which is what every man says when it comes to—”
“Close your mouth or put it to use elsewhere,” Nasir growled. He marveled at why he even bothered talking to the oaf.
Altair mimed sealing his lips shut, but his silence lasted no longer than a dying insect. “Oi, whatever you were thinking, I wasn’t.”
“Shut up,” the Huntress snapped when she drew near.
Altair flinched, to Nasir’s satisfaction.
“I came back only because I know you’ll follow me otherwise, and I’m tired of the two of you breathing down my neck.”
“Do you even know what it feels like to have a man breathing down your neck?” Nasir asked. What did you just say, idiot? He was spending too much time with Altair.
Even the general looked surprised. Kifah snorted, and Benyamin prayed to the skies for patience.
The Huntress paused, and Nasir saw the exact moment when she recalled a memory. How hard was life when your very thoughts played out on your face? Her fingers drifted to the ring, telling him the rest.
Realizing her mistake, she met his eyes defiantly. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“With your stupid mockery of pity.”
He laughed, a dry sound. “Did you think yourself in love with him?”
She didn’t answer, and her silence made him push harder, for the others watched. For he was his father’s son.
He stepped closer. “Let me tell you a secret, Huntress: The dead man loved you, but you did not.”
“Bleeding Guljul, leave her be,” Kifah said, hand against her bald head.
“Death is the one thing certain in human life. Why does it still come as a surprise when it happens?” he asked.
“You know nothing of love or loss,” the Huntress hissed, and Nasir flinched from her gaze, so cold it burned. “You’re likely among the privileged who tumble a different woman every night, only to kill her by sunrise.”
Nasir donned a wolfish smile. “Fancy yourself Shahrazad, then?”
The strangest look crossed her face before she spun to Altair. “Give me that.”
“Me? What?” Altair bumbled, eyes wide. She stalked to him and reached for one of his scimitars. He was taller, but she was tall enough. She stood on her toes and pulled his blade free with a slow hiss, nicking his shoulder.