We Hunt the Flame(86)

“It’s the island, alerting you to your terrible taste,” Nasir said.

Kifah snickered at Altair’s wide-eyed bewilderment, and the general tossed the leaf to the sand and stomped on it for good measure.

They passed dunes, dunes, and more dunes. Sometimes Zafira would catch Altair leaning close to Kifah, making a tender smile bloom across the warrior’s lips. Other times, she would catch the general and Benyamin in conversation, eyes forlorn, voices low. Nasir watched them all, mouth pursed, ever weary.

To a darting glance, the prince was cool indifference. To someone who watched him, his focus was intent and inquisitive. The mark of someone born with a curious mind, but forced to use it elsewhere: In calculating death. His gaze slid to Zafira, and she quickly looked away, neck warming.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Kifah asked as the desert darkened once more. It wasn’t a cover of clouds that obscured the sun. It was the sky itself. Caging them away from the orb of light.

“No,” Zafira said, eyeing the knife twirling in Kifah’s hand. How could she explain the song the darkness sang? The frenzy in her bloodstream that only settled when she led them in the direction it wanted? “But if you have a better idea, by all means.”

Kifah grumbled something beneath her breath.

“Couldn’t you have brought a few camels on that ship of yours?” Altair groused.

“You should have sent me a letter asking for one or ten,” said Benyamin.

Kifah gave Altair a sidelong glance. “Or you could ask him to carry you. Put some of that safin strength to good use.”

Zafira wasn’t sure Benyamin could carry Altair, safin strength or not.

“Such an imaginative mind, One of Nine,” Altair said.

After what felt to be hours, Altair complained that his stomach was eating itself, so they stopped to rest and the shadows swallowed the sky, their only indication of nightfall. There wasn’t a single star in the dark expanse, despite the tales Zafira had heard of the stars leading bedouins through unremarkable sands.

“Who will be assuming the role of watchman tonight? For it will not be me,” announced Benyamin.

“Do you think I like it when you stare at my perfection?” Altair asked.

Zafira crossed her arms. “He probably can’t sleep unless a woman’s looking at him.”

“Kifah looks at me,” Altair said, grinning at the Pelusian.

Kifah scowled. “Only because I’m wondering how best to chop off your head with your own sword.”

Altair turned to Zafira. “Do you volunteer? Because I—”

Nasir cut him off with a growl. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“Such generosity, princeling,” Altair exclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder. “No one else would oblige so readily, you see. Akhh, I’m not worried about my well-being in the slightest. But I think I’ll take the second watch. Just to be safe.”

No one objected, and after another meal of roasted hare, Zafira settled into her makeshift bed. Kifah spoke to Benyamin in low murmurs, Altair piping his opinion every so often. Like friends. They spoke to one another because they wanted to, not because they needed to.

They spoke to Zafira to ask which way to go or which path to take. She was a daama tour guide.

And she was alone, as always.

She sighed and turned to her side, looking to where the prince was keeping watch against the mottled stone. Only, he wasn’t facing the desert. He leaned against the oddly shaped thing.

Watching her.

She looked away, and it was a long time before sleep claimed her soul.



* * *



Nasir knew how she felt, when she turned to him, something bleak yawning in those scythes of blue fire. She had changed since he had first aimed an arrow at her Demenhune’s heart.

She tipped her shoulders less. Every morning since her heatstroke, she would take her cloak from her satchel and silently debate donning it. But that had ceased, too, after their … run-in at the river. It was as if she had been born to a skin she did not fit within, and only now, in the desolation of the desert, was she allowing herself to take command of it. To mold herself to it.

She stretched her long limbs and slid her gaze to him. He did not think she could rest, for night was when the demons awoke. Memories no one wanted to remember. Ghosts no one wanted to see. Nasir’s demons tended to join his slumber, too.

Good night, he wanted to whisper.

But he was the Prince of Death, Amir al-Maut, as his mother had once called him in the old tongue, and good night always felt like goodbye.





CHAPTER 56


Nasir shook the Huntress’s shoulder again. Rimaal, she slept like the dead.

If not for the rise and fall of her chest, he would have believed her dead. Just as his sleep had conjured her last night. First with her lip between his teeth. Then with her eyes glassy, red dripping from his blade.

“Yalla, yalla.” His hand trembled. A hashashin never wavered.

Her eyes flew open and locked with his, panic fleeting across her features. He shrank back from the fear in her open gaze. Fear was his constant. It was in every gaze that turned his way, so why did seeing it in one more pair of eyes make him feel as though hands were tightening around his throat?

He swallowed and her startled eyes dropped to his throat. Kharra, this woman. “You sleep like the dead.”