We Hunt the Flame(94)
“Do you ever not provide your opinion?” Kifah asked, picking up a scorpion’s molt and studying it.
Altair bowed. “I like to think I’m lightening the mood, shifting focus away from our impending dooms. You’re welcome.”
“I never thanked you.”
“I know. I’m saving you the extra breath. You’re welcome for that, too.”
Dread had settled across Nasir’s shoulders. If his calculations were correct, it was their tenth night on Sharr.
Which meant his time was up.
Altair made a face when Kifah returned from the shadows with hares in hand. “Once I’m out of Sharr, I will never eat hare again.”
“Be thankful you’ve got hare to eat,” the Huntress said as Altair crouched to skin and clean the animals.
“I’ll catch you a fox next time. Just try chewing on that,” Kifah said. She marinated the hares with her blend of spices before setting the meat on a makeshift pit. The fire crackled and the aroma of sizzling meat filled the air, permeating Nasir’s senses. It smelled good, he supposed.
He didn’t miss Altair deliberately pressing his leg against Kifah’s when he stoked the fire, nor did he miss the surprised smile she sent his way, dark eyes soft. Well, then.
Beside them, the Huntress fashioned arrows from wood she had gathered, painstakingly stripping them down just so the shaft would gleam white.
“You really believe we’ll go home,” he heard Kifah say, ever optimistic.
“The first step to getting anywhere is believing you can,” Benyamin said darkly.
Kifah was silent as she turned over the roasting hare in the spit.
Nasir wasn’t so sure of that—he believed in very little, but he got around. Ignoring the way his mouth watered at the hare, he had begun sharpening his scimitar when a shadow fell over him. He raised an eyebrow at Altair.
“So. You and the Huntress?” asked Altair.
Nasir wanted to run him through with his blade. He growled, “What level of daft are you?”
“I wanted to remind you of what happened to the last woman you loved.”
Nasir stilled, blade glinting in the firelight. “Which moment are you referring to? The time when she lost her tongue? Or when I learned it was all a lie?”
Altair’s face stretched in a wolfish smile. “Both should suffice.”
“You seem to have grown just as attached.”
“This is about you. Before this game is finished, you will need to end lives, not grow attached to them.”
Nasir rose, stone crumbling beneath his boots. He tolerated a great deal when it came to Altair, but interfering with his work wasn’t one of them.
His voice dropped. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do. Unlike you, I remember my place.”
“You couldn’t resist pulling that card, could you?” Altair asked, laughing softly. His face hardened into a cool mask before he bowed. “Forgive me, Sultani.”
Altair returned to the others. An iris unfurled in his turban while Kifah looked on with a small smile. Oblivious, he murmured something in her ear and she barked a laugh before turning the meat again. Nasir pursed his lips.
Me and the Huntress.
* * *
Here we go again, Nasir thought as he leaned against the tree.
“Murderers are murderers. I know what I saw that day,” Kifah was saying, about an incident back in Pelusia’s capital of Guljul. She glared at him, but Nasir kept his gaze pointedly elsewhere. “Hashashin or not.”
“No hashashin will kill a man in his sleep,” Benyamin insisted. “There’s nothing more cowardly.”
“How do you know it was a hashashin? Maybe it was a drunkard prancing around in that ridiculous garb. I wouldn’t know the difference,” Altair said.
The Huntress flitted her gaze to Nasir.
Benyamin sighed. “You’re all being children—”
“Compared to you, my grandmother is a child,” Kifah drawled.
Altair snorted water, choking until the Huntress thwacked him on the back.
“Enough,” Benyamin said, smoothing out his bedroll. “Kifah, you’re keeping watch.”
“Your wish is my insomnia,” the warrior said with a salute.
They took their time falling asleep. As if this were a trip of leisure, where they could rise when they desired and enjoy the world around them. But Nasir, unlike his father, was patient. Being a hashashin required it.
He waited until Kifah turned before he wove his way through the bedrolls, pausing longer than necessary in front of Altair. His eyes dropped to the general’s neck again, the exposed skin calling to his practiced ease in swiping across flesh and tendons. Altair’s every exhale beckoned.
But a hashashin never killed a prone figure. Even Benyamin knew that.
Nasir carefully stepped over him and tossed more wood into the fire, watching the light dance across the Huntress’s pale features. The widow’s peak of her dark hair dipped into her forehead like the head of an arrow. Her hair—still plaited and coiled—looked like a crown, and she a queen.
You will need to end lives. In his mind, he saw the slender column of her neck drenched in red as the light in her eyes dimmed to nothingness. He saw her skin ashen with death. His breath caught.
Her hand moved, closing around the ring at her chest, murmurs shaping her lips.