We Hunt the Flame(98)

“The longer you delay, the harder it will be,” she said softly, surprising herself with how much she meant the words. He took a small step closer, and she wanted him to take another. And another. And another.

“In what way?” he breathed. As if, maybe, he was trying to make sense of this just as she was.

“I don’t know.”

Someone yawned, and she heard the rustle of clothes as someone else stretched. She heard the timbre of the sultan’s voice again.

“You’re not afraid of him,” she realized aloud.

He stiffened.

“You’re afraid of…” She paused, brow creased. “What did he mean when he said ‘her tongue won’t be all she loses’?”

He closed his eyes. Lines wrinkled his forehead, and she noticed that his beard had been trimmed. When did men have the time for such things?

“I am afraid,” he said simply, avoiding her question, and when he opened his eyes, the Prince of Death had come, slashed with a scar, his irises dead ashes in a grim wind. “I am the coward you wanted to call me.”



* * *



They set off early to avoid the sun Benyamin did not think would arrive. The night he had warned of was settling in, the gloom deepening despite the morning hour.

Nasir blinked away the fatigue that had taken shelter behind his eyes. He thought to the night before, when two pairs of feet dashed across the stone. The lighter pair, he knew now, was the Huntress. The heavier pair could only have belonged to one man, and Nasir hoped Altair was pleased with all the belittling he’d heard.

The Huntress led them without a word, brushing the loose strands of her dark hair back with a sweep of her fingers. When she had risen that morning, her eyes twin scythes of blue lifting to his without fear or mask, Nasir had felt oddly, inexplicably saddened.

He was always sad, he knew. But there was a difference between a perpetual state of unhappiness and a sudden gust of it, leaving him cold and helpless. Floundering with no sight of an end.

His exhale was slow.

Altair had been right. Sometime between pledging to kill the Demenhune Hunter and now, Nasir had come to feel something for her. He had grown attached. Feelings had transpired without permission, conspired without his brain, working with what was left of his heart.

It really was only a matter of when. He couldn’t go against his father, the notorious sultan of the entire kingdom.

But you are the Prince of Death.

Shut up, darkness, Nasir hissed in his head. The darkness chuckled, and Nasir paused, thinking through the idiocy of that before the Huntress collapsed.

She fell

to her

knees.

He felt the impact like a blow to his stomach. He pushed past Kifah and Altair and dropped down beside her. She trembled. Her head tilted to the skies.

She stilled when he neared.

“Is it the darkness?” he murmured before the others were within earshot.

Benyamin approached her next. “Are you well, Huntress?”

“What is—” Kifah began, before the Huntress silenced them all.

“Look around us,” she said. Her voice was haunted. Raw.

Nasir’s eyes roved the brushwood, the crumbling limestone, the dunes of sand. The same patch of saltbush blooming with the same white flowers he had seen yesterday.

“Kharra,” Kifah murmured, dropping her spear.

“Do you think the Silver Witch considered what would happen when her compass failed?” The Huntress’s voice was a knife. She rose, fury igniting her features. Fury directed at him. “You should have killed me.” She was close enough to touch. To smooth, with his lips, the harsh lines of anger marring her skin.

The last thought seized him.

When had he ever wished to kiss anyone? Even Kulsum had been the one to kiss him first, to … use him. Tribulation weighed him down. It matched the look in the Huntress’s eyes.

“What use am I now, Prince? All you have is a broken compass.”

Use. The word cut deep.

Altair broke the silence first.

“You aren’t broken.” He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder.

But she wasn’t looking at the general. She looked to Nasir, waiting to hear what he would say. He was skilled in many things, but not words. He couldn’t speak as those shards of ice begged him to.

“This is your fault,” Nasir said suddenly, eyes flicking to Benyamin. The safi jerked at the accusation. “If you hadn’t told her what she was, this would not have happened.”

Kifah seethed. “Of every self-centered thing you could say—”

“Laa, I think the prince is right,” Altair interrupted. “You aren’t broken, Zafira.”

Nasir flinched at the sound of her name from Altair’s mouth. He could scarcely refer to her by name in his head because he felt … he felt he did not deserve to.

“You’ve always followed the direction of your heart,” Altair continued. “It was a subconscious effort you trusted without a doubt. But now that you know what you are, you’ve begun to use your head. That has led you astray.”

“So now we’re stranded?” Kifah asked. Her words were followed by another layer of black, bleeding into the sky.

Benyamin clenched his jaw as he studied the unfolding shadows. “The night stirs,” he murmured.