We Hunt the Flame(99)

Nasir did not know what to say to that.



* * *



There was something bittersweet about a day long awaited. She heard them speaking. But they were like voices singing a song, one she no longer heard.

She had reached the destination she always feared she would. And now that she was here, she felt it had been inevitable from the very beginning: She had always been on a steady journey toward finding herself lost.

It had only worsened the night before, when the Sultan of Arawiya had reminded Nasir of what he was sent to do. When Benyamin had reminded her she was a means to an end in the witch’s game.

Unlike the darkness, which had only ever looked out for her. It was her constant. It cared.

Now it whispered a welcome once more. Perhaps being lost gave her a sense of freedom. Untethered her from her obligations.

For Zafira bint Iskandar embraced the darkness.

And the darkness embraced her back.





ACT III


THE LIES WE EAT





CHAPTER 64


Zafira was elsewhere, and it wasn’t the Sharr she had come to know and dread.

The subdued light made her think of dark rooms and the rustle of clothes. Hushed whispers and stolen smiles. This place certainly was no desert. Or ruin. Or outside.

The ceiling arched high. Walls of dark wood and stone were cut in the most intricate trellises, so fine that they looked to have taken years to complete. A glow came from behind them, throwing a kaleidoscope of shadow and light across the copper ground. It was a place of extravagance.

A majlis sprawled to her right in rich hues, cushions a deep shade of purple. A darker corridor yawned to her left. Something stretched in its shadows, low whispers crawling from its depths. She averted her eyes with a shudder.

There were no windows allowing her to glimpse the outside and guess at where she was. There were, instead, swaths of art with bold strokes of color, everything abstract. She could sometimes make out words of Safaitic, but wasn’t the point of abstract to make one see what they wanted?

“Peace unto you, Huntress.”

The voice was smooth and rich. Velvet and dark. Hearing it was like returning to someone long lost. She had no fear in her heart, no worry in her chest. She felt … at ease. Zafira turned toward the owner of the voice.

The man stood in the shadows of the archway. He lifted his lips into a smile of welcome, cool eyes of dark amber assessing her as she assessed him. There was a scar across his temple, disappearing beneath his dark turban. He was young, but not dreadfully so, perhaps a little older than Nasir. His thobe, a mauve so deep it was nearly black, was fitted to his lean frame, silver buttons winking.

He was beautiful. A terrible sort of beautiful.

Zafira smiled back.

“Where am I?” she asked, glad her voice held no quiver.

“Home,” he said in a way that insisted she should have known.

“And who are you?”

“The Shadow.”

Wariness lifted its head. “That isn’t a name.”

“When you’ve lived a length of isolation as long as I have, the purpose of a name eludes you until the name itself disappears.”

How long must one live before one ceased to remember their own name? Zafira thought of the Silver Witch. Both ancient and young at once. Immortal.

He stepped into the golden light, and Zafira’s breath faltered at the sight of a bronze tattoo, curling around his left eye. ‘Ilm. She traced the letters with her gaze, piecing together the old Safaitic in her head. Knowledge.

Benyamin had—

The Shadow smiled again, and Zafira was struck with a catastrophe of emotions at once, forgetting what she had been thinking. The zumra was nowhere to be seen. She was in a dark place, alone with a man. Not with a boy who would fear repercussions, but a man whose smile was a wicked, knowing curl of his lips.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have listened to Yasmine’s tales, which made her overthink. The tales Yasmine swore would make her blush but instead only heated her blood, for Demenhune didn’t blush.

The Shadow extended his arm toward the majlis, long fingers unfurling. “Sit.”

She was painfully aware of him as she placed one foot before the other. Painfully aware of her uncleanliness in the face of this extravagance. At the edge of the rug, she slipped out of her boots and set her foot on the plush fabric. She sat on the cushion, tucking her feet beneath her thighs.

He sat across from her. There was an ornate dallah on the round cushion between them, steam rising from its crescent-shaped spout. Small, handleless cups were stacked beside it, and a bowl of pomegranate seeds glittered enticingly. The Shadow began to pour, darkness trickling into the cups. The mellowed scent of rich coffee, mixed with cardamom, cloves, saffron, and other spices, permeated the air.

If Zafira had thought being seated would calm her racing pulse, she was wrong.

“Where are we, truly?” she asked.

He nudged a cup toward her with the back of his hand. The steam that rose from the cup looked black.

“The strongest qahwa you will ever sip,” he insisted in that dark voice.

Zafira lifted her eyebrows, barely, and a corner of his lips quirked upward.

“You are in my home.”

She had yet to understand where the boundaries were with this strange man who had arrived from nowhere. But she was well acquainted with darkness. How different could a shadow be?