We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)(49)

Altair joined him. “Afraid not. I had forgotten, though. The stories, I mean, because we call it a dendan. They’re maimed by the sound of singing—they could die from it.”

Nasir wondered whom the “we” entailed. He didn’t dare ask. “Because ‘dendan’ and ‘dandan’ are so different, you couldn’t remember,” he mocked instead.

Altair ignored him. “They would swallow whole ships in the dead of night, when no one could see them or know they were near. Until captains learned to hire maidens who sang through the entire voyage, poor souls. But it’s been so long since anyone sailed the Baransea that the creature probably abandoned all notion of day and night and attacked the moment it sensed us.”

The glaring sun had already dried Nasir’s clothes, and now sweat trickled down his spine. The ship rocked.

Their battered, broken ship.

Nasir turned to survey the mess, ears still ringing, but the broken mast had been fixed and the torn sail rippled unharmed in the breeze. Everything gleamed. He strode to the steps leading belowdecks and picked up his bow, hooking it behind him as he studied the undisturbed crew. His skin crawled with the essence of magic, just as it did whenever he neared his father and that wretched medallion.

“Oi! Princeling.”

“Call me that one more time, and—” Nasir stopped when he saw what Altair had seen: a jagged swarm of darkness quivering beneath the sun.

Sharr.





ACT II


A LONG WAY FROM HOME





CHAPTER 23


The ship had stopped, yet when Deen said, “We’re dismounting,” as if the ship were a steed, Zafira puzzled over the stretch of water between them and the mass of land obscured by the blistering sun.

But Deen’s lips at her neck. Those words in her ears.

“We’ll have to get there by rowboat,” he answered before she could ask, perfectly at ease, as if he hadn’t just cracked open his soul and told her things she had never heard before.

She climbed into the little boat, which looked in danger of sinking, and anger soured her thoughts. Anger at him, for saying what he had and remaining wholly unperplexed. She pressed her eyes closed and inhaled before opening them again. This was Deen. Her Deen. She didn’t have to feel demure.

The rowboat touched the water and he clutched the oars. After a few odd shuffles that nearly sent them both into the water, he finally deciphered the rhythm and began rowing them forward.

“I thought you’d take us all the way back to Demenhur,” she taunted, feeling instantly at ease again.

“Ha, ha,” he deadpanned, a laugh teasing his mouth.

Both of them gasped when the sun dipped from view, clearing its harsh glow from their sight.

Sharr.

A towering edifice, jagged like a monster’s teeth, reached for the sparse clouds. A wall, she realized, made of hewn stones held together with mortar. It may have once been the tan of limestone, but it was gray now, with veins of black creeping along the pebbled surface. The gaping darkness behind the aging cracks flashed and winked.

She looked away. What was it with the darkness, always coaxing?

Deen continued to row them ashore, the ship shrinking behind them. He was as inexperienced as she when it came to the sea, and water lapped into the little boat. Even the sea begged for her. Only a touch, it seemed to call. She leaned closer, and the boat tipped with her.

“Zafira!”

She sat upright at Deen’s shout, ducking her head in panic, and she had to remind herself there was no man here to shun her. No za’eem to marry her off.

“I wanted to see what it felt like,” she said, grasping her cloak.

“Please don’t test your mad notions here.”

Her hood obscured most of the withering look she gave him. “Row.”

He laughed. “But of course, sayyida.”

She realized then what the wall was for: to keep something in. A remnant of the prison fortress that once stood glorious and imposing. A world within itself.

A world Zafira was not sure she would outlive.



* * *



By the time they reached the shore, Zafira was soaked in her own sweat. She swayed when she set foot upon the sand. The grains shifted and sank, a living thing beneath her, swallowing all pockets of space.

There’s sand beneath my boots, Baba. Something stung in her eyes.

She stumbled forward, slowly understanding how to dance to the tune of the sand. The shift and the sink. Once that hurdle was over, the grains scorched her feet through her soles and her gloves suffocated. She shoved them into her satchel.

“You should remove your cloak, too,” Deen said, a hand to his brow as he surveyed the wall. He squinted at her. “This is just the beginning. If my understanding is correct, there’s a desert beyond the stone.” He handed her a vial with a questionable green tint, and she recognized the bottle from his parents’ apothecary trunk. “We’re not weathered enough for this sun.”

She rubbed the salve on her skin, thinking of Yasmine. Of Lana’s parting sob. Of the odd bout of nervousness that came over Haytham yesterday as he stared into the horizon in anxious anticipation. As if he were waiting for something worse than the Arz.

“Zafira.” Deen’s voice was soft. “Don’t start down that path. Not now.”