We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)(77)

It occurred to him that he was helping them. This was worse than not killing them.

Nasir swung his scimitar, locking with another of the fiery weapons. The ifrit brought its face close, meaning to intimidate, but Nasir saw nothing.

His will wavered when the heat licked at his hands like dogs starved of hydration.

And then his grip

began

to falter.

Laa. The word echoed deep inside that ever-moving dark mass he called a heart. He couldn’t have come this far only to lose his grip on his own sword.

He threw his weight behind the blade, and the sounds of battle rushed from around him as he lost focus. A roar, a hiss. The clang of metal. The rustle of movement, scuffles. Dark laughter, trickling into his ears.

And then, nothing.

He stumbled forward, the ifrit gone. No, not gone.

Twitching at his feet with a pristine white arrow through the head, as graceful as its owner. Kharra.

A blood debt.

Nasir released a breath. Kill or be killed.

Save and be saved.

Sweat trickled down Nasir’s neck. He sought her out, and despite barely being able to see, he felt their gazes lock amid the fray. And before his pride returned, he acknowledged her with a small tip of his head.

The Huntress nodded back.





CHAPTER 51


The moment Zafira felled the last ifrit, Altair went over them for one final cut across their unmoving throats. The air reeked of burnt flesh. At Zafira’s questioning look, Benyamin leaned back on his heels and said, “Only safin steel keeps them dead.”

Still, they hurried out of the oasis as soon as the task was complete.

“Sharr is upset we killed its kin,” Kifah said, looking at the sky. Zafira would have thought that Sharr should be happy it had more to feast upon, but Kifah’s dark eyes were void of mirth.

Swells of sand marched into the distance, the umber now a shade forlorn because of the gray sky. Aside from nicks and scratches and more than a few burns, everyone had made it out alive, if a bit weary. Altair shared strips of dried goat meat with them, and even Nasir begrudgingly accepted.

“Well, dearest Demenhune? Which way do we proceed?” Benyamin asked carefully. His voice slid eerily in the silence of death.

Zafira shook her head. She was tired of not knowing what was happening. “I need answe—”

“And you will get them,” he said before she could finish. “When we stop for the night.”

She opened her mouth to protest but remembered safin couldn’t lie. So she hooked her bow and relaxed her limbs, listing her head as she sifted past the chime of sand and the whisper of shadows.

There. A thread humming in her bloodstream, a murmur slithering through her veins. A frenzy drawing her forward. So many years of relishing that insisting hum in her bloodstream, and now she knew. This was magic.

She couldn’t summon excitement at the thought. Ever since welcoming the darkness during the attack, she had been feeling … a little less afraid but also a little less whole. As if the space she occupied was now shared with something else. Someone else. She exhaled and started toward the ruins fanning out to their right, and the others fell into step behind her.

“And now we’re off again, tagging along with the Demenhune Hunter and the Prince of Death,” Kifah said, giving the prince a long look. “A murderer.”

“I find ‘murderer’ to be a relative term. How many bugs have you killed with your feet?” Altair asked.

Kifah snorted, and Zafira heard the rhythmic thump of her spear against her leg. Nasir was silent. Zafira didn’t turn to see his face, but she wondered if it hurt, being called a murderer. It wasn’t as if it were a lie.

Her thoughts seized when something screeched in the shadows.

“I think I prefer a murderer on two legs than one I don’t know about,” Zafira said.

“At last, a voice of reason!” Benyamin exclaimed, ignoring a salacious comment Altair made about legs.

As they moved, the stillness of Sharr did feel like an accusation for killing so many of its own. She did not like to consider what would happen if they further wronged the umber sands and haunting ruins. She did not want to think of why the ifrit had ambushed them, either.

Yet … it hadn’t felt like an attack. It had been more of a test. One the darkness had watched from the confines of itself. One she had passed.

The shadows steepened when they reached the crumbling slabs of stone.

“We’re stopping here for the night,” Nasir said, and all sounds ceased. He didn’t implore, didn’t request, didn’t ask. His voice was an order, and no one questioned him as they began readying the camp.



* * *



They set up camp in the alcoves of the stone ruins beneath the moon, and Zafira wanted to climb to the highest point and curl beneath her glow. To make sense of the way the shadows called to her.

The others would likely follow her, worried their compass was going astray, so she settled before the fire with a sigh and rubbed her hands. The chill was nothing compared to Demenhur’s weather, but she found it odd how cold the relentless desert could become.

Weariness tugged on her bones, and she looked forward to resting—once she had her answers.

The others unfurled bedrolls around the fire. Kifah hunted down a trio of cape hares after eyeing Zafira, who didn’t make a move when Kifah asked who would hunt.