And the Huntress was going to save her. She raised her nocked arrow, aiming for the safi’s back.
She fired.
The arrow struck his shoulder, buying enough time for the Pelusian to break free. As the safi cursed in the ancient tongue, the Pelusian paused to give the Huntress a small nod of thanks, barely concealing her surprise.
These people were Nasir’s enemy. He had come here to slay them.
Air compressed behind him and he whirled, clashing steel with another safi. Why won’t they die? He clenched his jaw and twisted his blade free, and when he dared to look away, he saw the Huntress.
On the sand, her long body pinned beneath the safi who had first spoken, his rusted scimitar raised to strike.
CHAPTER 37
Zafira could barely breathe. The prince had spoken of death as if he were weighing the sweetness of dates. And now she was being squashed like one.
This was not how she had hoped to meet an Alder safi for the first time. She had never expected to meet one so bare, either. His torso, copper from the sun, glistened with sweat. Her face burned, and she wondered if this was the pathetic moment when she would finally blush, as Yasmine had proclaimed she would at a time that felt like eons ago.
He struggled to hold her down, but she refused to die in such an ungraceful way. Death by suffocation. Because a half-naked safi sat on me. She shoved, managing to break his hold on his scimitar. It sliced through the sands by her head.
He snarled and weighed her down as she jabbed her knees against his stone-hard body. His eyes narrowed between the folds of his filthy turban. Funny how his face was obscured when the rest of him wasn’t.
Sweet snow, she was hot. She craned her head to the hands around her neck and lashed out with her teeth, connecting with weathered skin.
The safi pulled away with an ugly snarl. “I will gut you and feast upon your flesh.”
Her eyes widened at the words. Safin weren’t supposed to be vicious. They were collected, smart, vain, and elegant. These safin were monstrous. She jabbed her knees up again, this time connecting with his unsuspecting limbs. He howled and rolled to the sands.
This time, she pinned him down. He would send her flying the moment he recovered, but she would have her moment. No one, safin or otherwise, would feast on her tonight.
He swiped with his nails. She was more disgusted than afraid now. She threw a fist at him, wondering where she ever learned to inflict pain. She was the Hunter. She killed rabbits and deer with the least amount of agony possible.
Shouts and curses rang out in the distance, and she blearily registered Altair’s voice. The Pelusian woman who had appeared out of thin air was fighting, too. Blood roared in Zafira’s ears. The prince was likely leaning against a broken column, waiting for everything to sort itself out.
“Suffer as I have, Demenhune. Perish here, as I will,” the safi rasped as he reached for his fallen sword.
Zafira unsheathed her jambiya, but a dagger was no match for a scimitar. He kicked her off, tearing the air from her lungs. She fell upon stone, bones jarring, teeth clacking. He swung the sword at her, the sharpened end slicing straight for her neck.
Terror tore through her.
Kill or be killed. The Prince of Death’s toneless voice rang through her ears.
She wasn’t going to be torn apart by a rogue safi while the prince looked on in boredom.
Zafira rolled, once to the right, then to her left as the safi brought his scimitar down, again and again, tossing sand and shards of loose stone with his every strike. There was a crazed look in his eyes.
She kicked at his feet, and he stumbled, righting quickly. His blade arced down again.
I have
to get out of
the way.
But there was nowhere to go. Stones hemmed in on either side, pressed at her back. Panic clawed at her skin. The darkness taunted from where light refused to go, the shadows churning in a frenzy. Fight him. Do what you must.
Zafira pulled him down with a twine of her legs. She gasped for air. Jabbed her blade up. Twisted her hands out of instinct.
“You—” The safi choked, garbling on something liquid-like.
Baba. Baba. I’m sorry.
Stickiness spread through her fingers, and heaviness settled in her bones, weighting her atop the debris. She saw red. Her thoughts flickered, blanked. The safi fell, as surprised as she was.
Dead.
By Zafira’s hand.
She was used to blood dripping from her fingers, seeping beneath her nails, but not the blood of sentients. Of a death from violence.
She dropped her jambiya and croaked. She wanted to scream. I did this. What did it mean, now that her soul had darkened? Kill or be killed. She was a fool for listening to the prince, for not remembering that there was always a compromise. She could have maimed the safi, she could have—
The sands yawned open, but she was too numb to react as the island swallowed the dead safi. Sharr was pleased with her. The wind thanked her with its howl.
Zafira could only watch as the island ate its fill, certain the prince’s soul was the darkest of them all.
CHAPTER 38
Nasir exhaled. It was not lengthier than usual. It was certainly not a sigh of relief because the Huntress was alive and seemingly unharmed. He watched as she shrank into herself, like a girl lost among the many stalls of a sooq.
“Akhh, I thought she’d be a little more useful in battle,” Altair said.
Nasir cut him a glare. “I need her more than I need you.”
“I am going to pretend you didn’t just insult me.”
Nasir shifted some sand with the toe of his boot, but the five slain safin and their rusted scimitars were gone, all five consumed by the island.
“Sultan’s teeth, did Sharr eat the woman, too?” Altair asked, looking about.
The Pelusian was nowhere to be seen. Had Altair not mentioned her, Nasir would have thought Sharr had conjured her, playing tricks on his depraved mind. Sharr, which was always watching. While the Huntress displayed her weaknesses for the island to revel in.
“Huntress,” Nasir said, but she only closed her eyes and tilted her head to the skies. He could have sworn the temperature rose without her cold gaze. His eyes fell to the smooth column of her neck, unblemished except for a small speck of darkness above her right collarbone. A birthmark.
He forced himself to look at her face.
“Odd spot for safin to hide,” Altair commented, kicking something to the shadows, where it clattered noisily.
“Sheltered, secluded from ifrit. Near enough to an oasis for water and game. Not odd—prime. They never had hopes of leaving, or they wouldn’t have been so violent,” Nasir said.
The Huntress reached for her satchel but dropped her hands and closed her eyes again when she saw their bloodied state. Rimaal. They needed to get moving.
Nasir stalked to her. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Her eyes flew open and she shot to her feet, her lips raw and red. “Oh, laa. I’m not here to be ordered around. I am daama tired of you and your beloved general telling me what to do, where to go, when to move. Your threats mean nothing to me.”
She stepped closer and he pulled back, regretting it instantly.
“If you want me obedient, Prince, kill me and carry my corpse.”
Her voice echoed in the silence. Her mouth was crooked in rage, her eyes ablaze in a fire of ice. Nasir should have turned away.
He should not have given in to the sensations of how she looked. Of how, in one fell swoop, she had thrown the Prince of Death to the ground and trampled his existence with her words.
But he did. So his traitor of a chest made him laugh.
CHAPTER 39
Zafira had tensed for a fight. For the prince to shove her to the ground and chop off her head the way the dead safi had wanted to do. She hadn’t expected him to laugh in her face.
It was a raspy sound tinged with surprise, as if his throat
weren’t used to laughing, as if he had forgotten what it meant to laugh. Then his heart chastised the absurd thing his mind had allowed him to do, and he stopped.
If he had a heart, that was.
But the laugh still glittered in his dark eyes when Altair capped his goatskin and smacked his lips. The prince—no, Nasir; calling him “the prince” in her head was too much to bear—looked at Altair’s goatskin before uncapping his own and extending it to her.
“There’s blood on my hands,” she said softly.
He held her gaze and splayed his long, clean fingers. Gloveless. “Mine, too.”
The Prince of Death. She would have thought it a reminder, if a chasm hadn’t opened in his eyes. He was adept at keeping his features clear of emotion, but those stone eyes had betrayed him more than once.
“Are you immortal?” she asked out of nowhere. “Like full-blooded safin are?”
“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” he said in that voice that looped with the wind.
He tipped the goatskin over for her, and when the last of the red stains left her fingers, she tucked her stark hands away. If she felt like an anomaly in Demenhur, where everyone was pale, she felt even worse here, among the umber sands and darker skin of the Sarasins.
Altair held out her cleaned jambiya. “Congratulations, Huntress. You’re officially a murderer. Welcome to the club.”
Nasir looked at him coldly. She almost didn’t take the blade back. Baba’s blade.
I’ve killed a man. An immortal safi. His crimes didn’t matter—he was another person who had breathed like she did, who might have once had a family and dreams of his own.
“We shouldn’t have met them armed. They could be alive now,” she said, momentarily forgetting that these two Sarasins were as much her enemies as the safin were.
“They attacked first. Kill or be killed, remember?” Altair said.
“What, you’re his mouthpiece?”
The general gave her a sly grin. “Are we talking about talking? Or other mouth adventures? Because—”
“No one wants to know about your mouth adventures,” Nasir interrupted.
Altair sighed and sauntered away. “Another time, then. Maybe when the grump’s asleep.”
Zafira found it odd how easily Altair insulted the crown prince. He might be the general, but the prince wasn’t known to have friends. Or admirers. No one liked him, and he liked no one, khalas—the end. And considering how quick he was on the draw, it was surprising Altair had survived this long.
Poets of the kill. The ring against her chest was a reminder: She was never safe.
“Ah, princeling?” Altair called, and Nasir’s features tightened. “As much as I loathe to admit it, I seem to have lost count.” Zafira turned to where Altair stood amid the safin camp. “How many safin did we kill?”
“Five?” Zafira offered, and then she saw what he was seeing.
The safin had created a home for themselves in the ruins. Smoothed-out stones served as beds, tarnished goblets and platters lay to the side. Everything numbered seven. Seven?
Nasir gripped his sword as footfalls sounded ahead of them, where the winds still stirred sand. Zafira tensed, but she could barely summon the will to grab her bow. How many more lives would she end before this was over? She had come here fearing for her life. This was infinitely worse.
The two remaining safin sped toward them, and it was the first time Zafira noticed how agile they were—far faster than she had ever seen humans move.
Altair drew his scimitars from the twin scabbards at his back, but both safin froze mere paces before him, panic widening their eyes.
With twin croaks, they crumpled to the sand, like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Foam trickled from their open mouths.
Death stole their last breaths.
Tendrils of blue glittered in their wake. What sorcery—
Two figures emerged from the dust. The Pelusian from before, her gold-tipped spear gripped at her side. The other was weaponless, elegance marking his steps, a broad grin on his face.
“Well, here I am. What were your other two wishes?”
CHAPTER 40
Night feathered the horizon, painting the skies a blend of charcoal and winterberries, while a smattering of stars winked and danced in shy greeting. It was an odd sky—light enough to discern color, dark enough to host stars. A desert sky.
Amid the tense silence, Zafira was struck with how little control she had. In the face of spears, swords, double scimitars, and … sorcery, she was nothing. She was a blade of grass to be trampled.
Or, worse, cut down.
Where were these people coming from? First a warrior from Pelusia, and now a man dressed in finery that looked awkward among Sharr’s ruination.
Before Zafira could move, Nasir clamped down on her arm and pulled her deeper into the shadows of the ruins. She pulled free with a hiss. “What are you doing?”
“Getting away,” he said simply.
“From what? What about your friend?”
“Friend?” he asked, appearing perplexed at the idea of having such a thing.
She gestured wildly to Altair, who was grinning madly at the newcomer. Nasir stilled, giving her the sense that he was unaware of this acquaintance.
Altair clasped the newcomer on the shoulder. His tone was endearing. “Any longer and you would have found my corpse.”
“A thousand and one apologies. Old age, as you know,” the newcomer replied, though he looked no older than Altair. His voice was lilting and smooth, decadent like that chocolate drink she, Yasmine, Deen, and Lana had drunk on one of Demenhur’s warmer nights beneath endless skies.
“Who is he?” Zafira whispered.
Nasir looked at her. “If I knew, did you think I would tell you?”
So he didn’t know. “Altair knows him. I imagined you would, too. You’re the prince.”
Something in his eyes caught in the moonlight. “I’m afraid that’s all I am.” Then he tightened his mouth, angry at himself for saying as much. “We need to go.”
The shadows behind them stirred. “And where exactly are you planning to go now that we’ve saved your sorry lives?”
The Pelusian. She spoke so quickly it was a marvel she found time to breathe. Nasir extended his gauntlet blade, but the woman merely stared at Zafira, unfazed. Not a woman—a girl. Likely a year or so older than she was.
“Why did you save me? You don’t know who I am,” the Pelusian asked, her shorn head aglow. A length of gold cuffed her upper arm.
There were three sectors in Pelusia: the farmers, the erudites who consisted of inventors and scholars, and the warriors. The crossed-spears emblem on her cuff marked her as a warrior of the calipha’s Nine Elite. Yet one of her arms—from shoulder to fingertip—was inked in the old tongue, the mark of an erudite, for only they valued the knowledge of the ancients enough to stain their bodies with it. Had she switched when her calling did?
“Are you my enemy?” Zafira asked, and Nasir released an exasperated growl.
A smirk played on the Pelusian’s full lips. “I never did like the idea of the Demenhune Hunter, and I could spear you to the ground before our prince even moved his arm, so if those are what it means to be your enemy, then I suppose I am.”
Zafira struggled to uphold her composure.
“Well? Why did you do it?”
Zafira opened her mouth, but only a whisper of a sound escaped. She shook her head, feeling Nasir’s gaze heavy on her. “Because it was the right thing to do.”
Something flickered across the Pelusian’s face. “Honor is dead, girl.”
“Is gratitude dead, too, where you’re from?” Zafira snapped.
For a moment, she thought the Pelusian might shove that spear through her foot, but she only barked a laugh and clasped that feral rod with both hands before lowering her head. “Kifah Darwish, sworn of Nine to the great Calipha Ghada bint Jund of Pelusia, south of the realm.” She jerked her
head toward Altair and the newcomer several paces away, and her amity vanished as quickly as it had come. “Now move.”
Nasir set his jaw and stalked forward without a sound. Zafira turned to ask Kifah where she had come from and how and why, but the girl was busy poking a threaded needle into the flesh of her bloodied arm without so much a flinch. Zafira’s eyes widened.
What have I gotten myself into?
“Ah, you’ve decided to join us,” the newcomer said to Nasir. He moved with the feline grace Zafira had only ever attributed to the people of Baba’s stories. His checkered keffiyah was held in place with an ornate circlet of black ore, face accented by a dark beard cut against his skin, much like Nasir’s but with far more sculpted styling. His golden skin shone in the moonlight, too fair to be Pelusian. A tattoo curved around his left eye, the ink a dull gold, nearly bronze.
“Who are you?” Zafira asked.
His kohled eyes fell on her, and he smiled, teeth gleaming.
It was a smile that made her feel safe. A smile that made her question everything.
“My name is Benyamin Haadi,” he said.
Then the man who had helped them kill the rogue safin lifted the ends of his keffiyah to wrap turban-like around his head, unveiling two gold rings glittering from the top of one ear.
An elongated ear. A safi.
CHAPTER 41
Benyamin Haadi was no wish-granting jinn. He was vain, immortal, and from Alderamin—a safi. He also happened to be Nasir’s cousin and son of the Alder calipha. Though Nasir knew of the sultana’s sister’s son, the double barrier of the Arz between Sultan’s Keep and Alderamin meant the two of them had never met.
As all haughty safin were, Benyamin was quicker, faster, and wiser than humans. If only more of that safin blood had carried on to Nasir.
We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya) Page 20