Altair raised his eyebrows.
“If you’re done napping,” Nasir said, adjusting his gauntlet blades, “we need to reach higher ground and chart our course.”
“Yes,” she snapped, eyes flying open, twin scythes of blue fire.
He flinched; he was not proud of it.
Steel hissed as Altair drew his scimitars without a care for quiet. Both of his scimitars, Nasir noted in surprise. Healed so soon.
He led them, Altair on his heels, the girl trailing behind noisily, still addled by her exchange with Altair. Nasir gritted his teeth against the urge to snap at her to keep up, but she didn’t need a man to tell her what to do. That much he knew.
Almost in response to his thoughts, he heard her readying one of her white arrows, her footsteps lightening until he barely heard the whisper of her presence—in moments becoming the Hunter everyone in Arawiya knew of. The Huntress very few knew.
All Demenhune looked like ghosts, but the Huntress moved like one, too.
Nasir wondered what it was like to live without the endless and ever-shifting sands beneath one’s feet. Without the sun deepening one’s skin and rooting in one’s soul. Without the push and pull as the heat of the sun drenched and the cold of the moon caressed.
He glanced back to find her watching him, for once, unreadable. Her lips were pursed.
Why did the compass lead me to you? he wanted to ask.
He looked away first.
CHAPTER 35
Zafira would be an idiot if she wore her cloak and fainted again, so she tucked it away with great reluctance. She straightened the sleeves of her tunic and rewrapped her scarf before adjusting the folds of her sash. She felt bare. Light. Different.
But the world was changing, and she needed to adapt. It continued to change. Ever since Sharr had devoured Deen, the island had been darker, and the farther they ventured, the more it darkened still.
Today’s plan was to reach the small town Altair had spotted from the oasis, where they would survey the terrain from one of the minarets. Zafira studied the Sarasins as she trailed them, slipping between debris and gliding over rubble. The dark-haired one noted far too much—she caught him watching her several times, once to assess her clothes, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.
She didn’t think either of them realized how synchronized they were, or they wouldn’t bicker as much as they did. Or maybe Altair knew, and the other just had a blatant dislike for anything and everything but himself.
But his touch had been gentle last night, his words almost kind.
When the time came, she would need to avenge Deen’s death. She wasn’t sure which of them had killed him, but Deen couldn’t have been the target—he had jumped in front of the dark arrow whizzing for her heart. And now that the Sarasins had the chance to kill her, they weren’t taking it. They had even saved her yesterday.
The hashashin threw an arm across her stomach, sending a shock of heat through her before he pulled away with a sharp intake of air, as if he hadn’t realized what he had done until he’d done it. Once more, that oddly human sound gave her pause.
Before she realized why he had stopped her.
She gripped the wall nearest her and scrambled back, heart pounding. They had reached the town, it seemed. Climbed the minaret, too, while she was lost in thought.
She teetered at the edge of the tower where the ledge had crumbled, an entire portion chipped away by the wind. One more step and she would have plummeted to her death. Her heart had crammed into her throat, thrummed at her fingertips.
“First, I learn you’re a woman. Then you faint. Now you’re trying to pitch yourself off a tower,” Altair said with a laugh. “The fun never stops.”
Zafira saw red. It flared in her vision and flashed behind her eyelids. Murdering Deen wasn’t enough? Now he was laughing because she had nearly fallen to her death?
She nocked an arrow and turned to them, seething.
Dust swirled in the blue sky, playing to the whistle of the wind. Altair raised his hands with a smirk. The dark-haired hashashin merely lifted his eyebrows a fraction. The stone wall behind him stood intact, shading them from the sun.
“Tell me who you are,” she said to him, her voice surprisingly smooth, “or I will put an arrow through your throat.”
“I thought you knew,” he said, canting his head.
“Don’t think,” she snapped.
Something shattered in his unfeeling eyes before they slid to the arrow, then back to her.
“If I told you my name, would you bow?” His voice was soft. A melancholy caress. He lifted his chin when understanding dawned on her face. “Or would you flee?”
The arrow trembled in her grip.
Hashashin. The silver fletching. The authority in his voice. His name.
Crown Prince Nasir Ghameq. The Prince of Death. The end of his turban fluttered in the breeze.
Sweet snow below.
She loosed the arrow. It caught his turban, pinning him to the stone behind, giving her the moment she needed to dart past him to the stairwell. Each stone step jarred her teeth until she lost her footing and skidded down a trio before hoisting herself against the sandy railing, nearly invisible in the shadowed corridor. Breathe. She doubled over, sweat burning her skin. The shadows curled around her arms and she jerked away from them.
The daama crown prince. Half safin, half human. No wonder he ordered her about as he pleased.
It was said that he tallied his kills on his body, that he had begun with his arms but ran out of room far too soon, for he never left a job unfinished. His body was as black as his heart.
“Kharra, kharra, kharra,” she cursed, taking off again.
Rough hands grabbed her by her middle and pushed her against the stairwell wall.
Altair al-Badawi.
General al-Badawi: the son of none with no lineage to his name. He could very well be the commander of the army that had slain Yasmine and Deen’s parents.
Both of the men she’d been traveling with were cold-blooded murderers.
“Once you leave the stairwell, he will shoot you down,” Altair warned, releasing her.
“Will he? Or will you?” she seethed.
He stiffened. “I’m not so handy with a bow.”
“And now you’re concerned for my safety?”
“I’ve always been concerned for your safety,” he murmured, and looked up the stairs. “Hurry up, Sultani!”
Sultani. Zafira bit back a sob. Not only had the Silver Witch sent Sarasins here to Sharr, she had sent the two worst Sarasins in all of Arawiya. The sultan’s prized general. The sultan’s own daama son.
“The Silver Witch lied to me. She said she didn’t want the sultan to know,” she whispered.
“The silver woman cannot lie, Huntress. She would have worded that a little differently.”
“Why? Why did she send you?” She needed to make sense of what was happening.
“She didn’t.” Altair shrugged as the prince came into view. Skies. The prince. Prince Nasir Ghameq, whose name shared the same meaning as hers. Whose hands were stained red.
Whose touch on her forehead had been gentle.
He met her eyes with the ashes of his own. The end of his turban was torn, but she couldn’t summon satisfaction at the sight.
Altair nudged her forward, and she stomped down the steps again.
She would not bow. She wouldn’t treat them any differently than if they were her servants. She turned back to him. To the daama prince. “If the Silver Witch didn’t send you, who did?”
“The sultan,” he said matter-of-factly. “He learned of your quest, and because no one trusts witches, he sent me.”
Zafira had trusted the witch. Not entirely, but enough to board her daama ship. Before she could ask For what? Altair interrupted, “And me. So the next time you think of killing him, just know you’re supposed to get rid of the less important one first.”
“How did you cross the Arz?”
&n
bsp; The prince tipped his head. “Ghameq counted on her knowing. She helped us cross the Arz and gifted us with a ship, much like she did for you, I assume.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” she said. Why would the Silver Witch favor the crown prince if she wanted to keep the journey from the sultan? Zafira doubted quite a bit when it came to the Silver Witch, but there was no reason to stay clear of the sultan and then aid his son in the same breath.
No, whatever her reason, it had to do with the prince and Altair themselves.
“No one asked you to make sense of it,” he said in that same monotone, and Altair pushed her down the stairs again.
“Where are we going?”
“To the next oasis,” the prince said with a sardonic twist to his mouth.
“And then?” she asked.
“And then we’ll find the Jawarat.”
“And then?” Will you kill me?
Mirth touched his voice. “Fate only knows.”
“Are you always this insufferable?” she fumed, straightening her scarf.
“He’s twice as bad when hungry,” Altair offered.
Zafira bit back a snarl. They were both insufferable children. With death counts.
CHAPTER 36
Murder burned in the Huntress’s gaze, but she turned and continued with graceful prowess, allowing Nasir to breathe. It was proving difficult to think when she looked at him.
Laa, more of him decided to think.
She was right to be confused. The sultan had sent him and Altair because he didn’t trust the Silver Witch, but then the witch herself had turned and aided them. Not only with the Arz and the ship, but with the compass in his pocket. Those parting words.
He was missing something. Something important.
When they left the confines of the minaret, the Huntress rounded the tower and slipped past the ruined quarters surrounding it. Her movements were always precise, calculated without calculations. Her entire form knew where to move before she did, and she waded the sands as if she had lived her entire life within them.
“If you stare too hard, she might disappear,” Altair mock-whispered in his ear.
“If you talk too much, you might disappear, too,” Nasir retorted, pleased with how quickly he thought of that one, and he left Altair behind to catch up to her.
She pursed her lips when he neared, and he didn’t know why he opened his mouth.
“Being an eminent killer doesn’t make me the only one.”
“You’re the worst there is,” she said with a wheeze.
Nasir felt the sting of something he didn’t welcome.
“You killed Deen.”
He didn’t deny it. Intentions are akin to action.
“You led those Sarasins to their deaths,” he countered. Surprise widened her eyes. “Not even one week past.”
“That was an act of defense, not deliberation.” Ah, there it is. The fissure he expected, the break in her voice before she collected herself. “I don’t go murdering people on a whim.”
“Neither do I. Hashashins don’t uphold the brutality of murder. We are poets of the kill, working from the shadows. A mark rarely knows his fate until he falls.” There had once been respect in the hashashin’s creed. A level of esteem.
Unlike the Zaramese, who reveled in torture and torment. In their caliphate, they hosted tournaments where contestants were pitted in an arena, the crowds full of cheering people, even young children.
Still, he supposed he deserved the disgust she directed at him and the detest in her voice when she said, “No. Death is death, Sultani.”
Never had he loathed princedom more.
“Do you hear that?” Altair called before the wind rose to a sudden howl.
Sand whipped across Nasir’s vision, and he rewrapped his turban cowl-like around his neck and head. He would have thought it odd that a storm had appeared without warning, but this was Sharr. And then, through the rain of umber, he saw them.
Five silhouettes prowled with the calculation of men. Nasir squinted. No, worse than men—gold rings glinted from their elongated ears. Safin.
“What happened to their shirts?” the Huntress asked, shrinking back.
“They aren’t wearing any,” Altair explained candidly.
“I can see that,” she sputtered, and threw Nasir a sharp glance when he drew his sword. “What are you doing? They’re human.”
“Safin,” Nasir corrected with a cant of his head. “And I can assure you, they are not the friendly type.”
Altair flexed his arms. “Safin won’t live here willingly, and the only unwilling reason to be here is if they were locked in cells, which I would bet a pot of qahwa they were. So grab an arrow, Huntress.”
Only Altair valued bitter coffee so much.
“Safin,” she murmured with a touch of awe. “Maybe they just want to go free. We don’t have to kill them.”
Was she really so cloistered?
“Kill or be killed,” Nasir contended. “There are three of us and five of them. Whether you help or not, they will die. I’m merely giving you a choice of involvement, and no one would be surprised if you stepped aside.” He allowed himself a smirk when he added, “Safin can be very scary.”
She unleashed a string of curses, damning him to the Wastes.
The laugh that crept up his throat terrified him.
“I could have you killed for that,” he murmured.
She looked stricken for no more than a heartbeat. “I’ve defied the odds long enough to know I won’t die for blaspheming a prince.”
Then she nocked an arrow and breathed down its shaft, utterly uncaring. It almost made him smile.
The five safin stopped before them, scimitars studded with the copper of rust.
Altair spoke first, his voice cutting the tense air. “You don’t happen to know where the nearest inn is, do you?”
“And here I thought you had come to save us,” the one in the center said. Though he spoke with the signature mocking tone of his people, his words lacked Alderamin’s annoyingly slow lilt.
“You were imprisoned here for a reason,” Nasir said, though he didn’t know the reason itself.
The safi to his right laughed, dry and mad. “Must a sin cost an eternity? Is that justice?”
“We’re sorry,” the Huntress said.
Nasir lifted his eyebrows as she lowered her bow. He was not sorry.
“Come with us,” she continued, “and when we find what we seek, we will help you.”
Nasir and Altair stilled when the safi stepped closer to her. She stopped breathing altogether, struggling to avert her gaze from his shirtless state.
“We do not take aid from mortals,” he rasped.
Then he lunged.
The Huntress was faster. She ducked beneath his grasp and darted out of reach, elevating her bow as the other four spurred into action. Nasir hurled a knife at one of them, then gripped his scimitar with both hands and swung at another, sure that his blade would rend the rusted one in two.
It did not.
Steel clashed and the safi growled, less elegant than safin normally were. Nasir leaped back, using the flat of his blade to parry the safi’s quick blows. The breeze picked up, tossing sand across his vision, and he ducked his mouth beneath the folds of his turban. The signature swoops and clangs of Altair’s twin swords echoed in the ruins.
The safin were weathered and hardy. Worthy foe, had they been equally matched.
As if in answer to Nasir’s thoughts, another figure leaped into the fray, a red sash at her hip. She twirled a spear in her hands, the gold tip gleaming in the fractured sunlight.
Human. Judging by her dark skin, red attire, and shorn head: Pelusian.
“Sultan’s teeth. One of the Nine Elite,” Altair shouted, his voice muffled by the wind. “You’re a long way from home, lady.”
“Aren’t we all?” she shouted back.
Nasir caught Altair grinning at her quick tongue.
“So lonely, too,�
�� the general said.
She snapped her spear to her side, chin low as she sized up her opponent. “I like to travel light.”
Metal swung for Nasir’s head, and he focused on his attacker again, his reciprocating strike barely scuffing the safi’s bare arm. However one of the Pelusian calipha’s own elite warriors had gotten here, it seemed she would be an ally in this battle. To his right, the Huntress pulled back her bowstring, breathing down the shaft of a white-tipped arrow, the bottom half of her face tucked beneath her scarf.
Her aim was low, unfatal. Rimaal, this girl.
“Ogle later, princeling,” Altair shouted in his ear.
Nasir hurled another blade and then caught sight of the Huntress, who was—
Running?
Nasir swerved from the safi’s blade. She is going to get herself killed. He gritted his teeth and lunged. Swift, precise. He plunged his scimitar through the safi’s chest with a sickening crunch of bone and shoved him to the ground. The immortal choked, sputtered, and then breathed no more.
One down.
Nasir darted past the twin hisses of Altair’s scimitars and found the Pelusian locked in a losing battle.
“You should have stuck to your books, human,” the safi snarled at her.
The spear in her grip faltered, the safi’s scimitar bearing down on her as she gritted her teeth and pushed back. An angry gash on her left arm dripped blood. She was lithe, but the safi was brawny.
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.
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