We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

The trapdoor creaked open and Nasir turned as a boy with knobby elbows climbed onto the roof. A sand qit meowed and curled around the child’s dirty feet.

Nasir lifted an eyebrow. “You took your time.”

“I—I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away from Effendi Fawda.” The page boy’s brown skin was smeared with dirt. The owner of Dar al-Fawda was no respectable one, but if the boy wanted to respect him with the title of effendi, Nasir did not care.

“Everything is ready for you,” the boy said, as if he had been given a tremendous task other than telling Nasir where to find the man he sought. Nasir liked that the boy wasn’t afraid to speak to him. Afraid of him? Most likely. But not afraid to speak to him.

Nasir played along with a small nod. “You have my shukur.”

At his thanks, the boy looked as surprised as Nasir felt, and before his pride could stop him, Nasir held out the date cake. A gasp wheezed past the boy’s chapped lips and he reached with careful fingers, unfolding the wax sheet with awestruck features. He licked the sugar from his dirty fingers and Nasir’s stomach clenched.

All he ever saw were blood, tears, and darkness. The hope in the boy’s eyes, the dirt on his face, the jutting of his bones—

“Can you … bestow another favor?”

Nasir blinked at the boy’s poise. He and “favor” never sat in the same sentence.

“The children slaved to the races,” he ventured. “Can you free them?”

Nasir looked to the wadi, to the children. His voice was flat, uncaring. “If they don’t die in the races, they’re bound to die elsewhere.”

“You don’t mean that,” the boy said after a long pause, and Nasir was surprised to find anger aflame in his dark eyes. Let it burn, boy.

“Salvation is for foolish heroes who will never exist. Help yourself and leave the rest.”

It was advice Nasir should have followed years ago. He turned without another word and dropped from the rooftop, swiftly lowering himself to the ground.

Dar al-Fawda guards in sirwal and black turbans loitered nearby. The higher-ups wore plain, ankle-length thobes and sported thick mustaches as they shuffled past. Nasir could never understand the horrid fashion of a mustache without a beard, but these men believed the bigger the better.

He waited in the shadows of a date palm and, head low, slipped into a group of drunkards on their way to the race. They passed bookies on short stools and people cheering for their bets, damning their meager earnings for the thrill of a short-lived gamble.

More camels ambled into the wadi. Children, too, dressed in nothing but dusty sirwal. Nasir’s fingers twitched when a man used a whip on a boy whose cheeks streamed with tears as he rubbed an already reddening shoulder, eyes murderous.

Only in Sarasin could vengeance start so young.

Very few protested the use of children in the races, for the lighter the rider the faster the camel, and so the atrocity carried on. Nasir’s blood burned black, but he stilled his fingers.

Monsters bore no duty to the innocent.

When his drunk companions finally reached the throngs in the sidelines, Nasir slipped away, clenching his teeth against the stench. He pushed past cheering people and sidestepped sand qit and children searching for scraps.

He reached the tents.

The few he peered inside were empty. They held traditional majlis seating, with cushions spread out across the floor for private negotiations or more intimate happenings. The page boy’s marker, a red shawl pinned beneath a stone, lay at the seventh tent as promised.

Nasir dropped his hand to the scimitar at his side.

The mark could be young or near death. He could have children who would stare into his lifeless eyes and scream for a soul that would never return.

He’s a name. A scrap of papyrus, rolled and shoved into Nasir’s pocket.

He slipped inside. The beige walls of the tent dressed the place with forlorn, wan light that stole through tears in the fabric and illuminated swirls of dust. Scrolls and books were scattered across the carpet that covered the sand, and a gray-haired man was bent over them, scribing by lantern.

The shouts and cheers of the crowd grew louder as the races began, echoing with the grunts of camels and the cries of the children upon them. The man rubbed his beard, murmuring to himself.

Nasir used to wonder why he stopped feeling sorrow for the people he was sent to slay. At some point, his heart had ceased to register the monstrosity of his deeds, and it had nothing to do with the darkness tainting the lands. No, it was his own doing.

He was turning his heart black, no one else.