We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

“I hate it when you play safe, old woman. But,” Yasmine teased, “rumor has it the caliph is in the House of Selah. So close to us!”

“I don’t see how that’s exciting,” Zafira said. In fact, her blood started to boil when the murmur of the silver-cloaked woman’s voice echoed in her head again. Huntress. Along with the thought of the baker’s daughter. Had Ayman, the Caliph of Demenhur, heard of the Hunter? It wasn’t as though anything exciting ever happened in Demenhur that might overshadow her.

Yasmine pushed her shoulder. “Oi. What if he’s here for the wedding?”

Zafira laughed at that. “Yes, I’m sure the old man traveled all the way here to watch you get married.” She leaned into the fire, inhaling the warmth.

“And if he— Wait. What happened?” Yasmine fixed Zafira with her feline stare, laughter diminished.

Zafira sat back with a blink. “What do you mean?”

Yasmine leaned closer, burnished bronze hair shimmering in the firelight. “Your face is like Deen’s terrible meat wraps; you can never hide anything. What happened?”

Zafira licked her lips. The Ra’ad siblings knowing she was the Arz Hunter came with its own headaches, like the one forming right now.

“I caught a pretty large deer. Should feed more people tonight if we can get it cooking.” Zafira downed her shorba and slipped her tongue out to catch the last of the lentils. Yasmine shouldn’t have to worry on her wedding day. “Let me help Deen.”

She started to get up, but Yasmine pulled her back down with a sharp yank on her cloak, and Zafira sat with an exaggerated sigh.

“You never help Deen when you get home—he must be taking care of it right now,” Yasmine snapped. “Tell me what happened.”

“Let’s talk about something else. Like Misk,” Zafira suggested hopefully.

Yasmine snorted and pulled a cushion onto her lap. It was one of three, worn and holey. They once belonged to Yasmine and Deen’s parents, apothecaries who had died years ago when the Sarasin caliph launched an attack on Demenhur’s borders. He was always leaving behind leagues of dead, or ghostly homes, their inhabitants stolen as prisoners of war. Yasmine and Deen’s parents had been of the former group.

Deen had fallen in the depthless between. He was a ghost of the living, a prisoner who roamed free.

He had been a soldier then, but never since. Watching loved ones die would make even the worst of men desert an army destined for death. Not that he had deserted. Not that the rest of the army cared.

“Zafira, please,” Yasmine said, the ache in her voice pulling a cord in Zafira’s heart. Firelight cast shadows on her face. “You know we might not get a chance like this for some time. To sit here side by side. Alone.”

Zafira squeezed her eyes closed. Skies, she knew. Yasmine madly loved Misk, and he promised a life far better than this. Zafira didn’t envy their love; she had learned to accept it during the many moons Misk spent courting Yasmine. But a wedding was different. Final, somehow, and she just didn’t know how to continue without her friend being hers alone anymore.

She opened her eyes. Yasmine was staring, waiting.

“I know, Yasmine. I know.” Zafira bit her lip and picked a handful of words. Lying wasn’t her greatest asset, so the short truth would have to suffice. “I was ambushed by a couple of Sarasins on monstrous horses that made Sukkar look like a dog. So I … led them into the Arz and escaped. I don’t think they’re dead.” Yet.

Yasmine’s eyes glowed like Zaramese honey in a ray of light.

“You escaped and they didn’t? That’s it? Why were they even there? They could’ve been assassins, Zafira.”

She doubted that. “They seemed a little too big for hashashins.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert on hashashin sizing now? Sarasins know what they’re doing.”

“If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t have been trying to capture me for the sultan,” she said. “I’ve done nothing wrong to be persecuted.”

Yasmine’s eyebrows rose. “Kharra. Zafira, the sultan. Imagine if he had sent his son. You wouldn’t stand a chance against the Prince of Death.”

Zafira shivered. Whenever she wished the sultan would die, she was slapped with the reminder of his successor: the crown prince, whose death count was so high, he was said to have stopped washing the blood from his hands.

“Why?” Yasmine’s voice rose. “Why can’t you stop this foolishness? Stop pretending to be a man—stop hiding yourself. Meet with the caliph and his officials, show them who you are, and I’m certain they’ll send aid for the hunts. You’re helping your people. There’s no shame in that.”

“I never said there was,” Zafira lashed out. “But who’s a caliph to stop a sultan?”

Yasmine’s eyes flashed. “Who knows if the sultan actually sent the Sarasins? We don’t know what’s happening up north, now that the sultan has killed the Sarasin caliph. You don’t know what they truly wanted.”

Perhaps word was spreading of what she could do when so many could not. That a mysterious man was entering the absence of light and returning sane and in one piece. The fire hissed and shadows danced across the room.