We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

Yasmine sputtered a laugh and rushed forward, throwing her arms around her. Zafira wasn’t certain which of them trembled more. Yasmine pulled away and pressed her forehead against hers, and Zafira inhaled the scent of orange blossom and spice one last time.

“Come back, Zafira. No matter what. Victorious or not, come back.”

The cool water had numbed Zafira’s skin, but her blood was ablaze as she ruminated her next words, because she was never good at saying goodbye. “I don’t plan on dying. I plan on finding that daama Jawarat and coming back.”

It was only after she had said the words that she believed them.

Zafira left her room with a sense of finality, Yasmine trailing in silence. But the strength of her words faltered when she glimpsed into Umm’s room, Umm’s sleeping form denying them a goodbye. Zafira hadn’t thought she would miss her mother, but their conversation the day before had left her bereft.

Lana’s small shadow crept to her. She was bulked by her coat, dress hem trailing. She gripped her green shawl with fidgeting fingers, knuckles whiter than the cold allowed.

Zafira swung her satchel over her shoulder. “Ready to live somewhere else?” She still wasn’t sure how she would put the question to the caliph when she met him. Skies, the caliph.

“While you’re off dying somewhere?” Lana shrugged and bit her lip.

“There you go! The right questions are finally being asked,” Yasmine cheered.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” Lana asked.

“I’m the only chance we have,” Zafira said, trailing her knuckles over Baba’s blue coat. The only vengeance Baba will receive.

“By dying in some cursed place? They’ll hail you as a martyr and celebrate you. Talk about you. That’s what happens in the books. But you’ll be dead and I’ll be … Okht, I’ll be alone,” Lana whispered.

Zafira’s eyes burned. “It’s what Baba would have wanted.”

“Don’t go in there on Baba’s name,” Lana pleaded, an edge to her voice. “He’s dead.”

“She’s right,” Yasmine said, voice soft. “If you’re going to risk your life, it has to be on your will. The living can’t survive with promises to the dead.”

It wasn’t just because of Baba. Why didn’t they understand? It was magic. It was their survival.

“Don’t you want magic?” Zafira asked, fervent. She looked at Lana. “Think of Baba’s stories—we can experience them, feel them. Live them. We’ll finally know what we were born with.”

“A life without magic isn’t so bad.”

“A life without magic is what stole the desert from us. And Baba. And Umm. Your parents, too, Yasmine. It’s what’s causing the Arz to grow.”

“Baba is gone, Okht. And Yasmine’s parents are dead. The Arz can grow. We can move elsewhere.” Lana’s eyes glistened with tears. She didn’t understand that they couldn’t go anywhere the Arz wouldn’t follow; no one in Arawiya could. “A life with magic means nothing to me if you aren’t in it.”

Lana’s words carved a chasm in Zafira’s heart. She swept her sister’s hair from her forehead, tucking it behind the shell of one ear. She brushed her fingers along her freckled skin, still soft as a babe’s.

She didn’t say all would be right. She did not say she would return. Or that Lana would be safe. She would waste no breath with false promises.

“Let’s go meet the caliph.”

CHAPTER 15

“I’m sure we’re tired. Are you tired, Nasir?” Altair asked, breaking the silence of the howling wind.

Mildly, Nasir registered Altair calling him by his name, not his title. He lowered his sand-dusted keffiyah from his face.

The Arz was … gone.

In its place lay a stream of splotched black stones that stretched from east to west. But that wasn’t what drew Nasir’s gaze. Laa, the water did. A line of azure met the sky, crystalline beneath the beams of the sun. It was harsh, even at this early hour, and the farther Nasir looked, the more the world wavered. There wasn’t a man or house in sight to witness it, only endless sands of burnt umber.

The water lapping the stony shore was a foreign sound his mother had murmured stories about, before she was killed—died. Before she had died. Surprise was making him slip, making true memories creep past forged ones. Nasir clenched his jaw and tugged on the horse’s reins just so the creature would move.

The water’s apparent gentleness masked a stark savagery. After the Arz had appeared and the royal minarets went dark, the sea was said to have become a monster in its own right. Like you. Though, unlike Nasir, he did not know which master this monster answered to.