We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

Zafira looked up at the sky, down at the ship, and then straight at him. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You cannot lose what’s already lost.” Deen shook his head slowly.

Zafira jerked back. “What does that mean?” she asked. Then she thought of his dream and said, “No, no, it’s fine. I don’t want to know.”

She crossed her arms over her chest as if her world hadn’t skidded to a halt and begun anew. The tales of Sharr were terrifying, but those of the Baransea were equally so. They told of creatures large enough to swallow ships and the sea itself. Of smaller ones great enough in number to eat away a vessel while its occupants idled unaware. The waters lapped lazily against the ship in false innocence.

“They’ll tell stories about us,” he coaxed.

She considered ignoring him, but they were in this together now. She begrudgingly cast him a look, pretending something didn’t lighten in her chest when relief flickered in his eyes.

“I never thought you vain,” Zafira said, raising an eyebrow.

He laughed. “That’s how men are.”

She smiled. “I see you’ve been reacquainted with your tabar.”

Something flashed across his features before he grinned, and Zafira knew this was the moment in which they forgave each other.

“Indeed. I see you’ve brought only, what, fifteen arrows?” He punched her lightly on the shoulder, and her heart warmed. “What if you miss, Hunter?”

“You know me, Ra’ad. I never miss.”

CHAPTER 18

The compass in Nasir’s pocket was his only proof that he hadn’t imagined the Silver Witch. He tucked his keffiyah into his bag and whispered in the gray stallion’s ear to find his way home.

Had the Demenhune Hunter already boarded a ship in his caliphate? Had Haytham led his caliph to the Arz, where Ghameq’s stolen Sarasin forces would murder everyone in proximity of the western villages?

Children, elderly, innocents. There was no end to death.

Nasir set his jaw. “We need to get moving. The ship isn’t going to sail itself.”

“Don’t tell me you can sail a ship, princeling,” Altair said.

Nasir bristled at the name the Silver Witch had used. “I didn’t—”

“Ah, you won’t have to do a thing. Look! Men to do your bidding.”

The sea breeze tousled Nasir’s hair. There were men on board, but something about them gave him pause as he boarded the ship.

“These aren’t men.” He crossed the deck to where a figure stood at the helm. “They cast no shadows.”

“Akhh, I feel safer now, knowing we’ll be on a ship full of phantoms,” Altair said with an exaggerated smile. He walked up to one of the men and shoved his hand through him, grasping at air. “I can even wring his neck and he wouldn’t feel a thing … Neither would I, for that matter.”

Nasir sighed. The phantom men soundlessly removed the plank and released the moorings. The longer he watched them move about in perfect synchrony, without a gesture or sound of communication, the more it unnerved him.

He looked away. “Stay alert, will you.”

For if the Arz was a taste of dark magic and Sharr was evil incarnate, the sea between them would be just as nefarious. He grabbed his bow, but his eyebrows fell when he looked to Altair. “You brought a bow … without arrows.”

Altair cocked a grin, something calculating in his gaze. “You’ve got plenty to spare, haven’t you?”

Nasir inhaled through his nose, and handed Altair five black-and-silver arrows, indicating how long he expected Altair to last.

He met Nasir’s gaze with a startlingly genuine one as he nocked an arrow. “Alert I will be, Sultani.”

Ruler and subject once more. He had a feeling Altair knew of Nasir’s orders to kill him. Altair clearly knew more than that, judging by the fear on his face that night at the Daama Faris. Why come along if he knew of his impending doom?