We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

She was going to bring her father justice, kings and witches be damned.

And when she returned, magic in her grasp, she would give a calipha her throne. She would give Arawiya magic and make the sultan himself bow before her.

Zafira lifted her chin and met the caliph’s gaze in a farewell of defiance, and the Arz sprang back to life.

CHAPTER 20

Nasir was seventeen when he had learned the sultan’s ways and the sultan had learned his. When Ghameq realized pain no longer worked, not when inflicted upon Nasir’s body.

For the sultana had ensured that her son’s body was strong, unbeatable, withstanding.

It was then that the sultan learned of the compassion Nasir could never shake, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how many times he murmured it, telling himself to believe it, waking up drenched in sweat, adrenaline pumping through him until he made sense of what he woke up repeating.

Compassion kills.

But nothing in Sultan’s Keep was easy, least of all death.

The first night after his mother’s burial, Nasir had suffered alone, telling himself that this internal, unseeable pain wasn’t endless.

The second night, he had sensed someone in the shadows, cursing himself for the hashashin training that made him so aware.

The third night, she had drawn near, the shadows one with her skin, her eyes aglow beneath a dim moon.

The fourth night, she had gathered her beaded skirts and settled beside him on the wall overlooking the desert dunes behind the palace. She, his servant, sitting beside him as an equal. He had been too shocked to say a word, or he would have said something he would still regret.

The fifth night, his lips formed her name. Kulsum. And that was when she parted her mouth and gifted him a sound so beautiful, a blackened heart such as his should not have been allowed to hear it. Soon, her lips parted for more than singing.

It continued until his father found them with her fingers in his hair, their lips breaths apart, her voice raw from the eerie tune she had learned from her own mother.

Everything after that, Nasir remembered only in flashes.

The two of them, stumbling down the wall. The two of them, first standing side by side, then one behind the other, master and servant. Dim torches, because his father loathed light. A blade, gold in the fire, poised to strike.

Her mouth parted. Eyes terrified. Body slack. Tears streaming.

Her tongue, in a silver box, gifted to him in the end.

* * *

The ship swayed as he made his way up the wooden steps. He had barely slept the night, lurching with the sea, tossing and turning, that ornate silver box burning behind his eyelids.

Love was for the weak, compassion for the burdened. If only he could rid himself of his heart and lose this infernal curse. It would make his father happy.

It could make his father love him.

He bent over at the rail, so engrossed by anger that his vision pulsed black. If his father wanted to starve Haytham’s son to death, so be it. If his father wanted Altair dead, Nasir himself would cut off his head. If his father wanted the Jawarat, he would find it soon enough, along with the Hunter’s corpse.

Nasir’s stomach churned with the sea, but he felt calmer. At ease.

The world darkened despite the early sun. The ship, the sea, the very air they breathed swirled with shadow. As Nasir tried to blink it away, the vessel lurched.

Altair shouted over the crash of the waves, and the world righted again, the shadows a figment of Nasir’s thoughts. It was rare for the general to rise before Nasir did.

“Oi! Nasir!” On the other side of the ship, Altair readied an arrow.

Nasir rounded the deck. The sea rippled in angry undulations, and his heart sped with a feeling he eagerly recognized: not belittling fear, but excitement.

Bloodlust.