Deen grabbed her arm. “A mirage, Zafira.” He nodded to their right. “There’s an oasis this way.”
“How would you know?” Zafira had only heard of mirages in stories. They were always magical, miraculous. Now it seemed like a taunt. A way to draw the thirsty forward so the sands could devour them.
He pointed to the sky, where a trio of birds circled. Then below, where a date palm curved. “Life.”
Zafira was surprised by the greenery when they reached the small pool. Wild ferns and bright shrubs. The water was so clear, it reflected the clouds as pristinely as a mirror. But when Deen cupped his palms and bent down for a drink, Zafira glimpsed black stones glittering beneath the glowing waters, reminding her of the Silver Witch.
“Well, Huntress? What say you?” he teased, letting the water trickle through his fingers.
“I wouldn’t drink it,” she said, lips twisting back. She handed him the goatskin hanging by her side.
“You know this won’t last forever, yes?” he said, limiting himself to a sip.
“Until I’m dying of thirst and hunger, I’ll pretend it will,” she said, capping the skin.
He twirled his jambiya and looked ahead. “Let’s hope it never comes to that.”
If there was one thing Zafira didn’t do, it was hope. Hope was as much a disease as love was.
They trekked onward in silence, jointly attuned to the desert around them and the eyes that tracked them soundlessly. An ifrit? Worse?
“How does your compass rate our progress?” Zafira teased after a moment.
Deen slipped the disc back into his pocket, looking up at her with a rapid blink of his eyes. “My what? I’ve no idea what you’re blabbering about.”
She thwacked him on the side of the head, and he laughed, the sound filling her with remnants of home. She was glad he was here. Glad she wasn’t alone in this uncharted place.
Zafira kept her arrow nocked, tensed and ready, but after at least a league of walking in silence, with no way to tell where the sun now hovered, she let her shoulders relax. Perhaps she imagined the eyes following them, because one moment they bored into her from behind and the next they pierced her from the front.
Maybe the tales of Sharr were mere exaggeration. Maybe the extent of the danger was falling prey to a mirage or getting caught in a sandstorm.
Or so she made herself believe, until she heard the sound she had been waiting for. Far off, but near enough to make the hairs on the backs of her arms stand on end.
The sound of someone trying to stay silent.
CHAPTER 26
The two Demenhune drifted together like ghosts, with ethereal skin and aristocratic features, though much of the Hunter, Nasir noticed, was obscured beneath a heavy cloak and hood. No doubt the fool was suffocating in this heat.
If what Nasir had heard was true, however, the Hunter would sooner become a pool of perspiration than reveal his identity. He just hadn’t expected the Hunter to come accompanied—a slip easily remediable.
The Hunter drifted through the ruins soundlessly, and his companion prowled after him. Nasir unhooked his bow.
Altair followed his gaze. “Eyes on the prize?”
Rimaal, this man.
Altair nocked one of Nasir’s arrows. “You never know,” he explained with a forced grin. “I’ve heard the Hunter never misses, and I’d hate for my dearest prince to be impaled by one of his fine twigs.”
Altair seemed to have heard a lot of things, and since that night at the tavern, Nasir had begun to wonder about the general he had thought oblivious to everything but women and drink. Whom did Altair share his knowledge with—Ghameq? Unlikely.
Altair ducked beneath a weathered archway. Nasir moved aside a clutter of debris, readying an arrow of his own. He exhaled and aligned his aim to the second Demenhune, who stared after the Hunter with a look of … yearning in his eyes.
The intensity of it gave Nasir pause. This was his chance to stop. To shatter the hold of his father and retain the fragments of humanity he still clutched in some corner of his black heart.
But Nasir had one shot, one arrow before they lost the element of surprise. He breathed. Cleared his mind.