We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

So he didn’t know. “Altair knows him. I imagined you would, too. You’re the prince.”

Something in his eyes caught in the moonlight. “I’m afraid that’s all I am.” Then he tightened his mouth, angry at himself for saying as much. “We need to go.”

The shadows behind them stirred. “And where exactly are you planning to go now that we’ve saved your sorry lives?”

The Pelusian. She spoke so quickly it was a marvel she found time to breathe. Nasir extended his gauntlet blade, but the woman merely stared at Zafira, unfazed. Not a woman—a girl. Likely a year or so older than she was.

“Why did you save me? You don’t know who I am,” the Pelusian asked, her shorn head aglow. A length of gold cuffed her upper arm.

There were three sectors in Pelusia: the farmers, the erudites who consisted of inventors and scholars, and the warriors. The crossed-spears emblem on her cuff marked her as a warrior of the calipha’s Nine Elite. Yet one of her arms—from shoulder to fingertip—was inked in the old tongue, the mark of an erudite, for only they valued the knowledge of the ancients enough to stain their bodies with it. Had she switched when her calling did?

“Are you my enemy?” Zafira asked, and Nasir released an exasperated growl.

A smirk played on the Pelusian’s full lips. “I never did like the idea of the Demenhune Hunter, and I could spear you to the ground before our prince even moved his arm, so if those are what it means to be your enemy, then I suppose I am.”

Zafira struggled to uphold her composure.

“Well? Why did you do it?”

Zafira opened her mouth, but only a whisper of a sound escaped. She shook her head, feeling Nasir’s gaze heavy on her. “Because it was the right thing to do.”

Something flickered across the Pelusian’s face. “Honor is dead, girl.”

“Is gratitude dead, too, where you’re from?” Zafira snapped.

For a moment, she thought the Pelusian might shove that spear through her foot, but she only barked a laugh and clasped that feral rod with both hands before lowering her head. “Kifah Darwish, sworn of Nine to the great Calipha Ghada bint Jund of Pelusia, south of the realm.” She jerked her

head toward Altair and the newcomer several paces away, and her amity vanished as quickly as it had come. “Now move.”

Nasir set his jaw and stalked forward without a sound. Zafira turned to ask Kifah where she had come from and how and why, but the girl was busy poking a threaded needle into the flesh of her bloodied arm without so much a flinch. Zafira’s eyes widened.

What have I gotten myself into?

“Ah, you’ve decided to join us,” the newcomer said to Nasir. He moved with the feline grace Zafira had only ever attributed to the people of Baba’s stories. His checkered keffiyah was held in place with an ornate circlet of black ore, face accented by a dark beard cut against his skin, much like Nasir’s but with far more sculpted styling. His golden skin shone in the moonlight, too fair to be Pelusian. A tattoo curved around his left eye, the ink a dull gold, nearly bronze.

“Who are you?” Zafira asked.

His kohled eyes fell on her, and he smiled, teeth gleaming.

It was a smile that made her feel safe. A smile that made her question everything.

“My name is Benyamin Haadi,” he said.

Then the man who had helped them kill the rogue safin lifted the ends of his keffiyah to wrap turban-like around his head, unveiling two gold rings glittering from the top of one ear.

An elongated ear. A safi.

CHAPTER 41

Benyamin Haadi was no wish-granting jinn. He was vain, immortal, and from Alderamin—a safi. He also happened to be Nasir’s cousin and son of the Alder calipha. Though Nasir knew of the sultana’s sister’s son, the double barrier of the Arz between Sultan’s Keep and Alderamin meant the two of them had never met.

As all haughty safin were, Benyamin was quicker, faster, and wiser than humans. If only more of that safin blood had carried on to Nasir.

What was his connection to Altair? Moreover, how had he gotten here? The Silver Witch wouldn’t convene with safin any more than safin would lower themselves to convene with the sultan.

“And so, here we are, in an oasis of shadows, readying to maul one another as if we were but animals in a pit.”

“I thought your overuse of words was a side effect of seasickness. If I had known you’d talk so much, I wouldn’t have come along,” Kifah groaned.