We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

She fell silent when something moaned in the shadows. A gleam shone in Kifah’s eyes when she continued. “Together, we will raise dunes from the earth and rain death from the sky. Together, we are capable of anything.”

Zafira didn’t think it was the fire that warmed a crevice in her chest.

Kifah Darwish lifted her lips into a smile, and it felt like the beginning of something Zafira never hoped for.

“So would you like some?”

Zafira stared at Kifah’s outstretched hands and took the blue pouch.

Candy-coated almonds it was.

CHAPTER 53

Zafira remained alert long after Altair had drifted off to sleep. Benyamin had tucked himself so far into his book, she might as well have called him asleep, too. Kifah slept on her back, red sash beneath her head, spear across her body, a fierce maiden at rest.

In this moment, we are two souls, marooned.

That was life, wasn’t it? A collection of moments, a menagerie of people. Everyone stranded everywhere, always.

Zafira rose and swept her gaze over the ruins. She couldn’t see the prince, which was for the best.

She snatched a fresh tunic and dug out a bar of her favorite soap from her bag. She pulled her cloak over her shoulders, the weight familiar and foreign at once. Almost like a barrier, almost like a cherished blanket.

She jerked away from scuttling beetles and hoisted herself to the highest point of the ruins, holding her breath when rubble crunched beneath her feet, and looked out. A small fold of trees dotted the landscape not too far from where she stood. If there was a stream, she intended to use it.

The sands held their breath as she stole between the fallen stones and stepped upon the shifting ground. Marhaba, darkness, my daama friend.

Marhaba, Huntress, our old friend, the sands whispered as they danced from dune to dune. The gibbous moon cast them in a tint of blue and black, a haze of shadow dulling her shine, steepening her cold to draw a shiver from Zafira’s bones. Ripples appeared across the dunes, deepening shadows that slithered like snakes. The wind moaned, cried, begged to be free.

What are you?

To define is to limit.

Zafira released a slow exhale. First she thought the darkness was calling to her, and now the sands were speaking, too? She paused to look back: The fire was a glowing pinprick between the slabs of stone, but the stillness promised her presence wouldn’t be missed.

She quickened her steps until she passed one palm, two, and then entered a glade of several. She brushed aside brittle vines, gliding between meandering roots and rogue stone.

Tall grass settled to a shorter cover of plants. The stream was small, but it rushed from west to east, dusky blue beneath the still-heavy moon. Zafira grinned, never so happy to get clean.

Until she heard it.

Steel knifing the night. She breathed a string of curses and slipped back into the shadows.

There. The glint of a curved blade, a little ways to her left.

Against the moonlight, his profile gave him away: lithe and still. Uncovered, disheveled hair. Sharp nose. Barely part

ed lips. She imagined his bleak eyes churning a storm. He tipped his head up, and the length of his scar flashed.

Nasir. Something simmered in her stomach.

The prince lowered his head and leveled the scimitar ahead of him in slow movements. Zafira peered to her right but couldn’t see an opponent. He’s alone. She drew her eyebrows together as he shifted the scimitar ever so slowly, blade glinting in the moonlight, before it cut across the air in swooping crescents.

He paused with his scimitar extended, and she followed the glister of the blade to his arm as he drifted elegantly through the grass. She had heard of the hashashins and their training, but she had never guessed their drill could be anything less than violent brutality.

This wasn’t violent or brutal. This was a dance, graceful and lithe. A performance of finesse. He moved as if he were made of the water beside him, with a stillness in his shoulders and the length of his back. She could only imagine how much smoother his motions would be if he were gliding through sand, rather than the uneven grass of the oasis.

Lightning quick, he leaped, turning a full circle before slashing the scimitar down in a swooping arc. He finished with the flat of it against his other arm and exhaled.