We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

“But she’s right, safi,” Kifah interrupted, oddly calm. “You had more than one opportunity to tell us. Why didn’t you?”

Altair grasped Zafira’s shoulders and pulled her back. “I’m sure he has a sound reason.”

“Just as you have a reason for hiding the fact that you’re safin?” Zafira snapped, rounding on him.

“What I am has no relevance to this quest.” There was an edge to Altair’s voice. Nasir watched him closely. “What I am has never had any relevance.”

Kifah steered them back to Benyamin. “Well?”

Altair angrily dabbed at his bleeding lip, strangely bitter.

Benyamin straightened his turban and released a shaky exhale. He clenched his jaw, and Zafira saw a waver in his pride before he collected himself. “It is not only my people’s cruelty that must be blamed for the Lion’s dark rise, but my own kindness, too. After he was shunned, ridiculed, and treated like filth, I brought him into my fold. I had sway. There were no caliphs and caliphas at the time, but my family’s eminence existed then, too. I gave the Lion a place in my circle of friends, taught him Safaitic, gave him access to texts few else had. Knowledge. There is nothing he loves more.

“My kindness arrived too late, for the damage was already done. Once he received what he required of me, he left, leaving two of my closest companions dead.”

Guilt swirled in his umber gaze. This was why Benyamin was here. He, too, wanted to rectify a wrong. But Zafira couldn’t bring herself to sympathize—even if she understood, now, why he had been unwilling to trust them. His reluctance was what had led them here, to this moment in time when everything seemed to be falling apart.

“Had you known your foe was the Lion of the Night, where would you have summoned the courage to go on?”

Kifah’s look of disgust mimicked how Zafira felt. She jabbed her spear into the sand. “Did you really have so little faith in us, Benyamin? You’re no better than he is.”

Benyamin looked away.

Altair drew his scimitars with a sigh. “There are better uses for our energy than fighting amongst ourselves. We need to rest and decide on our next course of action. We know the Lion won’t kill the Huntress, but he won’t be so discreet in his intent anymore.”

After Kifah murmured her agreement, Nasir led them to a gathering of trees farther ahead, where the stream continued. Altair brushed past him. Neither Sarasin acknowledged their newfound relationship. Zafira couldn’t blame them—she certainly didn’t want to acknowledge the way her blood raced beneath the prince’s touch. He’s a prince, she reminded herself. You’re nothing but a peasant with a bow.

The trees cast eerie shadows, and Zafira glimpsed amber eyes in every slant of the golden sunset. She still had no sense of direction, she realized. Her trip to the Lion’s lair had shaken her as much as Nasir’s lips at her collarbone, and the compass of her heart whizzed without end.

Benyamin was right. Her courage waned with the dim sunlight. If not even the Silver Witch could be free of the Lion, what chance did the zumra have in stopping him?

CHAPTER 76

Nasir was in no mood for resting, and it seemed no one else was, either. How could he, when he still felt the weight of her limbs and the buzz of her skin? The featherlight brush of her hair. It felt as though every emotion he had ever quelled over the years had decided now was the time to explode. Or implode.

First it was the black that bled from his fingers. Then the Lion of the Night. The poker. Altair.

And then it was her. That pale demon. His fair gazelle. His?

“You knew.”

The venom was so unlike Altair, Nasir looked at the general sharply.

“It was not my secret to tell,” Benyamin said carefully.

“Ah, yes,” Altair spat. “We certainly had a heart-to-heart before you arrived, safi.”

They stared at each other, Altair exhaling in angry huffs before he softened at the remorse on Benyamin’s face. Nasir did not understand a word they shared, but he was too tired to ask. He’d had enough revelations for one day—rimaal, enough for a lifetime.

When silence fell, he looked up again. Benyamin stared into the trees in contrition. Kifah massaged a balm onto her arm, foot tapping a beat against the stone. Zafira had folded into herself, knees to her chest, and all he could think of was her touch as she tended to his burn.

This was the zumra. The zumra he belonged to.

He was no longer here to kill the Huntress and take back that old tome. He was here to help her and the others. It was no longer about the book and magic—they needed to vanquish those amber eyes for good.

Free magic. Free Arawiya. Free his father.

A pained hiss broke him out of his thoughts. He turned to see Altair had rolled up the fabric of his pant leg, blood streaking his shin from a wound inflicted by the Lion’s ifrit. The general was struggling for his bag, opening his goatskin with bloody fingers.