We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t think he would, until some moments later, when he spoke.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly. “Most times.”

She couldn’t stop her smile.

His eyes dipped to her mouth, and the gray of his eyes turned liquid black. Like a fool, Zafira ran her tongue across her lips. Their gazes crashed, and she drew in a sharp breath, for there he was, a boy again, unmasked.

Still every bit a murderer as he always was. But. But what? Zafira didn’t know, except that a “but” had begun to slip into every thought related to the Prince of Death.

She couldn’t muster more than a whisper. “Who killed Deen?”

Nasir lifted his mask back into place. “A monster. For a monster will always be enslaved to a master.”

CHAPTER 61

Control was slipping between Nasir’s fingers like the sands of Sharr. He was aware he’d had very little control since arriving on Sharr, but it only worsened with each passing day.

He had come with a simple plan: kill the others, find the Hunter, retrieve the Jawarat, and return to Sultan’s Keep. Now everything was in shambles, including himself. When she met his eyes and flashed her smile and spoke in her lilting accent, he wasn’t heir of Arawiya, hashashin, and Prince of Death.

He was a boy.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” Benyamin said when they followed a trickle of a stream to a glade of dying palm trees. Here, the structure was still intact, the pointed archways like mouths waiting to devour them.

Altair frowned up at the starless sky. “Not that there’s a difference between night and day anymore.”

“Do you ever not provide your opinion?” Kifah asked, picking up a scorpion’s molt and studying it.

Altair bowed. “I like to think I’m lightening the mood, shifting focus away from our impending dooms. You’re welcome.”

“I never thanked you.”

“I know. I’m saving you the extra breath. You’re welcome for that, too.”

Dread had settled across Nasir’s shoulders. If his calculations were correct, it was their tenth night on Sharr.

Which meant his time was up.

Altair made a face when Kifah returned from the shadows with hares in hand. “Once I’m out of Sharr, I will never eat hare again.”

“Be thankful you’ve got hare to eat,” the Huntress said as Altair crouched to skin and clean the animals.

“I’ll catch you a fox next time. Just try chewing on that,” Kifah said. She marinated the hares with her blend of spices before setting the meat on a makeshift pit. The fire crackled and the aroma of sizzling meat filled the air, permeating Nasir’s senses. It smelled good, he supposed.

He didn’t miss Altair deliberately pressing his leg against Kifah’s when he stoked the fire, nor did he miss the surprised smile she sent his way, dark eyes soft. Well, then.

Beside them, the Huntress fashioned arrows from wood she had gathered, painstakingly stripping them down just so the shaft would gleam white.

“You really believe we’ll go home,” he heard Kifah say, ever optimistic.

“The first step to getting anywhere is believing you can,” Benyamin said darkly.

Kifah was silent as she turned over the roasting hare in the spit.

Nasir wasn’t so sure of that—he believed in very little, but he got around. Ignoring the way his mouth watered at the hare, he had begun sharpening his scimitar when a shadow fell over him. He raised an eyebrow at Altair.

“So. You and the Huntress?” asked Altair.

Nasir wanted to run him through with his blade. He growled, “What level of daft are you?”