We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

“Twenty,” he spat, annoyed at himself for answering.

Altair laughed, deep and slow. And Nasir, failure that he was, remembered that he liked Altair’s laugh.

“Akhh, I knew it had those two numbers in there somewhere. Where is that lovely servant of yours, by the way?” Altair clasped his hands together as he peered around the empty room. “The one you stole from your mother?”

A tremor passed over Nasir’s fingers. He unclasped the outer layer of his robes, exposing his weapons to Altair’s watchful eye. Despite the general’s larger size, the two of them were roughly equal in skill, but Altair had his boundaries, and Nasir, hashashin that he was, had noticed them.

Altair repeatedly opened and closed the door of a lantern, filling the room with the exaggerated squeak of its hinges.

“In your own time,” Nasir deadpanned.

“Your manners astound, as always,” Altair proclaimed. “Where was I? Ah, your servant! I should like to witness her perfection, for she’s the reason you don’t ‘dabble in debauchery,’ isn’t she?” he drawled in a comical imitation of Nasir’s voice.

It wasn’t. Nasir hadn’t spoken to Kulsum in months. Every time she came near, he would retreat.

“Leave,” Nasir said after a long pause filled with the swooshing of steel as he removed his weapons.

“Pity. I thought you might want to know about the mysterious mission, journey, quest—thing—the sultan is so keen about.”

Nasir felt a vein feather in his jaw. Altair watched carefully, not bothering to even move toward the door as Nasir hung the rest of his weapons on the wall above his bedside table. The bastard always knew what to dangle in front of his face.

“What do you know about it?” he asked carefully, pouring himself a glass of water. Though he could have a throng of servants pouring him water, helping him change, setting his bath, he had ordered to have no one in his chambers. Monsters preferred solitude.

He sat on the edge of his bed.

Altair leaned down with a conspiratorial whisper. “More than you.”

“Start talking, then,” Nasir said when the water had laved his parched throat.

“Yes, my liege,” Altair said mockingly, a twinkle in his eyes.

Nasir bristled at his tone and nearly tossed the glass at the general’s head. “Do I need to pay you to speak? Because I’m afraid that won’t be happening.”

Altair scoffed. “I have an abundance of gold, shukrun. I find the best payments are always the most difficult to extract. So come with me to the Daama Faris, and we can talk over a drink.”

Nasir clenched his teeth as Altair lifted two fingers to his brow in a mock salute and strolled from the room. Weasel.

* * *

The traveling tavern slouched across the uneven sands not too far from the palace. How Altair had found this place was beyond Nasir, but that was how soldiers and their betters worked.

Stepping into the Daama Faris was like stepping into a different world, for no other place in the sultan’s city was this alive. Nasir’s ever-present irritation was placated by unfamiliar longing. His step faltered.

Such feelings weren’t to be encouraged.

Nasir let the tent flap fall behind him and followed a grinning Altair inside, sidestepping the men littering the worn, faded rugs. The messy sight and the blistering heat, combined with the rowdy crowd, made his head spin. Altair greeted a few of the men by name as they wended through, and Nasir expected the tent to fall silent, to see fear in the eyes of the people surrounding him.

But they only gave him a passing glance. They didn’t even recognize him.

Was this flood of freedom what it meant to go unnoticed?

Bodily odors and the stench of drink made him grit his teeth. He would leave the place with a layer of grime on his clothes. The thought of inhaling it nearly made him empty his insides, but that would only add to Altair’s endless list of taunts, so he swallowed his revulsion.

The two of them shoved their way to a low table too close to the center of the place. Nasir swept his gaze across the tent, noting the most sober, counting the entrances, and pausing at the tables swathed in shadows. There were at least four men in the silver cloaks of the Sultan’s Guard, another handful in the black of Sarasin uniform, and a few darker-skinned men near them who could only be Pelusian, talking heatedly with their Zaramese counterparts. Sultan’s Keep had its fair share of Demenhune, too, but the fools probably only drank melted snow wherever possible.

“I’ll protect you, my dear assassin. Now stop looking like the world might swallow you whole, hmm?” Altair whispered in his ear.

Nasir closed his eyes, hearing Altair’s smirk. He might as well have vomited.