Still, her breath caught when the tender sun glossed his hair, when he gripped the oar as a lost memory ticked the left of his mouth up, crinkling his skin like the wrapper of a sweet.
And then he was looking at her and she was looking away, a flash of silver drawing her eye from the deck of Jinan’s ship as the boat began its descent into the sea. This was where they would part ways with the Silver Witch, she realized.
Anadil inclined her head, and Zafira was surprised to find she would miss her. Only a little.
The Silver Witch met her son’s eyes in farewell and Nasir seized, his mouth hardening. He kept every emotion on a tight leash, hidden behind the ashes of his eyes.
The longboat touched the gentle sea in the shadow of the ship’s figurehead. It basked in the sun, the curved beak of a bird drenched in gold, feathered wings curling into flames. A phoenix. Above the sails flew a sea-green banner, marked with Zaram’s emblem of a golden ax and three drops of blood. The oars turned rhythmically in the azure waters, lulling them until Jinan started up a chatter, her crew as eager as she was to talk about everything and nothing at all.
“How can someone so small talk so much?” Kifah finally asked with almost-comical exhaustion.
Zafira didn’t hear Jinan’s answer. As they crept toward land, a finger trailed down her spine. There was a heaviness in the air, a warning, and a hunter—a huntress—always listened to the signs of the earth.
“Something’s not right,” she murmured.
Kifah drummed her spear against her thigh and shook her head. “What have we to fear? We are specters, righting wrongs. We’ll let nothing stand in our way.”
“Fancy words never kept anyone alive,” Jinan pointed out when the boat lodged into the sand at shore.
“It’s a shame you’ve never met Altair,” Kifah replied.
Zafira stepped out first, but her unease only worsened with a smattering of goose bumps down her arms. She tugged her foot out of the sand with a wet pop as the crew began rowing back to the ship, their farewells loud. Jinan, as oblivious as her sailors, stretched her legs.
“There’s nothing I love more than the sea beneath my legs, but I’d be lying if I said this isn’t nice.”
“Akhh, little firebird. You sound like an old man,” Kifah said. There was an eagerness to her voice now that she was free of the ship’s confines. “Oi, why aren’t you going back with the rest of them?”
“I’m afraid you’ll be seeing a great deal of my vertically challenged self until I collect my silver. In the meantime, my crew will take the witch to the Hessa Isles and circle back. Not sure if a witch’s coin can be trusted, but the offer was too good to pass up.”
“What do you plan to do with so much silver? Buy yourself a stool?”
“Quiet,” Nasir said, and Zafira drew her bow in an instant, the taut string familiar and welcome. Kifah pivoted her spear as Nasir precariously hefted the crate under one arm and drew his scimitar with the other.
Sunlight winked through the shifting sands and abandoned edifices. Zafira didn’t see the hooded figures until something stung her neck, and the world fell dark.
CHAPTER 5
The lull that followed the deafening grounding of the ship’s anchor was infinitely worse than any silence Altair had heard before. Worse than the quiet that followed the anointing of a fresh corpse. Worse than the silence after an offer was refused.
Or maybe that was worse. How would he know? No one ever refused someone like him.
He recognized Sarasin’s dark sands and murky skies instantly. Though brighter now and the sands less black, it was the perfect haven for ifritkind, and foreboding laced with the hunger in his stomach. How had his mother felt when she fled Sharr after the Sisters had fallen and the Lion had been trapped, a new burden swelling in her womb? How had it felt to assume a new identity, to tell her sons that they were of safin blood, a heritage leagues beneath that of the rare si’lah?
Altair knotted the thoughts and trunked them.
He followed the Lion down the plank, swinging his arms to and fro and rattling his chains loudly enough to wake the dead all the way down in Zaram. The picture of abandon even as he scoured the decrepit houses looming near the shore, searching for aid while isolation sank into his bones.
Nothing. No one. They hadn’t arrived yet, or they would be here. Wouldn’t they? He knew Nasir and the others were due for Sultan’s Keep, but still. If he had lost one of his own, he would detour the world over to find them.
“They are not here.”
Altair started at the Lion’s voice. A portion of pita rested in his proffered hand. The second half was in his other, saved for himself. Only Nasir halved his food with such perfect symmetry. “And yet your eyes continue to stray to the horizon for those who will never come.”
Hush, hush, went the water. It lapped at the sands, eager for secrets to carry to new shores.
“I’m a general,” Altair replied finally. He took the food with cautious hesitance, hunger dulling his pride. “Vigilance is habit.”
The Lion hummed. “We will find them, worry not. If they won’t come to you, we will go to them.”
“And how do you expect to do that?” Altair asked tiredly.
“With your blood and mine. Dum sihr. There is a spell that imitates the Huntress’s. I only need to find it.” The Lion frowned at his unintentional pun.
Altair stepped off the plank with relief. The desert was far from solid ground, but it did not sway like the sea or lurch like the waves. It was as barren, however. Nothing spread for miles and miles. The emptiness bludgeoned his chest.
“Why?” the Lion asked him suddenly, curiosity canting his head. The sun stretched a ray, casting the bold lines of his tattoo in iridescence. “You have no name. No throne. Arawiya has given you nothing, and you have given her everything.”
To what end? was what he wanted to know.
Altair had known for quite some time that he would never be king. His mother had kept him in the shadows far too long. Not once did she call the little boy at her side her son. Not once did she share her meals with him, or hold his hand.
He was too painful to look at, too sinful.
Decades later, Ghameq was chosen as her successor, the first mortal with claim to the throne. But Altair’s fate was sealed long before that, when their heir was born: dark-haired and gray-eyed. A boy full of promise and purpose, until he was shaped into a blade.
Altair supposed he might have been jealous, had he been different and cared for the throne, had he not known that the gilded chair came with its own trials and tribulations.
But he was perceptive.
His mother would look to the shadows—not to see that he remained there, but to ensure he was safe. She allowed him the finest of rooms in the palace and the freedom of a prince. She assured his tutelage and training from the very best. They were scraps of love, but every morsel she fed him churned his own heart, taught him the value of the sentiment and its elusiveness.
He loved Arawiya, and because there was no one to love him, he loved himself. Enough that he dedicated his life to earning that love, to ensuring he wasn’t the scourge she saw him as.
“Do you think she meant to hide you from me?” the Lion asked, and the lack of scorn in his tone gave Altair pause.