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He felt he had reached some sort of … understanding with her. A bond, fragile and bleak. Perhaps it was pity, for what she had seen the night before. A protest stirred in his chest, begging him to shatter, shatter, shatter.
Bonds held no place in his life.
He hesitated for a beat of his heart before unstrapping his gauntlet and lifting his sleeve. He averted his eyes from the twisted calligraphy as she drew close a little too quickly. It was one thing to know what had been written on his arm; it was another to see it, to be reminded of the day he had it pierced into his skin. To be reminded of his mother.
The Huntress’s breath caressed his arm as she leaned in, warm despite her iciness. Her shoulder brushed his. Her ring tapped his elbow in a steadily falling beat. Sensations clashed and he wanted—no. She reached out, and he saw the path her fingers were about to take, the words she wanted to trace.
“What happened to no touching?” he asked.
She pulled away with a sharp inhale.
He tugged his sleeve down and strapped the leather back in place. He cursed the rasp in his voice, the falter. She had seen enough. She had seen too much.
* * *
Zafira watched him leave, his shoulders stiff, the sun casting his dark hair in a gleam of light.
He couldn’t have known that she knew Safaitic. Baba had tried to teach her, and it was rusty at best, but she was able to read the words on his arm. The swirling black, shaped like a teardrop on his golden skin.
I once loved.
She had heard those words elsewhere, but they seemed forever ago now. He was a mess of scars like the sky was a mess of stars. From the one stretched down his face, to the craters on his back, to the ink on his arm. For that was what scars were, weren’t they? A remembrance of moments dark.
There was more to the prince than she’d first thought.
“Bonding moment khalas?” someone asked.
Altair. Yes, their bonding moment certainly was over. There was a weight in the general’s eyes now, likely a product of learning that the Silver Witch was one of the daama Sisters.
She took the replenished goatskin from his hands, wiping the stray droplets with the edge of her tunic. Altair and Nasir were so different, it was a marvel they hailed from the same caliphate. Nasir was the dark to Altair’s light. The night to his day.
“We were just getting to the good stuff,” she said dryly.
Altair laughed. “Sounds like Nasir. Trust him to leave when things are getting good.”
“You say it fondly.”
He made a choking sound, and a laugh bubbled to her lips. She still puzzled over their relationship. They were well acquainted, that was certain, but how Altair could be a ruthless general was beyond her.
Her smile slipped and her thoughts stumbled to a halt. A ruthless general. A coldhearted murderer. How could she have forgotten?
Altair turned to her, blue eyes bright with whatever he wanted to say. They were the same hue as the stream, a thought she stabbed quiet. But he took in her expression, the stiff set of her shoulders. The distrust she should never have neglected.
He looked away without a word, and the curve of his shoulders collapsed.
When they reached the others, Benyamin smiled, but whatever peace she had felt before had disappeared, and all she could do was stare back.
Kifah pursed her lips before deciding against whatever she was about to say. “We should head up the stream. Avoid the sun,” she r
emarked instead.
“The sun has been a coward ever since the ifrit attack,” Nasir said, glancing to the dull skies.
Altair was still quiet, and the conversation felt forlorn without his commentary.
“There’s no point following a trail that won’t lead us where we need to go,” Zafira said, and Benyamin hmmed in agreement. “We’re supposed to head that way.”
They followed her outstretched hand to a point in the horizon where the skies deepened to angry black and the sands swelled in waves of copper.
