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Nasir caught Altair grinning at her quick tongue.
“So lonely, too,” the general said.
She snapped her spear to her side, chin low as she sized up her opponent. “I like to travel light.”
Metal swung for Nasir’s head, and he focused on his attacker again, his reciprocating strike barely scuffing the safi’s bare arm. However one of the Pelusian calipha’s own elite warriors had gotten here, it seemed she would be an ally in this battle. To his right, the Huntress pulled back her bowstring, breathing down the shaft of a white-tipped arrow, the bottom half of her face tucked beneath her scarf.
Her aim was low, unfatal. Rimaal, this girl.
“Ogle later, princeling,” Altair shouted in his ear.
Nasir hurled another blade and then caught sight of the Huntress, who was—
Running?
Nasir swerved from the safi’s blade. She is going to get herself killed. He gritted his teeth and lunged. Swift, precise. He plunged his scimitar through the safi’s chest with a sickening crunch of bone and shoved him to the ground. The immortal choked, sputtered, and then breathed no more.
One down.
Nasir darted past the twin hisses of Altair’s scimitars and found the Pelusian locked in a losing battle.
“You should have stuck to your books, human,” the safi snarled at her.
The spear in her grip faltered, the safi’s scimitar bearing down on her as she gritted her teeth and pushed back. An angry gash on her left arm dripped blood. She was lithe, but the safi was brawny.
And the Huntress was going to save her. She raised her nocked arrow, aiming for the safi’s back.
She fired.
The arrow struck his shoulder, buying enough time for the Pelusian to break free. As the safi cursed in the ancient tongue, the Pelusian paused to give the Huntress a small nod of thanks, barely concealing her surprise.
These people were Nasir’s enemy. He had come here to slay them.
Air compressed behind him and he whirled, clashing steel with another safi. Why won’t they die? He clenched his jaw and twisted his blade free, and when he dared to look away, he saw the Huntress.
On the sand, her long body pinned beneath the safi who had first spoken, his rusted scimitar raised to strike.
CHAPTER 37
Zafira could barely breathe. The prince had spoken of death as if he were weighing the sweetness of dates. And now she was being squashed like one.
This was not how she had hoped to meet an Alder safi for the first time. She had never expected to meet one so bare, either. His torso, copper from the sun, glistened with sweat. Her face burned, and she wondered if this was the pathetic moment when she would finally blush, as Yasmine had proclaimed she would at a time that felt like eons ago.
He struggled to hold her down, but she refused to die in such an ungraceful way. Death by suffocation. Because a half-naked safi sat on me. She shoved, managing to break his hold on his scimitar. It sliced through the sands by her head.
He snarled and weighed her down as she jabbed her knees against his stone-hard body. His eyes narrowed between the folds of his filthy turban. Funny how his face was obscured when the rest of him wasn’t.
Sweet snow, she was hot. She craned her head to the hands around her neck and lashed out with her teeth, connecting with weathered skin.
The safi pulled away with an ugly snarl. “I will gut you and feast upon your flesh.”
Her eyes widened at the words. Safin weren’t supposed to be vicious. They were collected, smart, vain, and elegant. These safin were monstrous. She jabbed her knees up again, this time connecting with his unsuspecting limbs. He howled and rolled to the sands.
This time, she pinned him down. He would send her flying the moment he recovered, but she would have her moment. No one, safin or otherwise, would feast on her tonight.
He swiped with his nails. She was more disgusted than afraid now. She threw a fist at him, wondering where she ever learned to inflict pain. She was the Hunter. She killed rabbits and deer with the least amount of agony possible.
Shouts and curses rang out in the distance, and she blearily registered Altair’s voice. The Pelusian woman who had appeared out of thin air was fighting, too. Blood roared in Zafira’s ears. The prince was likely leaning against a broken column, waiting for everything to sort itself out.
