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She opened her mouth to protest but remembered safin couldn’t lie. So she hooked her bow and relaxed her limbs, listing her head as she sifted past the chime of sand and the whisper of shadows.
There. A thread humming in her bloodstream, a murmur slithering through her veins. A frenzy drawing her forward. So many years of relishing that insisting hum in her bloodstream, and now she knew. This was magic.
She couldn’t summon excitement at the thought. Ever since welcoming the darkness during the attack, she had been feeling … a little less afraid but also a little less whole. As if the space she occupied was now shared with something else. Someone else. She exhaled and started toward the ruins fanning out to their right, and the others fell into step behind her.
“And now we’re off again, tagging along with the Demenhune Hunter and the Prince of Death,” Kifah said, giving the prince a long look. “A murderer.”
“I find ‘murderer’ to be a relative term. How many bugs have you killed with your feet?” Altair asked.
Kifah snorted, and Zafira heard the rhythmic thump of her spear against her leg. Nasir was silent. Zafira didn’t turn to see his face, but she wondered if it hurt, being called a murderer. It wasn’t as if it were a lie.
Her thoughts seized when something screeched in the shadows.
“I think I prefer a murderer on two legs than one I don’t know about,” Zafira said.
“At last, a voice of reason!” Benyamin exclaimed, ignoring a salacious comment Altair made about legs.
As they moved, the stillness of Sharr did feel like an accusation for killing so many of its own. She did not like to consider what would happen if they further wronged the umber sands and haunting ruins. She did not want to think of why the ifrit had ambushed them, either.
Yet … it hadn’t felt like an attack. It had been more of a test. One the darkness had watched from the confines of itself. One she had passed.
The shadows steepened when they reached the crumbling slabs of stone.
“We’re stopping here for the night,” Nasir said, and all sounds ceased. He didn’t implore, didn’t request, didn’t ask. His voice was an order, and no one questioned him as they began readying the camp.
* * *
They set up camp in the alcoves of the stone ruins beneath the moon, and Zafira wanted to climb to the highest point and curl beneath her glow. To make sense of the way the shadows called to her.
The others would likely follow her, worried their compass was going astray, so she settled before the fire with a sigh and rubbed her hands. The chill was nothing compared to Demenhur’s weather, but she found it odd how cold the relentless desert could become.
Weariness tugged on her bones, and she looked forward to resting—once she had her answers.
The others unfurled bedrolls around the fire. Kifah hunted down a trio of cape hares after eyeing Zafira, who didn’t make a move when Kifah asked who would hunt.
“I’m impressed, One of Nine,” Altair said, inspecting the hares. “Nothing can outrun these critters.”
“I’m not nothing, am I?” Kifah asked as she cleaned her spear. She barely looked out of breath for someone who had snared hares only a cheetah could outrun.
Altair skinned her catch, and Kifah roasted them to mouthwatering perfection. There was a certain thrum of excitement as Kifah cooked, and Zafira found it charming that the warrior whose restlessness was only thwarted in battle could be so happy while handling cuisine.
Kifah had even brought her own spices from Pelusia—a blend of cumin, sumac, cardamom, and other things Zafira couldn’t differentiate—which she rationed begrudgingly. The aroma carried Zafira away to Yasmine’s wedding, to Deen’s pinkie curling around hers.
It felt so far away now. A different life.
Altair had unraveled his turban and wrapped part of it around his neck against the chill. Oddly, Zafira had yet to see him without a turban at all, not even on that night when he had returned from the waters of the oasis without a shirt. He sat cross-legged beside her and gave his portion of hare a lick.
“I’m going to pretend this is a mighty leg of lamb, roasted with garlic and harissa,” he said wistfully as he tore the roasted skin with his teeth.
“What’s wrong with my spices?” Kifah asked with a scowl.
Altair looked like a startled deer. “They are most delectable. Slip of the tongue, not the fault of my brain.”
Kifah hmmed. “Which you seem to have misplaced.”
“Dearest Kifah Darwish, I find your many retorts endearing.”
Kifah appraised the general as if she were seeing him for the first time. “You remember my name.”
