We Hunt the Flame(11)
Zafira gathered the shards of her broken heart. She lifted her hood, and Umm and Baba faded away. Yasmine was wrong. Zafira would never make the mistake of falling in love.
There was no point to a feeling that fleeted. To a love she would be destined to lose.
CHAPTER 4
Nasir felt lighter, despite the new death on his growing list. He supposed he should feel guilt for killing a man whose only crime was curiosity. But he had killed for less.
Afya seemed subdued on the ride back, as if she knew what act he had committed. They passed buildings and houses in a blur of dark sand and then a single flag bearing the Sarasin emblem, an eclipsed sun with a sword through its center, before they crossed the border between Sarasin and Sultan’s Keep. The difference was stark—the skies brightened, the sun heavied. The sands churned flaxen.
The homes on the outskirts of Sultan’s Keep were cobbled together with tan stone and flat roofs, doors of dark wood with copper-accented arches desperately shrouding the truth of the slums. The inhabitants had flocked here to Arawiya’s grand capital for a better life close to the sultana, the immortal safi who had saved Arawiya from collapsing after the Sisters disappeared.
The sultana was dead now, and her husband—Nasir’s father—was a monster. He was now a monster.
Closer to the palace, the houses were fewer and larger, sprawling with their own minarets and pointed copper domes, latticed stone leading to immaculate courtyards. Nasir doubted the people who lived in them were any happier than those in the slums.
His route didn’t take him through the sooq. A mercy, for the last thing he needed was the streets to fall silent and the overzealous to drop to their knees. This route was quieter, though he passed several roaming merchants. One barreled a wagon full of Pelusia’s bright persimmons and dusky grapes, sacks of olives running low. Another pushed a smaller wagon with wares of silver, his path set on the richer end of the sultan’s city.
The familiar shadows of the Sultan’s Palace fell upon the road. Unlike the heart of the man sitting upon the throne, the palace was an object of beauty. It stretched in a mass of limestone and detailed carvings, trelliswork giving glimpses of the shadows within. The tan stone had been polished to a gleam, competing with the minarets rising to the skies. The golden domes were cut with rays of obsidian from the volcanic mountains of western Alderamin, their spires ending in curves shaped like water drops. A reminder that without water, the people were nothing but carcasses for the hungry sands.
The guards surrounding the black gates leaped to attention when the sentry announced Nasir’s arrival. He swung from Afya’s back and dropped his hood, running his fingers through his unruly hair to clear it of sand before tossing the reins to whichever man scrambled forward to catch them.
“Ensure she’s tended for.”
“Yes, my prince,” the guard hurried to say.
Nasir stepped through one of the pointed arches and into the tiled courtyard. Out of habit, he dipped a finger into the fountain in its center, staining the waters pink. Why the sultana had commissioned a fountain in resemblance to a lion, Nasir never knew. He had never questioned his mother, only appreciated her existence until she was taken from him.
He paused before the double doors and noted the undulation of the guards’ throats as they grasped the copper handles. Fear. Carefully cultivated, easily sustained.
Inside, the air was still and his footsteps echoed. Darkness wrapped a suffocating cloak around him. On the gilded balcony above, maids and servants bowed and scurried away like the rats they were, darting in and out of rooms. The palace was so dark, one couldn’t tell the difference between rat and man anyway.
The only refuge from the shadows were dim torches lit along the way, and nothing stood in the light for long.
Nasir made his way to the stairs as a servant ambled from the opposite corridor, carefully balancing a platter of qahwa. Surprise struck the servant’s solemn features when he saw the prince, and the tray tipped. Too late, the man pitched forward to steady it, crashing into Nasir in the process.
The servant dropped to his knees and whimpered—whimpered—beside the tarnished silver platter. Dark qahwa bled from the brass dallah.
A thousand memories flickered through Nasir’s mind, flashes he had long since filed away. Coffee spilling. Cups shattering. A burning slap. He swallowed and blinked—a weakness, there and gone between heartbeats.
“Forgive me,” the servant half squeaked.
Nasir’s thoughts stumbled to a halt. Don’t think, mutt, he imagined the sultan saying.
“Silence. Get this cleaned.” His words were low, carefully neutral, but his pulse had quickened like a spooked child’s. Two nearby maids hurried to help, and Nasir stepped over them. He didn’t have to look back to know that the starved servant was nodding, eyes closed in gratitude—gratitude that Nasir hadn’t ordered to have him beaten for the heinous act of spilling coffee. He clenched his jaw. Every daama time a servant associated him with the sultan, he only loathed himself more.
“Nasir! You have returned so soon,” a cheery voice called. Nasir screwed his eyes shut before cooling his features. When did that damned staircase get so far away?
Sultan Ghameq’s prized General al-Badawi wore a wolfish grin, oblivious to the servants mopping at the floor.
“Did you enjoy seeing the children in the camel races?” he asked, dusky blue eyes bright in the dim foyer. Anger feathered his jaw, revealing how he felt about those helpless children thrown atop the camels. At last, rage for something that wasn’t Nasir’s doing.