Hafsah Faizal

His mother used to say that a person without hope was a body without a soul.

His mother used to say that a person without hope was a body without a soul.

Yasmine shook her head. “I do. It doesn’t matter what you are. You are your strength. Why must you prove the lie that they are better than us by deluding yourself and hiding beneath a man’s clothes? Think of all the women you can help by being you.”

Silence, and then Yasmine’s voice in a harsh whisper.

“What are you waiting for, Zafira?”

Yasmine shook her head. “There are things a person knows. I know he’s out there, that someone. Probably as grumpy as you. He’ll look into those icy eyes of yours and make you blush and wish you could begin all over again. I just know it.”

“Will marriage change that, you think?” Deen asked.

She canted her head. “What?”

“Her. Her silliness. Her knack for mischief. That unbreakable stubbornness.”

Zafira chose her words carefully. “He loves her as she is. Why would she need to be any different?”

“I don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip around her finger. “I just think that once you’re bound to another, you change. That for the happiness of the one you love, and for your own, you change without knowing it.”

“And when we find the Jawarat?” she asked.

Not if, when. There was nothing more respectable and dangerous than a woman of confidence.

I’m merely giving you a choice of involvement, and no one would be surprised if you stepped aside.” He allowed himself a smirk when he added, “Safin can be very scary.”

She unleashed a string of curses, damning him to the Wastes.

The laugh that crept up his throat terrified him.

“I could have you killed for that,” he murmured.

She looked stricken for no more than a heartbeat. “I’ve defied the odds long enough to know I won’t die for blaspheming a prince.”

Then she nocked an arrow and breathed down its shaft, utterly uncaring. It almost made him smile.

I am daama tired of you and your beloved general telling me what to do, where to go, when to move. Your threats mean nothing to me.”

She stepped closer and he pulled back, regretting it instantly.

“If you want me obedient, Prince, kill me and carry my corpse.”

Her voice echoed in the silence. Her mouth was crooked in rage, her eyes ablaze in a fire of ice. Nasir should have turned away.

He should not have given in to the sensations of how she looked. Of how, in one fell swoop, she had thrown the Prince of Death to the ground and trampled his existence with her words.

But he did. So his traitor of a chest made him laugh.

She would take one side of her lower lip into her mouth, deep in thought.

She would toy with the ring around her neck and slip it over her pale finger, once, twice, icy eyes pinched in torment.

“I see you ogling,” Altair had sung beneath his breath yesterday.

Nasir had ignored him. It was his job to notice such things.

He told himself he watched to ensure she wouldn’t escape. But even when instinct told him she wouldn’t, he still found himself looking for her, studying her. The Huntress.

The proud curve of her shoulders, daring him. The cut of her mouth, lips dark from her constant chewing on them.

Benyamin looked between Nasir and the Huntress. “Both of you met the liar who cannot lie. Neither of you received the full truth. Yet you fell prey to the allure of her words.”

The Huntress drew a sharp breath, and Nasir felt the weight of her gaze, slowly dismantling him.