Funny, Zafira was heading toward the unknown at the first sign of mortal danger. The air darkened as they neared the forest. He shook out his mane and cantered forward without protest. “Yalla.” She urged him to hurry, voice tight. She spun Sukkar to face the Arz, kicking against the strains of his hesitation as a low command drifted on the wind, words undecipher-able. The thought closed hands around her heart, the thud, thud, thud racing a little bit faster. Then she would be shunned, her victories derided. If there was one thing she feared more than losing herself within the Arz, it was being caught unaware by a man who could prove she was no hunter but a huntress, a girl of seventeen concealed beneath the weight of her father’s hooded cloak every time she hunted. “We had a good hunt today,” she said to the horse who hadn’t helped, and swung onto his back. While she made quick work of tying the deer to her stallion’s saddle, he remained still, as sweet as the name she had given him. Sukkar nickered from the rotting post where she had tethered him, blending in with his near-white coat. She was a bundle of emotions because of the impending wedding, that was all. Paranoia had a way of visiting when he was least desired. A stillness in the earth and in the whispering trees. She dragged the deer carcass along, a trail of steam in her wake, the sullied snow an eerie crimson. Not when she had the curves of a woman, and the voice and gait of one, too. For in a caliphate where a woman’s actions were always in danger of being turned against her, there was nothing easy about pretending to be a man. Before her, the sea of white rolled out smooth and pristine, gifting her a moment’s contentment in her solitude, even as her toes numbed and the air crippled her nose.
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