‘I bet she did.’ Rahim eyed Tamid in that way that fathers and brothers eyed boys who looked at their daughters and sisters wrong. So this was the secret Leyla was keeping, which Shira wanted so bad. Shira thought she was sneaking off to plot against her with her brother, but she was just an infatuated girl leaving the harem to see a boy.
It might’ve been funny if I wasn’t certain that Shira could use this, too. More than once I’d gotten a beating for sneaking off to see Tamid. And I wasn’t a princess. And I hadn’t been in love with him. Was this why Rahim was so desperate to get Leyla out of the palace? Would she get punished for this as much as Tamid would? But there was something else passing between the siblings, skipping straight over Tamid. ‘You designed that, Leyla?’ Rahim gestured at the articulated bronze limb in her hands.
She nodded nervously. ‘I thought – it might be useful.’ So she didn’t just make toys for children in the harem. That was impressive, I had to admit.
But Rahim was angry in a way I didn’t wholly understand. ‘Come on, Leyla, I’ll walk you back to the harem. There are some things we need to discuss anyway.’ Good, it was long past time to tell Leyla about the plan for Auranzeb. The holiday was only a handful of days away now and she needed to know we were getting her out of there.
What followed was the longest, most awkward minute of my life as Leyla reattached Tamid’s leg. Everybody was trying their hardest not to look at anyone else. The sound of mechanisms clicking together punctuated the silence as Leyla worked. When she was finally, mercifully done, Rahim practically dragged her out of the room, remembering me at the last second. ‘Amani, I’ll come back and get you.’
Tamid and I didn’t speak as Leyla followed her brother out. The awkwardness stretched between us long after their footsteps had faded.
‘I’d love to be able to storm away, but, you know.’ Tamid tapped on his leg, below the knee. A hollow sound reverberated back. I winced. ‘It seems like you ought to be the one to leave. Out of respect.’
‘Tamid—’
‘Do you want to know how I lost my leg, Amani?’ Tamid cut me off.
‘I know how.’ I remembered that last dark night in Dustwalk clearer than any of the hazy days that came before.
‘No.’ Tamid slammed his hand down against the table underneath him. I might’ve flinched if I wasn’t so used to the sound of gunfire aimed at me. ‘You don’t. You saw Naguib shoot me and then you left. You weren’t there while I lay screaming in the sand. You weren’t there when Shira started striking bargains, saying she could help find you. That she knew you better than almost anyone, that she knew where you’d go. Better than almost anyone.’ His hands shook as he clenched them into fists. ‘You didn’t see them tear me away from my mother to take me with them, too, on the off chance I might be useful. You weren’t with me on that train that rattled its way to Izman.’ I had been on that train. I’d seen Shira on that train. I’d kissed Jin on that train. Not ever imagining Tamid might be on board, too.
‘Naguib said he’d left you to bleed out in Dustwalk. I thought you were dead, Tamid.’ The words I’d comforted myself with for months since that day sounded like a poor excuse now he was standing in front of me in the flesh.
‘So did I.’ His right hand was a fist against his thigh now. ‘I thought I was dead while I writhed in agony and when I got here and the Holy Father said it was infected. That it would have to come off. You weren’t here when they sawed off my leg, Amani. But now you are. Let me guess: you want my help. You want me to tell you which little metal bump under your skin is the one you need to cut out to escape.’ My fingers pressed so hard against the metal on my arm I wondered if it would bruise. Tamid knew me well enough to read my silence.
He pushed himself off the edge of the table. I pretended not to notice the slight wince as his freshly oiled leg hit the ground, or the way he steadied himself for a fraction of a heartbeat before he started to work his way around the small space, tidying up even though it was already spotless. Straightening bottles so the labels all faced out in a perfect line, making them clink with every twist. He slammed a door shut that led towards a small side chamber, where I could see a bed. ‘You’re predictable as anything. You know, back in Dustwalk, you always figured I didn’t sleep all that well. But that wasn’t true. It was just that, if I knew you’d gotten a beating, I’d lie awake waiting for you to crawl through my window asking for something.’
I hadn’t known that. I swallowed the tears that were welling up in my throat. ‘I don’t believe you hate me as much as you want me to think you do.’
‘How do you figure?’ Leyla had left her tools behind, and he started lining those up. He sounded disinterested.
‘Because if you really hated me, you’d have turned me over to the Sultan as a rebel by now.’ I saw the truth of it as soon as I said it. ‘Instead, you pretended not to know me the day I got here. You’ve been helping the Sultan a whole lot of other ways.’ This truth came out like an accusation. It was easier to accuse him as a rebel against an enemy than as a girl against an old friend. ‘You gave him the knowledge he needed to control Noorsham and to control me. And enough first language to capture a Djinni. But you didn’t give me up.’ I saw him wince at the mention of the Djinni. I seized on it. He might not care enough about me any more to help, but I knew Tamid. If you cut him he’d bleed holy words. ‘He’s going to be able to kill a whole lot more people with a Djinni on his side, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘And that’s all right with you, is it?’
‘Do you mean because it’s unholy, or because of how I feel—’ Just for a second his fingers slipped, sending a small circular instrument skidding off the table and to the ground. ‘Because of how I felt, about you?’
How did you feel about me? But that wasn’t a fair question when I already knew the answer. I saw it now, written all over him.
‘He’s our Sultan, Amani. Our job is to obey, not to question.’
‘You don’t believe that.’ A simple truth slipping out. I retrieved the metal tube off the floor and handed it back to him. ‘Not you who went to prayers every single day. You don’t believe keeping a Djinni prisoner is the right thing.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think. I’ve scoured the books in the Sultan’s library and I couldn’t find the words to release a Djinni, only to bind one—’ He caught himself, looking at me straight on now. He ignored the metal tube I still had in my hand, refusing even that peace offering.
‘You only know the words to bind them, not to release them?’ I imagined my father trapped under the palace forever as we mortals did what we did best: died, and then forgot about him, trapping him there for all eternity.
‘What do you care?’ Tamid asked.
‘Turns out I’m in the business of saving lives now.’
‘Well, it’s a shame that wasn’t your line of employment ten months ago when you left me to die.’
‘They did this to you, Tamid.’ I held my ground. ‘Not me.’
‘Yes, they did,’ he said. ‘But it was you who left me behind.’
I didn’t have anything I could say to that.
Tamid tilted his head further away from me. On most men I knew, the dark hair would’ve fallen in front of his eyes, hiding them from me. But Tamid’s hair was always perfectly combed against his head. ‘What do I have to say to make you leave, Amani?’
That was all he needed to say.
Chapter 30
I leaned against a pillar in the courtyard at the bottom of the steps. Back on steady ground, pressing my hands back into the marble hard. I forced my tears to dry. I forced myself to remember I was a desert girl. I didn’t have water to spare. And this wasn’t any kind of place to show weakness. The palace was as dangerous as the desert at night.
Rahim had told me to wait for him. I wasn’t meant to be without a guard. I didn’t know how long his talk with Leyla would take. But, while it was awful tempting to go snooping around, I couldn’t risk getting c
aught unaccompanied. It would blow Rahim’s cover, too. And I doubted the Sultan would forgive me a second time after I’d gone to see Bahadur. As soon as that thought shot across my mind I wondered what it was doing there. It shouldn’t matter; I’d never minded getting into trouble before. It was because my head might wind up on the chopping block, I told myself. It was because losing his trust would mean losing access to the information we needed.
So I waited, trying to ignore the itch below my skin to move, to do something, listening to the sounds of the fountain and the birds who populated this part of the palace, trapped here by clipped wings, just like the ducks in the pond. The sudden rattle of a door was as loud as a gunshot.
I reacted on instinct, plastering myself behind the pillar into the shadows. It didn’t matter who was coming; I couldn’t get caught alone. A fraction of a heartbeat later a door on the other side of the courtyard slammed open. The crack of the handle hitting the stone was so loud it almost covered the woman’s cry. I couldn’t ignore the itch any more. I peered around the pillar.
Two figures in Mirajin soldiers’ uniforms were dragging a girl between them through the door. She thrashed violently against their grip, screaming so loudly I was sure someone was going to come running. The birds, I realised, remembering that day in the menagerie, what Ayet had said – no one would be able to hear her screaming over the birds. My fingers twitched for a weapon. For a gun. For something to help. But my hands were empty and bound by the Sultan’s orders to do no harm. And even I knew I couldn’t take on two soldiers with no weapon.
Then they emerged into the sunlight and I saw the thrashing captive’s face.
Uzma.
Kadir’s wife. Who had made it her duty to humiliate me that day in court and had vanished into thin air afterwards. Uzma’s eyes were as blank as polished glass, like any spark that had ever lived behind them had been snuffed out. I knew exactly where I’d seen that same look before. Back at camp, on Sayyida after Hala rescued her from the palace. Only Sayyida had been a spy. What had Uzma possibly done to be tortured out of her mind?
They vanished around the corner, the screams fading quickly.
I didn’t move right away. I could feel myself torn between following them and staying out of trouble, just once in my life. Trailing two guards and a screaming woman was a surefire way to get myself caught. Besides, it might not be the best way to figure out what was going on. I glanced at the door where they had come from. It was almost definitely locked. But it might not be. It would be stupid and reckless to dart out into the open and risk getting seen regardless.
Well, it looked like I was stupid and reckless, then.
My feet carried me in one short burst across the courtyard. The dying sunlight bounced off the door strangely. As I got closer, I realised why. The door was made of metal. Only someone had painted it to look like wood.
And it was humming.
I stretched my fingers tentatively towards the door. I could feel the hum building like a pull underneath my skin as I inched closer. My fingertips grazed the door. It was like touching fire without getting burned: all of the power of it, none of the heat. Tiny needles started at my fingertips and travelled up, making my breath hitch and my heart race even though I was standing still.
Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed me and slammed me into the metal hard, sending pain shooting up my body, an explosion of feeling across every bit of skin that I had.
And then I was staring up into the cruel face of the Gallan ambassador. Behind him was Kadir. Before I could speak a word, the man drove a hand into my middle, pinning me still, knocking the air out of my lungs.
‘In my country,’ the Gallan ambassador said in his thick accent, ‘we hang demons’ children by the throat.’ His hand tightened on my windpipe, forcing me up straight. ‘But I don’t have any rope with me.’
God, the metal door at my back was starting to hurt now. I could feel my thoughts blurring and my vision going black as his hand tightened around my throat. My hands scrabbled uselessly against the back of the hand gripping my windpipe. There were a dozen things I should’ve been able to do to fight back against him. I could’ve clawed the soft spots inside his wrists, jabbed at his eyes, driven my leg into his groin. Except the Sultan had ordered me not to harm anyone. I was going to die. The panic started in earnest now. I was going to really and truly die.
And then suddenly I could breathe again. Air flooded back in a gasp as the hand released my throat. I wrenched myself away from the wall, falling to all fours. I knelt there for three long breaths, waiting to remember how to breathe. A crack like breaking bone sounded, and a cry of pain. I looked up in time to see Kadir reel back, clutching his nose.
Over him, blazing with the setting sun at his back, stood Rahim, his brother’s blood on his fist. The light blurred his features so I almost couldn’t recognise him. He looked like every hero I’d ever imagined from the old stories: the First Mortal facing death instead of running from it; Attallah outside the walls of Saramotai, outnumbered; the Grey Prince against the Conqueror. He didn’t look real.
And then he dropped to his knees across from me and he was human again. ‘Amani.’ He tipped my head back, checking me with the sure hands of someone who knew a battlefield injury. ‘Are you all right?’ I could see behind him now that there were two soldiers with him and they were holding the Gallan ambassador away from me. ‘Amani,’ Rahim pressed. ‘Talk to me or I’m taking you to the Holy Father.’
‘I’m fine.’ My voice came out scratchy but still mine. ‘I’m sure I have something to wear that’ll go well with the bruising.’ Rahim helped me to my feet. I touched my throat, sensitive where the ambassador’s fingers had tried to crush my windpipe.
‘Soldiers.’ Kadir had recovered enough from his broken nose to speak. He pulled his hands away from his face though blood was still gushing across his mouth. ‘Release the ambassador. Take my brother away instead.’
The soldiers didn’t move. Instead they both looked at Rahim for instructions. I noticed their uniforms then. They were Mirajin, but instead of the standard white and gold of the palace they were emblazoned on the chest with the same blue stripe as Rahim’s. They were from his command in Iliaz. The emir must’ve arrived. This was why he’d been late coming back for me. He’d found his men.
‘Stay where you are.’ Rahim gave the order with a controlled ease I’d never seen in him before. I realised this was where he truly belonged, among soldiers, not among politicians in a palace. He was a soldier through and through. No, not a soldier. A commander.
Kadir’s gaze flicked frantically between the soldiers and Rahim. ‘I said let him go. I order you as your Sultim!’ His voice, thick with the blood of a broken nose, rose with anger.
They might as well have been deaf. Rahim calmly took his time pulling off the jacket of his uniform and placing it around my shoulders before addressing his brother. ‘These are my men, brother. They follow their commander, not their Sultim.
‘Escort him back to his chambers,’ Rahim ordered the soldiers holding the Gallan ambassador. ‘Before we start an international incident. Amani, let’s go.’
Rahim had already turned away when Kadir pulled the pistol from his belt. I cried a warning, but too slow. The gun went off, hitting one of the soldiers. It was a sloppy shot, the shoulder instead of the chest, but it was enough to make his grip slacken.
The Gallan ambassador wrenched himself free of the soldier’s grip. The foreigner grabbed the blade on his belt, diving for the wounded soldier. Rahim moved quickly, his own weapon already drawn, meeting the ambassador’s blade in the air in one easy gesture before it could run his soldier through.
Kadir was still raging. He raised his gun again, pointing it straight at Rahim’s back. I moved as fast as Shazad had taught me.
He had a loose grip on the gun – I couldn’t tell if it was anger or just bad training. I might not be able to hurt him, but I didn’t have to let him kill Rahim, either. I slammed my palm flat against the p
lace where the grip of the gun was sticking out from his fist. The gun went off, the bullet hitting the wall, as his fingers flew open. The gun jolted upwards, out of his hand. I caught it easily before it hit the ground, flipping it around in my fingers with familiar ease.
I aimed the pistol at Kadir. He went still, staring at me over the barrel of the gun, like he couldn’t quite understand what had happened. ‘You’re not going to shoot me.’
That was true enough. I couldn’t. I had orders against it. But he didn’t know that. I pulled back the hammer on the pistol all the same. ‘Want to bet your life on that?’ My fingers were shaking from trying to pull the trigger. And I was that ten-year-old girl again, holding on to a too-big rifle for dear life. Knowing that if I dropped it, I’d be helpless.
‘Drop the gun, Amani.’
Even if I hadn’t known the voice, the tug in my gut at the order would’ve given him away.
No. I fought against it.
But my arms were already moving without wanting to. I fought it until my arms screamed. The gun clattered to the ground.
When I turned around, the two soldiers were standing at sharp attention, the injured one clutching his shoulder. At their feet the ambassador’s body was slumped in the grass. His hands, which had been wrapped around my throat a few moments earlier, were limp now. The bloodstained sword was in Rahim’s hand.
And, surveying the whole scene, from my discarded gun to the blood spreading out from under the ambassador’s body, his expression unreadable, was the Sultan.
*
The Sultan’s fingers drummed out a pattern on the ivory and wood chessboard inlay of his desk as his eyes traced the line of my throat. It was going to bloom into an impressive bruise shaped like the Gallan ambassador’s hand in a few hours, but for now, it still felt raw and red. We were in the Sultan’s study. The same one I’d stolen those papers from a few weeks back. There was a weight to the room with the Sultan in it that hadn’t been there without him. Like all the maps on the walls and spread across the desk were extensions of him. Jin had once told me I was this desert. I wondered if he’d change his mind if he saw in here.
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