Traitor to the Throne

by Alwyn Hamilton

  ‘You tried to help her get away.’ Kadir leaned into me, the pressure of his body forcing me against the railing, trapping me between him and open air and the sight of my cousin below. I could feel every inch of my body that he was touching fighting back against the feeling of him pressed to me. I hated more than anything that I couldn’t fight back. His breath was hot on my neck as he spoke. ‘And now I want you to watch her die.’

  I didn’t need him to make me watch her die. No matter what happened, I would give her that. I wouldn’t do it for Kadir. I’d do it for Shira. Because whatever else she was, she was my flesh and blood and she deserved that much from me. She deserved a whole lot more, in fact. But this was all I had to give.

  A roar came with Shira’s appearance onstage. Some of it was jeers, but those were drowned out quickly.

  She had been right not to change, I realised now.

  Shira in her silks and muslins and jewels and fine make-up looked like nobility. But as she was now, dressed in a plain white khalat, she looked like a desert girl. She looked like one of the crowd she was facing, not something out of the palace. Folk were cheering for her, I realised, not for her head.

  When she stepped up onto the stone, she was still shaking, her naked feet barely holding her up.

  The restless crowd settled enough to listen as the executioner started to announce her so-called crimes. Shira stood with her head held high, back as straight as an iron bar. A light breeze picked up her hair. It was long and loose around her shoulders and it moved enough to expose her neck. The wind seemed to draw her eyes up. She tilted her head back, spotting me and Kadir on the balcony easily. She ignored her husband, locking gazes with me instead. There was a slight curve to her mouth. That was the only warning I had.

  The executioner was still reading. ‘For treason against the Sultim—’

  ‘I am loyal to the true Sultim!’ The words burst out of Shira’s lips, startling the executioner into silence. ‘The true Sultim, Prince Ahmed!’ Her words stirred an answer in the crowd. ‘He was chosen by fate at the trials! Not by the hands of his father! A father who himself defied our traditions! I know the will of the Djinn, and they are punishing these false rulers. Kadir will never be able to give our country an heir!’

  A rush of pride swelled in my chest. The Sultan had been right. It was a mistake to execute her in public. Kadir had given his legendary Sultima the biggest stage in Miraji to spill all their secrets on. She was one girl, seconds away from death, and she was using her last breath to do more than a rain of pamphlets from a Roc could. Even if they silenced her now, this story would spread all over Miraji and get grander with every retelling.

  ‘If Kadir ever sits on the throne, he will be the last Sultan of Miraji!’

  Kadir shoved away from me as his Sultima spoke, pushing back inside, shouting orders. But he was far too late. The damage was done, and silencing her now looked like they were trying to stifle the truth. I didn’t move, though I caught the Sultan’s gaze for just a moment. He looked resigned. As if he knew this would come out of his son’s stupidity.

  ‘He will die without an heir to take his place and our country will fall back into foreign hands.’ Shira was still talking, her voice carrying over the beginnings of restlessness in the crowd. ‘The same foreign hands that the false Sultan makes deals with behind closed doors. Prince Ahmed is Miraji’s only hope! He is the true heir—’

  She was still shouting as the guards wrestled her forward, forcing her head down onto the block. ‘A new dawn!’ she screamed as a guard forced her head down so hard that her chin connected with the block, opening a huge gash.

  The din of the crowd was drowning out anything more she would have said, but she held my gaze as the executioner stepped up. I leaned forward, closing the distance between us as much as I could, my hips pressed against the railing, my body craning over the balcony.

  I held her eyes until the axe came down.

  Chapter 34

  I couldn’t tell where the first stone came from. It sailed out of the crowd, smacking into the wall next to the balcony.

  ‘A new dawn!’ someone screamed from the crowd. ‘A new desert!’ The Rebellion’s cry picked up all around the square. The crowd below turned into a mob with frightening speed. Another rock flew, smacking into the screen around the balcony. The closest guard flinched back. Those out in the open with me were already retreating.

  I saw the bomb as it prepared to sail. A flash of fire in the crowd. A bottle stuck with a burning cloth, aimed towards the balcony. I dove for cover inside. Even as I prepared to hit the ground, I spotted Tamid, staring through the screen, eyes pressed to the openings, fingers laced through the carved wood. I grabbed him and pulled him to the ground sprawling, even as the bottle struck the screen, exploding in a burst of flames and glass against the wood.

  When I looked up, coughing, some of the screen was missing; the rest was catching fire. There was another soldier who’d been standing too close sprawled near us, crying out in agony as blood bloomed across one ruined side of his face. Tamid stared at the man, eyes wide. I supposed he wasn’t quite so used to dodging death as I was.

  ‘Bottle bombs, just like we used to make back home,’ I offered, pushing myself off him. I checked around quickly, making sure no one had noticed. The chaos was a distraction. The Sultan had already vanished. Gone to safety or to give orders to fortify the palace, I figured. To quell the crowds. I just hoped the Rebellion was ready to protect them. ‘We need to find cover.’ I offered my former friend a hand up. ‘Come on.’

  Tamid got us back to his rooms safely, through hallways choked with soldiers, headed into the streets to keep the peace. Hundreds of men passing us, their boots pounding into the marble floor. He slammed the door behind us and bolted it shut. He leaned on the door for a moment, out of breath, as I slumped into the chair at his desk while he took another by the balcony.

  We lapsed into uncomfortable silence. I could hear the rioting outside over our ragged breathing. Shouts of rebellion; gunfire. Once, something that sounded like an explosion. I thought I might’ve seen the flash of light it gave off across Tamid’s face as he peered out over the city. And I was stuck in here. Helpless.

  Gradually my breathing slowed as night fell outside. The rioting faded to the back of my consciousness. I was left listening to the roar of grief in my head instead. I’d been helpless to save Shira, too. I’d watched her die. I might not have always liked her. But I’d never wanted her dead. And now she was gone. Another casualty of the cause.

  I could’ve gone back to the harem. But I wanted to be there even less than I wanted to be here. When it got too dark to see, Tamid started to work his way around the room, his metal leg clicking with every step, lighting oil lamps as he went.

  There was a book open on the table. I noticed it as the lamp above it came alive. A picture fiercer than any of the faded drawings I’d ever seen in the books that found their way down to Dustwalk glared out of the pages. It was a Djinni made of blue fire standing next to a girl with blue eyes with the sun in her hands.

  Princess Hawa.

  ‘Do you have anything to drink in here?’ I asked finally when the last lamp was lit and I couldn’t take it any more. ‘Remember in Dustwalk, when anybody died, everybody got together for a drink to honour the dead. Or are you too holy to drink now?’

  ‘Did you drink to me, after you left me for dead?’ Tamid asked, shaking out the match.

  After leaving Dustwalk I remembered drinking with Jin in a bar in Sazi. I didn’t even know why I was drinking then. I wanted to say I was sorry again. But my silence spoke for me.

  Tamid pulled open a cupboard. It was lined with jars and bottles of stuff that looked more like poison than booze. But he reached towards the back and pulled out a half-empty bottle with the label scratched off. There was no mistaking the amber liquid inside. ‘I only drank because you were a bad influence, anyway.’ He pulled the cork from the bottle.

  ‘I only have one glass.’ He
poured a measure into a glass and another into an empty jar. ‘I don’t get that many guests around here.’ He handed me the jar.

  That wasn’t what it had looked like with Leyla, but maybe they had better things to do than drink together. ‘The jar is clean, I promise. If I wanted you dead, you’re right, I could’ve already done it.’

  ‘To the dead,’ I said. I took a sip, burning away the smart retort on the tip of my tongue before I could say something I’d regret. ‘Who weren’t so lucky as me.’

  Tamid rolled his glass between his palms. ‘I didn’t think you’d care about Shira.’

  I wished I had it in me to be angry about that. But he wasn’t wrong. The girl I was when I’d left Tamid bleeding in the sand wouldn’t have cared. But the world was bigger than Dustwalk, it turned out. ‘Well, I guess you were wrong.’

  We fell silent again as I sipped at my liquor, letting it burn on the way down. Tamid just stared at his own glass. Finally he seemed to decide something. ‘Leyla says you’re planning to abduct me.’

  ‘Abduct is an awfully strong word.’ I’d accused Jin of abducting me once. But we’d both known that was a lie. I’d wanted to go. Even if it had meant leaving Tamid. ‘But yeah, more or less.’

  ‘Why? Is it just that you don’t want me helping the Sultan any more?’ He didn’t look at me. ‘Or did Leyla just ask you too sweetly to refuse? Or is it that – what was it you said? You’re in the business of saving lives now?’ There was scorn on his tongue but he was giving me a chance to be honest with him. I couldn’t waste it.

  ‘Because I wouldn’t leave you behind if I got the chance again.’ It slipped out as easily as only the truth could. My gaze was fixed on his fake leg. ‘You never wanted to run away with me.’

  ‘And that was a reason to leave me to die, was it?’ It had been the wrong thing to say. He leaned away from me, taking away whatever small distance I’d closed between us by saving him on the balcony. By sharing a drink with him here.

  ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’ I didn’t want to fight with him. I didn’t want to fight any more at all today. I just wanted my friend back when I’d already lost one to the executioner. ‘I’m just saying, you wouldn’t even run away from somewhere you hated with your oldest friend. I’m having trouble imagining that you’ve now become the sort to run off with a princess. Are you really going to leave with Leyla? You’re not going to try to snitch on us to her father?’ I tried to sound disinterested. But a lot of folk would die if Tamid decided he was loyal to the Sultan. ‘You can’t blame me for having my doubts. Between the two of us, there’s only one who’s in a habit of running away with royalty.’

  Tamid looked up at me over his glass so fast I knew he’d been faking disinterest in me. ‘That foreigner who stole the Buraqi was royalty?’

  I realised I’d said it without meaning to. Slipped out as natural as if I could still trust Tamid.

  ‘His name is Jin,’ I said. ‘And yes.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  I’d managed not to ask myself that question since Ayet had caught me with Sam in the garden. But in that moment, when I was sure she was going to turn us in and it was all going to end, one stupid thought had flitted through my head.

  I wasn’t ever going to see Jin again.

  I might die and he was off doing God knew what, God knew where, with God knew who.

  The thought that had chased it was selfish: If he were here, Jin wouldn’t let me die. He would leave the captured Djinn in the Sultan’s hands, risk everything, before he’d let me die.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ I drank.

  ‘Not all that great being left behind by someone you’re in love with, is it?’ Tamid raised his glass in a salute before taking a sip.

  You only ever thought you were in love with me. But I couldn’t say it out loud. That caught me off guard. ‘No,’ I admitted into my drink. ‘It’s not.’ We were silent. ‘What about you and Leyla?’ I asked finally. ‘Where will you two go if we do get you out?’

  ‘Maybe home.’ Tamid shrugged. ‘Back to Dustwalk.’

  I scoffed without meaning to. Tamid looked up, offended. ‘Oh, come on,’ I defended. ‘Maybe you didn’t want to leave like you did, but don’t tell me after seeing everything else that’s out here, you just want to go back to that hellhole. Or do you have fonder memories of all the names that town called you than I do?’

  ‘I’m not like you, Amani. All I ever wanted was a simple life as a Holy Man with a wife. I always figured you’d change your mind and see it my way eventually.’ Dark eyes darted to me before sliding away again. The memory of him proposing marriage was heavy between us.

  There was a part of him that still didn’t understand. I could see that now, more clearly than I’d ever been able to back in Dustwalk. I’d move the whole world to make up for what I’d done to Tamid. But I wouldn’t ever give it up for him. Not for anyone. The difference was, Jin had never asked me to. He’d taken my hand to show it to me instead. ‘This life – Djinn, princes – it’s too much for me. I haven’t changed my mind about what I want in this life, Amani. And neither have you.’

  A thought struck me and I couldn’t hold back the laugh that bubbled up. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth as I nearly choked on my drink. Tamid looked at me askance. ‘I’m not laughing at you.’ I waved a hand at him, my nose burning from the liquor. ‘I was just – I was trying to picture your father if you brought a princess home for a wife.’

  I saw it dawn on Tamid’s face, too. He rolled his eyes skyward. ‘God save me.’ Tamid’s father was a hard man. He’d tried to drown Tamid as a baby when he was born with a crooked leg. He was also patriotic to the very core. He invoked the Sultan’s name at every occasion. What would the Sultan think of my weakling of a son, Tamid? What would the Sultan think that a boy in his country can be bested by a girl, Tamid?

  ‘What would the Sultan think of you taking his daughter to wife, Tamid?’ I did my best imitation of Tamid’s father, like I had when we lived in Dustwalk. Tamid dropped his head into his hands, but he was smiling as I laughed, the alcohol making me feel lighter.

  ‘What about you?’ Tamid rolled his glass between his hands, the faint smile lingering. ‘You can’t leave. In this grand escape plan, what happens to you?’

  I’d been wondering that, too. The thought was suddenly sobering. Shazad had always been willing to give up her own life for the Rebellion. But I didn’t know whether she’d be willing to give up mine or if I’d have to do it myself. Imin had already volunteered if she couldn’t. ‘I don’t leave this palace so long as the Sultan’s got control over me.’ I tried to shrug casually. But Tamid had known me far too long. He could read me better than anyone.

  Almost anyone. Jin had understood who I was better than Tamid ever had. And Shazad had seen who I could be. Tamid had always seen who he wanted to. But he still knew when I was hiding something. Traitor eyes.

  ‘I’d die for this, Tamid. I don’t want to have to. I’d do just about anything to not have to.’ I listened to the roar of the crowds outside. ‘But it’s a whole lot bigger than my life or anyone else’s.’

  Tamid set his glass down. ‘I want you to know I don’t believe in your rebellion.’

  ‘I figured.’ I downed the rest of my drink.

  ‘And your prince is as likely to destroy this country as anything else.’ I figured that, too. But I didn’t say that. ‘But you were right: I don’t hate you enough to want to watch you die. Take your shirt off.’ That wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say.

  ‘Do you say that to all the girls?’ It slipped out. It was a stupid thing to say to someone who wasn’t my friend any more. Who’d been in love with me once. It was stupid to make a joke when Shira’s blood was still cooling in the square and the riot in the streets was still raging. But against all odds, Tamid laughed. He laughed exactly like he used to, with a slight roll of his eyes, like he wanted me to think he was humouring me by laughing. But I knew him better
than that.

  ‘No,’ Tamid picked up a tiny knife with a blade no longer than one of my fingernails. ‘Just the ones I’m about to cut a piece of bronze out of.’

  He was serious, I realised. He was going to help me. He knew where the pieces of metal in my skin were. He could take out the one controlling me. That forced me to stay here.

  He was going to save my life.

  Chapter 35

  I could hear Auranzeb already starting on the other side of the wall. The sound of laughter drifted through, high and clear like a bell, a riot of voices, Mirajin and foreign alike, and music running like a soft current underneath.

  We stood in the shadow of the harem walls outside the gate, whispering knots of perfectly made-up girls all around me. They kept their distance from me. Nobody in the harem seemed to know exactly what I’d had to do with the events around the blessed Sultima, but that hadn’t stopped the rumours from spreading. Some were even saying they’d seen me help Kadir drown Fadi. I knew they were lying because Hala wasn’t stupid or spiteful enough to plant that image in their heads. I cast around for Leyla, an ally, but I couldn’t find her in the dim light leaking through from the other garden. The shuffle of cloth and breathing and the occasional excited whisper were the only sounds to be heard on our side. We were like penned creatures, waiting. I forced out a long breath, trying to calm my racing heart.

  This was it. Tonight we freed the Djinn and Leyla. And one way or another it was my last night in the harem.

  My left hand strayed to my side, a nervous habit I’d been trying to break the last few days. The last thing I needed was anyone noticing the tiny healing cut under my arm where Tamid had sliced the piece of bronze out of my skin. The iron was still there. He told me without meeting my gaze that he hadn’t exactly planned on getting the shards of metal out, that I might bleed out if he tried. But I understood the truth of it. He was willing to help me escape, but he wasn’t going to help the Rebellion by giving me back my power. He wasn’t a Traitor like me.