Traitor to the Throne

by Alwyn Hamilton

  I started to move slowly towards where I’d seen him disappear. Or as slowly as I could with my heart beating out the rhythm of gunfire. I dodged around foreigners in strange clothes, Mirajin folksin fine colours, dangerous men in uniforms. Only I couldn’t see him. I’d lost him. Again.

  ‘Amani.’ His voice by my ear sounded exactly the same way it had the last time I’d seen him. In the desert. On the run. Breathless from kissing me in the tent.

  When I turned around he was so close I could’ve reached out and touched him. Only if there was one surefire way for us to both die as gruesome a death as the bronze men around us, that would be it.

  His eyes travelled the length of me, from the top of my perfectly combed head all the way to my bare feet. I was suddenly more keenly aware of my appearance than I’d been all night. That I was a golden-glowing girl, not wearing a whole lot, who’d been polished like the other harem girls for the express purpose of being looked at by other men but not touched. The other Xichian man with Jin was doing exactly that, his gaze snaking across every piece of uncovered skin I had. But Jin didn’t seem to notice that I was painted gold and on display as if to taunt him.

  ‘You cut your hair,’ he said finally. It was such a thing for him to notice, among everything else. The clearest wound I wore in the open of everything that had happened in the walls of the harem.

  ‘Not deliberately.’ It was too much to explain to him now everything that had happened. But Jin could read some of it on my face. In the two-word answer.

  ‘Amani, did they—’ He stopped himself. Did they hurt you? stalled there. I knew why. If someone had hurt me and he hadn’t been able to stop it, I didn’t know what the chances were that he’d forgive himself. ‘Are you all right?’

  Now, that was a heavy question. ‘I’ll live.’

  His face changed, hand curling into a fist at his side. And when he spoke again his voice was low and urgent. ‘I swear to God, if he’s hurt you, Amani, I will make him suffer for it.’ I didn’t have to guess who he was. The Sultan.

  ‘You don’t believe in God.’ It was all I could think to say.

  His hand twitched forward, like he wanted to pull me to him, away from everything else happening around us. ‘Then I swear to you.’

  I had to ball my hands together to not reach for him. I remembered being little, my arms shaking from the effort of holding up a rifle too heavy for a ten-year-old. All I wanted in the entire world was to let the gun drop. To release my hands and let it fall. The effort of holding it up was too much. It was tearing into my muscle.

  But staying alive depended on me holding that rifle up. Learning to shoot.

  I kept my arms where they were. Shaking with effort.

  ‘Jin,’ I said as low as I could in Mirajin. ‘It’s not safe for us to talk.’

  ‘I really don’t give a damn about safe or not.’ His voice was low and sure. And for a moment I thought he really might grab me. Just take my hand and run us both out of there. Then he remembered himself; the gesture turned into a bow as he stepped out of the way of the man behind him. It was one of the Xichian men, trailing him like a shadow. ‘I’m the translator for Prince Bao tonight, of the Xichian Empire. So long as we talk through him, we’ll be fine.’ The man inclined his head, oblivious, saying something in Xichian.

  ‘What happened to his other translator?’ I asked through what I hoped was a deceptively polite smile.

  ‘He came down with a bad case of broken ribs this afternoon.’ Jin winked at me over the prince’s head, which was still bowed in front of me. ‘The prince has a weakness for beautiful women so it wasn’t all that hard to steer him over to you. Say something back, as if I’ve been translating to you.’

  I hadn’t seen Jin in two months. And last time we’d been fighting and his hands had been inside my clothes, and his mouth over mine. There were months of unspilled words between us. Not to mention I probably ought to let him know that as soon as the last of the light that was currently stretching our shadows faded, there was the small matter of freeing a whole lot of Djinn. There was too much to say and too little time, and it was too hard to spill it all through a polite smile. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I asked finally, through a forced smile at Prince Bao, as if I was talking to him and not demanding an explanation through my teeth.

  I didn’t catch Jin’s expression as he turned away from me and said something quick in Xichian. I recognised it as some sort of polite platitude. The man said something back, nodding and smiling, handing it to Jin to translate. And finally Jin could turn back to me.

  ‘I was looking for you.’ His right hand was still curled into a fist, bouncing tensely against his leg.

  ‘Well, that was stupid,’ I said, and Jin stifled a laugh as I pressed my lips together and tried to radiate politeness at the foreign man who seemed to think I didn’t know he was staring at my chest. ‘I was right here.’

  ‘Yes, Shazad has already gone into great detail about my choices.’

  ‘Shazad knows you’re here?’

  It was starting to get dark. It wouldn’t be long before need tore us apart again. ‘In Izman, yes. Here in the palace … less so.’ Then there it was. That smile that pulled me into trouble straight after him. I fought the impulse to return it. ‘You’d better say something back to your prince.’

  Jin said something quick in Xichian; I only caught the edges of it, but it sounded like he was telling him that Mirajin wasn’t so economic a language as Xichian. He barely waited for Prince Bao’s answer before turning back to face me. ‘I came to make sure you leave this place tonight. Even if we don’t manage to get anyone else out, you’re coming with us. Do you understand?’

  A smile pulled at my mouth in spite of myself. I ignored the grin Prince Bao gave me back, clearly thinking I was smiling for him. ‘Are you saying you’re here to rescue me?’

  Jin raised a shoulder. ‘Well, when you put it that way …’

  I wanted to reach out to him. More than anything. I wanted to fold into him. I wanted to remind him that this was a war. That we could fight and run and stay together all we wanted, but we weren’t always going to be able to keep each other safe. ‘Jin—’

  ‘A Demdji and a budding diplomat, I see.’ The new voice sent pinpricks down my spine before I could answer. We’d been so wrapped up in our covert conversation that I hadn’t noticed the Sultan approach. The Sultan placed a hand on my back.

  Needles climbed the length of my spine. I felt Jin’s tension, and he turned it quickly into a bow. Prince Bao followed suit. And then he rose, and I watched Jin stand face-to-face with his father for the first time since he’d been a child in the harem.

  I knew exactly what he saw because it was what I had seen: Ahmed aged by another two decades. His brother, our prince, and our enemy becoming muddled into one. But I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he felt, having to stand toe to toe with the man who had bought his mother and enslaved her in his harem. Who had killed his brother’s mother with his bare hands. Who had taken me. And having to smile politely.

  Don’t lose your head, I willed silently under my breath. Not now. Don’t get us both killed.

  And then he bowed his head in front of his father and, keeping the smile fixed on his face, he made the introduction, presenting the Xichian prince to the Sultan with a long string of titles as Prince Bao nodded along deliberately.

  ‘You speak Mirajin very well,’ the Sultan said in compliment to Jin when he was done, barely sparing a glance at the foreign prince. I held my breath. The stories spoke of Ahmed and Delila disappearing into the night as if by magic. But the stories were only a sliver of the truth, twisted after passing across so many tongues.

  The Sultan was a smart man. I’d learned that much here. Surely he must’ve known how the two of them really escaped. He must have figured out that the Xichian woman who’d disappeared the same night as his son and the Demdji baby had been responsible. Surely he remembered that, while the stories had forgotten him, there had bee
n another son who had vanished that night, too.

  But if he did, none of it showed on his face.

  And nothing showed on Jin’s. ‘Thank you,’ he said in his perfect Mirajin. ‘Your Majesty does me a great honour.’

  But the Sultan wasn’t done with him yet. ‘Your mother was Mirajin, perhaps?’

  Don’t lie. I’m standing right here. Don’t lie. If he asks me I can’t lie for you.

  ‘My father, Your Exalted Highness.’

  The Sultan nodded. ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said to Jin, extending an arm for me. ‘I need to steal Amani.

  If your prince doesn’t mind, of course.’

  I knew Jin well enough to see what the idea of letting me go did to him. That he’d rather square off against his father right here in the middle of the garden than let me walk away with our enemy. With the man who’d already taken me from him the first time.

  Jin inclined his head slightly. ‘Of course, Your Exalted Highness. I will make your apologies to Prince Bao.’ The Xichian prince’s head bobbed along cheerfully, oblivious to the tension around him.

  And then the Sultan was clasping my arm in his, ignoring the gold dust from my arm rubbing off onto his sleeve, and I had no choice but to follow him away from Jin, and not look back.

  ‘You shouldn’t be on your own,’ he said as he led me away. ‘There are a great many enemies of your kind here tonight. I had asked Rahim to watch you.’

  ‘He found an old friend of his from Iliaz.’ It was as good as I could give him.

  ‘He found more than that, by the looks of things.’ He gave a pointed look to where Lord Bilal, Rahim, and Shazad were still deep in conversation. That he’d noticed that at all made me nervous as anything. ‘He found a pretty face.’ My chest eased a little. So long as he didn’t suspect Shazad and Rahim of doing any more than flirting, then we didn’t have to worry. ‘Though I suspect that one could be a match for him in wits as well.’

  I’d watched Shazad get underestimated time and time again. Even Rahim had doubted her value tonight, in spite of my word. It frightened me that the Sultan had sized her up so easily.

  ‘Why am I here?’ I asked, trying to draw his attention away from my wayward guardian and my friend. ‘If it’s so dangerous.’

  ‘Because …’ The Sultan stopped walking. We’d come to an alcove in a wall of the garden, shielded from the crowd. ‘You asked me why we must renew our alliances with foreign powers who place their own countries over Miraji. I want you to have the answer to that question, Amani.’ He released my arm. ‘Stay here.’ The order didn’t come with the old pull. But the Sultan didn’t know that. As far as he knew, I’d grow roots.

  The Sultan stepped up onto the raised platform in the garden. The tension that had been rising in my chest since dawn was nearly bursting me. Night was falling around us and nobody had lit any lamps around the garden to ward against it. The only light came from the lamps strung above the platform, plunging the crowd into darkness.

  It was almost too perfect a cover to slip out under.

  ‘Esteemed guests! Welcome. I am honoured by your presence,’ the Sultan called through the gardens, summoning all attention onto him. Conversations went out like snuffed matches all around us as clusters of people turned into a crowd around the raised platform.

  I started to push my way through against the bodies pushing towards the platform. I was headed towards the edge of the garden. To rejoin the Rebellion and get the hell out of here. Assuming I didn’t wind up burned alive like Akim’s wife for releasing the Djinn.

  The Sultan’s voice carried on from the stage. He was talking about peace and about power. Meaningless platitudes. Around me snatches of translation drifted out of the crowd. Shazad appeared next to me as I dodged around a Mirajin woman who rattled with rubies. Neither of us spoke or broke our pace as we came together, like two currents merging into a river.

  As we got further, Sam dropped into place between us, splitting off from the other soldiers in the same uniform as him, but with different loyalties. We broke free of the crowd finally. Sam pulled ahead of us as we approached the wall, and he grabbed our hands, the gold dust from my palm staining his as we pressed between two of the clay-and-bronze sculptures. ‘Hold your breath,’ he instructed as I fought my instinct to flinch away from walking straight into a wall.

  We should’ve met hard stone. Instead it was like stepping into sand. Like the wall had changed its form for us, from solid to soft. Only it was reluctant to. Even as we pushed through I felt it trying to trap us there. The stone was pressing against my skin, fighting back to the shape it had been for thousands of years. I squeezed my eyes shut. After surviving the harem and the Sultan I was going to die here anyway. I was going to be entombed in the walls of the palace forever.

  And then air hit my skin again and I was through, stumbling out the other side. Away from the Auranzeb celebrations. Into the quiet of the polished palace halls.

  ‘Took you long enough.’ Hala greeted us on the other side. She looked like herself, golden skin and all, dressed in simple desert clothes, as she waited. Sam had gotten her in a few hours before. Waiting seemed to have put her in an even better mood than she was usually in. Her eyes swept me. ‘That colour doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve already been over this with Imin. Thank you for your input.’ I decided to ignore Hala, turning to Shazad instead. ‘You knew Jin was back and nobody thought to mention it to me?’

  She paused, unwrapping the sash around her waist, revealing rolls and rolls of gunpowder hidden inside. Sam and Shazad traded a sort of conspiratorial look. The kind Shazad and I used to share. I was reminded with a pang of how long I’d been gone.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Shazad. Of all people, don’t you lie to me.’

  ‘Yes, he got back yesterday,’ Shazad admitted. ‘Izz found him. When we went down to Dustwalk after your tip about the factory. He was looking for you down there. He seemed to think you might have changed your mind and headed home with that aunt of yours. Idiot.’

  ‘For what it’s worth’ – Sam piped up – ‘I did vote to tell you.’

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ Shazad said, ‘you’re a thief, not a rebel, so you don’t get a vote—’

  ‘I really don’t think you’ve got the moral high ground here,’ Sam returned, leaning against the wall looking all too pleased with himself. He was enjoying Shazad’s attention, whatever form it came in. ‘And another thing—’

  Hala groaned, cutting him off. ‘While someone might be fascinated by this, they are not people currently trying to get you across a palace unseen. Do you mind?’

  I led the way.

  We stayed close to Hala, moving as slowly as we could. It made it easier for her to fool the minds of the soldiers we passed standing guard inside the palace. They were few and far between. Resources were spread thin tonight. But not a single one of them blinked as we walked straight in front of them; their minds were twisted firmly by Hala’s power so all they saw was empty hallway. We moved quietly down now-familiar hallways and around corners until finally we came face-to-face with Princess Hawa’s mosaic. Sam didn’t wait for me to speak, grabbing our hands again, pulling us through the wall.

  We came out, half stumbling, at the top of the old stone stairs that I’d walked down the first time I’d woken in the palace, the Sultan holding a lamp in front of us, so I could see only one step in front of me at a time.

  Only I could see the bottom of the steps now. We weren’t alone in the palace vaults. My arm shot out, stopping Shazad from going any further. She understood the signal instantly, pausing where she was.

  We moved carefully, lowering ourselves on the stairs like ghouls in the night, crouching until we were at the edge of the shadows, until we could see clearly into the crypt.

  The vaults flickered with the movement of the captured Djinn. There were eighteen of them now. Eighteen names that I had called one by one to be trapped. And though they’d all taken the form of men there was still
something unnatural about them. They stood like pillars of immortal power around the vaults, sometimes catching light that couldn’t come from anywhere. The sheer force of their presence felt like a physical blow.

  A half dozen men in uniform carrying torches were huddled around Fereshteh. He was exactly where I had left him after calling him, trapped inside the iron circle. Only somebody had placed what looked like a cage over him. It was made of brass and iron and gold and glass all interlocking in complicated patterns, jointed in a thousand places, arches of metal curving into each other.

  The other captured Djinn looked on curiously from within their own circles, like parents watching something their child had made and they didn’t wholly understand. For a fraction of a second Bahadur’s eyes darted up our way before going back to the other immortals.

  Something shifted in the circle of soldiers and the figure who had been working at the machine came into view. I knew Leyla instantly, even from this far away.

  So this was why I hadn’t been able to find her in the gardens. She was moving anxiously, hands dancing across complicated-looking pieces of machinery as easily as they ever did with the little toys she made in the harem.

  She twisted something, stepping back suddenly. The whole circle of soldiers took a step back with her.

  For two heartbeats nothing happened.

  And then the machine came alive.

  The bars of the cage started to move, slowly at first. Then faster.

  Inside the machine, Fereshteh watched curiously as the blades moved. He didn’t look afraid, but panic was starting to rise in my chest. The machine whirred faster and faster, huge blades swinging in evenly paced circles, like each one was a moving horizon across a huge globe. The bronze blades rising like dawn, the dark iron blades cutting across bringing the sunset. Faster and faster. Until it was a blur of machine around the Djinni.

  A sense of dread filled my chest. We had to free him. We had to free him now before it was too late. I started to move forward, blind to the danger. And then one of the pieces of the machine, an iron blade, snapped into place. It swung suddenly, arching upwards towards the sky. It froze there for a moment. I saw what was going to happen a second before it did.