Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands #1)(42)

I felt helpless. Standing in the dark, invisible, as someone else was about to die in front of me. The same way I had when Tamid was held across from me, a gun to his leg.

The prayer for the dead echoed loudly off the walls. It reached its crescendo as she called out for forgiveness of her sins. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Then a gunshot. I felt it down to my gut.

The praying stopped abruptly. I bit down on my thumb, trying not to scream.

“You will have her body burned.” The general’s voice swirled out of the dark. “And tell any who asks we have taken her prisoner.”

When I opened my eyes again she was slumped on the ground, motionless, blood pooling around her ruined forehead. Noorsham had drawn away against a wall, as far as his chains would go, and was staring at the body, too.

“Why?” Naguib said. His voice was flat for once—it had lost that clipped edge. “She’s already dead. What’s the point in pretending?”

“It is one of the games we play, young prince. Your father and I.” The Gallan general holstered his pistol. “I was there, the night of the coup, you know. The night your father took the throne. I was only a young soldier then. But I stood behind my general as your father made an agreement with him, and I know what was said better than most. Even my king, perhaps. I know that in public, the Sultan agreed to our authority, but he did not agree for us to strip your country of its sinful demon worship you call religion. But I also know what went unspoken but understood.”

Naguib took a breath like he was going to respond, but the general barreled on, seeming to gather momentum as he spoke.

“My mother, too, lay with a demon, much as your father’s wife did—the mother of that rebel son he cannot seem to control. My mother gave birth to this squalling and green creature instead of a baby. My father did as he should do. He had my mother bound in iron and thrown into the sea to drown. The baby he gave to me to deal with. It looked like it came from the ground. So I returned it to the ground. It was still screaming when I shoveled dirt over it.”

I saw Naguib’s throat constrict, as if he were swallowing his reply.

“When that demon child was born in the Sultan’s palace, I admired your father for taking it upon himself to kill his wife by his own hand, following Gallan law. I remember thinking we had made the right choice in this man who saw eye-to-eye with Gallan values, though not all of your country agreed. And so, to keep the peasants quiet, we pretend these children of demons will be tolerated, and quietly, they are handed over to us and forgotten about. But your city guard tried to hide this prisoner from us and deliver her to you instead.”

“The city guard is unused to such a large Gallan presence here. They do not know your ways.” Naguib sounded like a kid quibbling with a parent.

“This desert is wavering,” the Gallan general ignored him. “Your rebel brother’s foothold is getting stronger. And Dassama is a great loss to us.”

“He’s not my brother,” Naguib spat. “My father has rejected him.”

“You are a greater insult to him as a brother than he is to you,” General Dumas snapped. “Rumor in Izman is that your father speaks often of how he wishes his faithful sons were as strong and clever as his dissident one. Do you think I do not know that you scorned him by coming here on your demon-breed sand horses?”

Sand horses. He meant Buraqi. My heart jumped.

One Buraqi was all it had taken to distract Dustwalk enough for Jin to slip out and blow up the factory. If there was more than one, that could be one hell of a distraction.

“There is no law—” Naguib began.

“No, just the games we play,” General Dumas interrupted him. He took a step forward, and Naguib faltered back. “I earned my first rank because I killed three of your uncles the night of your father’s coup—men who had supported the sinful ways of magic and demons like your grandfather. I am very good at disposing of princes. I am here to find and kill your brother, but I decide who my enemies are, young prince.”

“My father—”

“Your father has more sons than there are hours in the day. I wonder whether he would even notice you were gone?”

General Dumas turned on his heel and walked away. Naguib lingered, and he and Noorsham both watched the general go. When his steps had faded. Naguib spoke again, to Noorsham, too low for me to hear. And then Naguib was gone, too.

I leaned against the wall for a long time, shaking, the last of the light fading around us.

“Amani?” Noorsham called into the dark. I didn’t have much time. Jin would try to come after me soon.

“Noorsham.” I stepped out from the shadows. I could just make him out in the lamplight leaking through the cracks of the door from the yard outside. He looked scared. “Tell me where the prison and the stables are, and I’ll get you out of this.”

? ? ?

I WONDERED IF Jin could see me on my rooftop perch from his. It was dark now, and even the light of a full moon wasn’t enough to make out a single form plastered on a roof above the barracks with a gun. He’d told me not to do anything stupid. But it was damned stupid of them to leave a window open in the stables. And I’d be damned stupid if I didn’t take advantage of it.

I gripped the edge of the roof and eased myself off slowly, my foot looking for purchase on the windowsill. More than once, I’d climbed in and out of Tamid’s window with a bruised-up back to trade him one of my hoarded books for some of his pain pills. I could hang on to the edge of the roof the same way I used to hang off Tamid’s window ledge and do just fine. Or at least have about the same chance of cracking my skull open as I did then.