Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands #3)(107)

I lingered at the edge of the celebration, unnoticed in the shadows as I scanned the crowd, looking for Jin. But another brother found me first.

‘A different celebration than we had last year,’ Ahmed said, appearing at my elbow from inside the palace. At least I wasn’t the only one running late.

‘You could say that.’ Last Shihabian we had been in the Dev’s Valley. In hiding. Without a kingdom. Without a single real victory. Without so many deaths. Last Shihabian we had been surrounded by a whole lot of people who were now just dust in the desert.

Ahmed was wearing a black kurta with gold braiding. His hair was carefully combed back, making him seem older than his nineteen years. He looked every inch a ruler.

Since the election last month, he’d spent all day, every day locked in some meeting or other, untangling the country he’d won. I was in some of the meetings, but not all. Today Rahim and Ahmed had conferred to decide what to do with our traitor princess, who was still imprisoned in Iliaz. The rest of us had made ourselves scarce. No one wanted to be called on to take sides over whether to treat her like a sister or an enemy.

‘Any decision?’ I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I entirely wanted to know.

But Ahmed just shook his head gravely. ‘We’re still at odds. Executing Leyla is what my father would have done. Shazad says we should make an example of her. Rahim wants me to spare her any grave punishment, of course. Though she hasn’t so much as spoken to him since …’ He trailed off and ran his thumb along the rim of the glass. ‘He brought more news of her from Iliaz. She’s carrying a child.’

Bilal’s, I realised. I wouldn’t put it past Leyla to have planned this, too. As a way to keep herself alive. She had to guess that Ahmed would struggle to deprive a child of its mother, no matter what her crimes. Not after the Sultan had taken Ahmed and Delila’s mother from them.

‘I don’t know.’ Ahmed sighed, casting his gaze over the party as we lingered on the outskirts for a few moments longer. The light and noise lapped out of the party, just barely brushing at us, inviting us in. ‘I don’t think there’s any possible victory against her. I’m beginning to understand my father better after his death. Making choices that he would be hated for because the alternative was worse.’

‘You’re not like your father,’ I replied, leaning against the cool stone palace wall. But he wasn’t wrong. If he killed Leyla, some would call him cruel and some would call him just. If he imprisoned her, some would call him weak and some would call him kind.

‘What would you do?’ Ahmed asked, catching me off guard.

‘To Leyla?’ I asked. ‘There’s a whole lot of things I can think of, but I hear you’re supposed to be nice to pregnant girls.’

Ahmed smiled, but he didn’t give way either. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’ He tapped the golden medallion around my neck. ‘I gave you the post of advisor for a reason. I want you to advise me.’

‘I’d exile her.’ It slipped out before I could think. But as soon as I’d said it I knew I meant it. Enough people had died in this war. Too many. And all to build this: a better place. A new dawn. A new desert. ‘Send her to Albis,’ I said, the idea getting clearer in my mind. ‘Or back to her mother’s homeland in Gamanix. Just make it clear that she can’t ever set foot in the desert again. Send the message to everyone that the worst punishment for treason isn’t death, it’s living somewhere other than the great country that you will build. It’s what I’d be most afraid of, having to leave my home.’ Ahmed regarded me, a faint smile playing over his mouth. ‘What?’ I asked defensively.

‘Nothing. Just … it would have been an unbelievable waste to us all if you had spent your life stuck in that town at the end of the desert.’ He offered me his arm. It was time for us to wade into Shihabian.

‘Don’t worry.’ I looped my arm through his, like I’d seen Shazad do at polite occasions. ‘Even if I was still stuck there, I would’ve voted for you.’

We walked into the celebration together.

Full dark came at midnight, as it always did. Snuffing out the fire. The moon. The stars. For just that moment, it was like being dead all over again in those vaults. Total darkness. And then Jin’s hand found mine. Reminding me that we were alive. That we were just a flicker of flame in a very long night. But we were here now.

Maybe Jin was right, down in the vaults on the day of the battle for Izman. Maybe there was nothing after this life. Maybe he and I would just be dust, forever searching for each other in the wind. But that wouldn’t be all we were. We would be stories long after we were gone. Imperfect, inaccurate stories. Stories that could never even come close to reality.

I had already started to hear the tale of how Jin and I were saved from death by the grace of the Djinn, who were so moved by our great love that they fed us flames until our bodies reignited.

Later, the stories would say that the Blue-Eyed Bandit and the Foreign Prince would fight many more battles for their country. And their adventures would be recounted to children around campfires at night. And the stories would say that when death finally came for them again, at the end of very long lives, it would claim them together, side by side, in a desert they had fought for.

But they would never tell that the Foreign Prince kept his promise to the Blue-Eyed Bandit and taught her how to swim. The stories would forget the small moments that she would remember: the way his fingers felt on her spine when he lifted her against him in the water of the baths in what used to be the harem. That it always made him smile when he kissed her and she tasted of salt. That she fought to learn for his sake, even though she felt like a flame being doused in water. The stories would only tell of the day the Blue-Eyed Bandit was on a ship in a storm and how she leaped from the deck as it sank and swam her way to the shore. And that from there she sent a wave of sand to save the sinking ship. But no storyteller would ever think to wonder how a girl from the desert learned to swim.