Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands #3)(62)

Once upon a time, this fire had been a girl. Born in a desert at war, just like I was. Now her body was long gone and all that was left was the ever-burning fire of her soul.

‘Was she human?’ I asked Zaahir as we stopped an arm’s reach from the wall. ‘Ashra.’

‘I think you already know the answer to that, daughter of Bahadur,’ the Sin Maker said, his own coal-red eyes dancing over the wall of light.

I did.

I knew as soon as I saw the wall as a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. Ashra was another Demdji who had sacrificed herself for the wars of our fathers. Only for the stories to forget what she really was, just crowning her a hero instead. Just like they had with Princess Hawa, and probably hundreds of other Demdji.

When I was dead and gone, burned up by releasing Fereshteh’s fire, and they told the story of the Rebellion, I wondered if they’d forget me as a Demdji, too, and just remember that I was the Blue-Eyed Bandit.

We were almost at Eremot. Somewhere beyond this wall was whatever remained of our rebellion.

‘How do we get through?’ I asked.

‘Oh, it’s no trouble getting in.’ Zaahir knelt down, his movements strange and unnatural, like he was just pretending to use human muscles when he was really bending like a flame in the wind. He peeled a small stone from the floor of the tunnel like it was a blade of grass and tossed it. The pebble passed easily through Ashra’s Wall, landing on the other side with a few bounces. It didn’t even look singed. ‘This wall wasn’t made to keep anything out.’

A gust of unnatural wind rose around us, picking up the stone on the other side of the barrier, shooting it back towards us at full speed, aimed straight for my head. It hit the barrier, but this time, instead of passing through, it turned to dust, incinerating as it met the barrier. Just like the stone Jin had thrown at the wall back in Izman. ‘It’s made to keep things in.’

So that was what the Sultan had done. He had sent his prisoners in, never to come out again. Because it didn’t matter to him if they died down there. He would have killed them himself if he didn’t need disposable bodies.

He feigned mercy to his city, letting the rebels be imprisoned instead of executed. And then he sent them off to the dark to die quietly in a place where nothing could ever leave. Ending any trouble rebellious captives might be.

‘If we go in there,’ I said warily, ‘can you get us back out alive?’

‘Yes,’ Zaahir said cryptically. ‘I can.’ I didn’t trust Zaahir as far as I could throw a horse. But he wasn’t lying to me about this.

‘After you,’ I mimicked his words from earlier.

Our gazes locked for a long moment, a battle of wills passing between us. Zaahir finally nodded. ‘As you wish.’ And he moved forwards. He passed through the wall as if it were nothing but air, and then he was standing on the other side, watching me expectantly.

This was a bad idea. I knew this was a bad idea. But I’d done a lot of things that were bad ideas. Usually they turned out all right. This might be different though. This was a bad idea of mythic proportions. But what else was I supposed to do? I took a deep breath and tried not to think too hard about what I was doing as I stepped through a wall made of light.

It felt like passing through a patch of sunlight in between shady trees, pleasant and warm on my skin. And then I was stumbling through to the other side, next to my dubious Djinni ally.

Beyond Ashra’s Wall, the mountain didn’t look any different from the tunnel that Zaahir had created for us, but I could feel the change instantly. The air was filled with the taste of iron. Even worse than in Sazi. Probably not enough to take away my power, but I could feel my skin itching against it. I caught myself holding my breath for fear it was going to get into my lungs. I could see even Zaahir chafing against it as we moved through the dark tunnel and into the mountain.

It wasn’t long before we lost the last of the light from Ashra’s Wall behind us. The darkness made me nervous. It felt like we were ghouls in the night, stalking somewhere we shouldn’t be. Or like there might be things in here stalking us.

The ground sloped steeply into the belly of the mountain. We quickened our steps as it descended. I kept my eyes on my feet at first, careful of any stone that might trip me up, but the ground was remarkably smooth. At first I thought it had been swept clean; then, as the path narrowed, my hand brushed against the wall. It was smooth, too. Like it had been worn down by something. And suddenly my mind summoned up every image I had ever seen in the Holy Books, of the Destroyer of Worlds’ enormous monstrous snake, released in the early days of the war. And I imagined it down here, roaming through these mountains impatient for escape, wearing the walls smooth and round…. I stopped that thought in its tracks. That monster was dead. The First Hero had killed it.



But that didn’t mean there was nothing else down here.

For the first time in my whole life, I was alone.

I wasn’t crammed into a house with my aunt’s children. I wasn’t with Jin and a caravan crossing the desert. I wasn’t in a tent in the rebel camp with Shazad, there to watch my back if I needed her. I wasn’t surrounded by women in the harem. I wasn’t stacked on top of the remnants of the Rebellion in the Hidden House.

I’d wanted to keep them safe, but now I didn’t have Jin to back me up. I didn’t have the twins to fly me out of this if it all went wrong. I didn’t have Sam to crack a joke to break the silence that was carrying my mind away to fearful places.