Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(102)

It held.

And still held as Jin tugged his way across. One inch at a time, leaving a trail of blood behind.

All I could do from the wall was watch, heart in my throat, as every tug brought him closer to me. He was nearly halfway across when the lock to the door broke.

Kadir burst through in a storm of rage.

I had my gun up and pointed before he had made it to the balcony. I didn’t have any bullets. Just a bluff. ‘Touch that rope and I can make you sorry that you were ever born, Kadir.’

‘You’re lying.’ But he didn’t come any closer, rooted, chest heaving with rage.

‘I’m a Demdji.’ I pulled the hammer back on the empty gun. ‘I can’t lie.’

Neither of us moved. We were in a stand-off now. I stood on the wall, gun up, pointing it straight at Kadir as Jin dragged himself the rest of the way across the rope. One inch at a time. Slowly. Slowly. He didn’t have to be fast; he just had to be faster than Kadir’s brain worked. Faster than the Sultim would take to realise I had nothing but an empty gun.

‘Kadir.’ The voice at the door made me jump so hard that I had to steady myself on the wall.

The Sultan was alone, stepping through the door. There were no guards with him. No Abdals.

‘Father.’ Kadir held out one hand. ‘Careful, she has a gun.’

His gaze darted from me to Kadir, to the gun, back to Kadir. His mind wouldn’t work nearly so slow as his eldest son’s. I urged Jin silently to hurry. He was a handbreadth away now.

The Sultan dropped a hand on his firstborn’s shoulder. ‘Oh, my son. You are a fool.’

Then the Sultan pulled out a knife.

I started to shout, started an empty threat that I couldn’t finish with no bullets left in the gun. A promise to stay in the palace if he let Jin leave. Anything that might buy Jin the last few moments he needed to get across before the Sultan cut through the rope and killed him.

He didn’t slash towards the rope. Instead the blade in his hand went straight through Kadir’s throat.

It was a clean kill, like with a hunting prize. So clean that when Kadir dropped to the ground, the annoyed protest was still written all over his face. So fast that I didn’t have time to cry out before he was on the ground.

The shock rippled through me, freezing my tongue, my whole body.

The Sultan looked up at me calmly, wiping his firstborn’s blood onto the dead prince’s shirt. And suddenly I was sitting across the table from him again. Listening to him tell me that his sons would drive this country into dust under foreign heels. That Kadir wasn’t any more fit to rule than Ahmed.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do for this country, Amani. The Sultan turned to face me. He wasn’t stupid. He was going to figure out I was out of bullets pretty fast. I had to keep him busy, just a few moments. Until Jin made it across.

‘You know, it’s been a while since I went to prayers.’ There was a weight crushing my chest as I spoke. I had hated Kadir. But, God, seeing him like that, with his eyes staring glassily up at the night sky, blood still gushing from his throat … ‘But I’m pretty sure God frowns on killing your own son.’

‘Ah, yes.’ The Sultan smiled placatingly. ‘Cursed is the one who kills his own blood. Remember what we are celebrating, Amani: my ascent to this throne. I think I am past being able to escape that curse. Besides, Kadir would not have made a good ruler. It’s my own fault, really. He was born too early in my reign. I was scarcely older than he is – was.’ He spared a glance down at the body bleeding out on the balcony. ‘I’d planned that the throne would pass him by, go straight to my grandchild, but of course, that wasn’t to be. I hadn’t counted on that power-hungry little wife of Kadir’s to be so resourceful.’ Shira. She had been dead a few days and already her name was being erased. When they told the stories of what happened in this war, was that all she would be, the power-hungry Sultima? He looked back at me. ‘And I have to admit, I had not anticipated you managing to get yourself free.’ He almost looked impressed. ‘How did you do it?’

‘You’ve overestimated the loyalty of your own people.’ I wasn’t going to give him Tamid’s name. ‘Do you really think this is going to save them? Make them rally to you again? Slaughtering anyone who stands in your way?’

‘It’s not about the dead foreigners downstairs, Amani. It’s about all the ones left alive overseas.’ The Sultan looked at me over the barrel of the gun. ‘Do you know what happens in a country when the throne changes hands, Amani? Turmoil. Civil war. Too much war for them to turn their minds to invading us again anytime soon. And by the time they do, I will have an army of Abdals ready to defend our borders.’

An army of clay men with Demdji powers. Put that at our borders and he was right, we’d never be invaded again.

‘The Demdji before you …’ He meant Noorsham. He never used his name, like he never had mine until the day I’d killed that duck. Like we were things to him. ‘He burned so bright. But I lost the protection he would’ve given this country.’ Because I set him free. ‘I wondered if I could re-create his fire. If I could create a bomb out of metal with the power of a Djinni. And instead I found the right fire to create life. Because that’s what the Djinni fire is. It’s life. It’s energy. It gave us life. And I have just harnessed it. Not to destroy. To power this country. The Gallan claim the time of magic is over and turn to machinery. The Albish cling to their old ways. We will be among the countries that unite the two.’