Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(51)

But their nameless son survived that darkest day. And the one that followed. He lived through his first winter and into the spring. And he lived through his second winter. And, in his second spring, he finally earned a name.

The once-nameless boy was quick and clever and had a talent for going places he was not meant to be, so long as the walls were made of stone. And he saw that his family was poor while others were rich and he did not think this was fair. So when his mother became sick, in the boy’s seventh winter, he took food from kitchens with more shelves than his to feed her and he took silver from other houses to buy her medicine. That was how he walked into the castle on the hill that belonged to the lord of that county, and into the life of the lord’s young daughter.

The lord’s young daughter was lonely in the great castle, but she was rich, too, and she had learned she could have anything by asking for it. So when she asked for the boy’s friendship, he gave it to her gladly. He taught her games and she taught him to read. She learned she was gifted at skipping stones across a pond on a bright summer day and he learned he was gifted at languages spoken in distant corners of the world.

As they grew older, he became healthy and strong and handsome. So handsome that the lord’s daughter noticed. She was still rich and there had never been anything in the world that she could not get simply by asking. So when she asked for the boy’s heart, he gave that to her gladly, too.

The two met secretly in all the hidden places they had found together as children.

The once-nameless boy’s brothers warned him against the lord’s daughter. They had all married poor girls who lived in the shadow of the great castle and though they were poor, they were all happy enough. But the once-nameless boy had read too many stories of worthy farmers’ sons who married princesses, and highwaymen who stole rich ladies’ hearts, to heed his brothers’ warnings. He believed that he had stolen the girl’s heart as well as gifted her his.

So the boy was greatly surprised when it was announced to the whole county that the lord’s daughter was to be married to the second son of the lord from a neighbouring county.

The once-nameless boy left word for the lord’s daughter asking her to meet him in their secret place by the water. He waited there all night, but she did not come. He waited the next night and still she did not come; and the next night after that, too. Finally, the night before the lord’s daughter was to be wed, the once-nameless boy walked through the walls of the castle and, there, he found the lord’s daughter, pale hair spread across a white silk pillow, beautiful and fair in the moonlight. He knelt by her bed and woke her from her slumber and asked her to come away with him, to run away and marry him. He was on his knees, but he did not beg because he never thought he would need to. He never imagined she would refuse him. But the lord’s daughter did not take his hand. Instead she laughed at him and called her guards, handing him back his heart on the way out of the castle.

And so he learned then that girls with titles did not marry once-nameless boys.

The boy became determined to no longer be nameless. So he signed his life to his queen and donned a uniform, pledging to earn his name by fighting for his sovereign and his land. He travelled to a kingdom across the sea, the land without winter.

There, instead of a name for himself, he found blood and guns and sand. He knew that nobody lost their names as quickly as the dead, so he fled once more. He hid himself in the sprawling city of Izman, a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds like he’d never known. When he first grew hungry he remembered what he had once been good at: going places he didn’t belong. He stole a loaf of bread his first night in the city, which he ate sitting atop a prayer house, looking out over the rooftops. On the second night he stole a fistful of foreign coins that he traded for a bed. On his third he took a necklace which could have easily fed all his parents’ children for a year. As he learned to slip in and out with ease among the streets, he heard a name being whispered. One that didn’t truly seem to belong to anyone. A legend. So he took it for himself. He used the name to take other things. Rich people’s jewels and careless men’s wives. He even stole a princess’s heart, like the thieves in the stories he knew. But this time he was not foolish enough to give his in return. He had learned not to give things away to anyone who asked.

And so he had a name. And it fit him so well that he almost started to believe it was truly his. Until he met the girl who it belonged to. The girl in the harem with eyes that could light the world on fire. She was asking for his help.

He was to carry a message to a general’s daughter. He found her home easily. It was a large house with a red door in the wealthiest part of the city. He waited on a corner, watching the door, servants coming and going, watching people wearing a small fortune’s worth of jewels on their hands wave at each other, as he waited for the girl.

Finally he saw the general’s daughter.

He knew her before she even placed her hand on the red door. She was beautiful enough that it was as difficult to look at her as it was to stare at the sun. She was like something crafted her whole life with the purpose only to be seen and coveted. And she moved with the easy certainty of someone who knew that her place in the world was above most.

As soon as he saw her he recognised her, though they had never met.

Her hair and skin and eyes were dark, where the lord’s daughter had been as pale as milk. Her clothes were colours stolen from the Djinn, where the lord’s daughter’s had been the colours of the rainy skies and the rivers and the fresh grass. But they were the same. She was the kind of girl who thought she deserved everything just by asking for it.