Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(56)

‘Things can be a distraction and serve the cause at the same time.’ Shazad was still pulling me towards the gate. ‘Can you walk any faster than this?’

My mind caught up too slow. I pulled Shazad to a stop. ‘It wouldn’t matter if I could outrun a Buraqi. I’m trapped.’ I filled her in as quickly as I could, as chaos reigned around us still. The iron under my skin, and one piece of bronze, allowing the Sultan to control me.

Shazad’s face darkened as she listened. She took it in with the same sharpened focus she always had when things were serious. ‘So we cut it out of you.’

‘I know I’m not as clever as you but that did cross my mind,’ I deadpanned to her. ‘It could be anywhere and I’m as likely to bleed out as anything if you start sticking knives into me.’

‘I’m not leaving you here,’ Shazad argued.

‘You don’t have a choice right now,’ I said. ‘Shazad—’ I was long on things I wanted to say to her and short on time. Soon enough, the chaos Izz had created was going to die down and someone was going to notice us. There was only one thing that mattered. One last piece I hadn’t told her. ‘The Sultan has a Djinni.’

Shazad opened her mouth. Then closed it. ‘Say that again.’

There wasn’t a whole lot Shazad couldn’t do. She could command armies; she could form strategies that she could see play out eight steps ahead of anyone else. She could fight and maybe even win a war that we were outnumbered and outgunned in. But there was outgunned and then there was fighting a gun with a stick. If the Sultan had even one Djinni, that wasn’t anything an army of mortals could stand against.

‘So we need to get both you and this Djinni—’

‘Bahadur,’ I filled in, even though I wasn’t sure why it mattered. He was just another Djinni. He was a Djinni who had fathered me and whose name was half of mine. But he wasn’t my father. Izz screamed and dove low. Guns went off. We both ducked on instinct.

‘—both you and Bahadur out of the palace.’ She made it sound simple.

‘Freeing a Djinni isn’t like breaking Sayyida out of prison.’ Not that that had exactly ended well anyway. ‘He’s trapped here, just like I am.’

‘I’ll get some people to look into it.’ Shazad pushed her hair impatiently off her face. Somehow, even dressed up to look as harmless as a flower, there was no mistaking what she was capable of. ‘God knows, half of the Rebellion isn’t doing anything useful right now. Izman is its own kind of prison. And it’s swarming with soldiers since the ceasefire.’

‘Ceasefire?’ I interrupted.

Shazad looked at me, startled, like for a moment she’d forgotten I’d been absent. Her mouth pressed into a grim line as she broke the news. ‘The Sultan has called for a ceasefire. An end to the fighting with the invaders until their foreign rulers can come to Izman to negotiate a new alliance. That’s the news Jin was bringing us back from the Xichian camp before—’ she hesitated, ‘—everything.”

The mention of Jin made my heart clench. Something about the way she said his name was off. But I had more pride in myself than to ask about him when we were at war.

‘That’s why the palace is swarming with foreigners,’ I said instead, thinking of the crowd of uniforms and strange men we’d passed on our way here. ‘You think the foreigner rulers will come?’

‘Rumor has it one of the Princes of Xicha has already set sail. And the Gallan Emperor and Albish Queen have both sent their ambassadors ahead of them.’ I thought of the plain-clothed man whose eyes had chilled me. ‘They’ll come. If they don’t, there’s too great a chance the Sultan will make an alliance with one of their enemies. Meanwhile, soldiers from all sorts of places are flooding into the city from every border to pave the way.’ Shazad tapped her fingers to her thumb one after the other in quick sequence. It was a nervous gesture. It meant there was more. Problems she wasn’t telling me. Complications with the Rebellion that I wasn’t privy to.

‘What does that mean for us?’ I recognized this feeling of being helpless when there was so much to be done. I used to feel like this in Dustwalk.

‘Nothing good.’ She caught the nervous tic and stopped, balling her hand into a fist. ‘Especially now. But the Sultan can only ally with one country. As soon as an alliance is struck, war will spark again. The rumors say he’s planning to announce his new ally at Auranzeb. But until then …’ she trailed off. I knew what she meant. Until then we had trouble. And it could only get worse with the Sultan having an immortal being at his command.

My mind turned over. There might be another way to figure out how to free a Djinni. I’d just have to get out of the harem long enough to find out. But something kept me from mentioning that to Shazad. We were running out of time. Izz’s distraction could work only so long, and we couldn’t be caught conspiring.

But I couldn’t let her leave without asking: ‘Shazad, is everyone all right?’ I didn’t ask what I wanted to ask. It was stupid and selfish. But his name hammered against my teeth. Is Jin all right?

‘Not everyone.’ For not being a Demdji, Shazad had always been the honest sort. ‘Mahdi died in the escape from the camp and we couldn’t save Sayyida. A few others. But the death toll is as low as can be expected. Ahmed is alive, Delila, Hala, Imin, the twins. They’re all here in the city.’