Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(62)

I ignored the meat and leaned across the table to spear another candied orange straight off the skin of the duck instead. It hit my tongue in a burst of sweet and bitter like nothing I’d ever had. I leaned across again to take another one while I was still chewing the first. I caught sight of a faint smile on the Sultan’s face. ‘What?’ I asked, mouth full.

‘Nothing.’ The Sultan was still toying with the knife in his hand. ‘I just wish you could see the look on your face. If it could be bottled, it would be the elixir the alchemist Midhat was hunting for.’ In the stories, Midhat was an alchemist of great talent and great misery who lost his mind trying to make and bottle joy since he could not find it in the world. ‘Then again’ – the Sultan switched his grip on the knife, sawing at the meat of the duck I’d killed – ‘if I could’ve bottled the look on our foreign friends’ faces when you dropped this onto the council table, that would also give me a great deal of joy.’ He carved a leg of the duck and placed it on his own plate. Last time I’d eaten a duck, it’d been one Izz had caught in Iliaz. It still had the marks of a crocodile’s teeth through it, and the fat spat off it into the fire, making Jin curse when a bit sizzled and hit his wrist. Now I was taking food from the same hands that had held his mother down and claimed her by force when the Sultan was the same age as Jin. Probably in these same rooms.

‘Your Exalted Highness.’ The servant had appeared at the door so silently that I started. He was dropped into a deep bow at the door. ‘The Gallan ambassador has asked to see you. I advised him you were otherwise occupied, but he has been very insistent.’

‘The Gallan ambassador summons me to him in my own palace.’ The Sultan sounded more resigned than anything as he pushed away from the table. ‘Excuse me.’ My eyes followed him all the way to the door.

I was on my feet as soon as he’d disappeared.

I flung open two wrong doors until I found the one that led to his office.

Facing me, instead of a wall, was a huge glass window overlooking Izman. From all the way up here, in the night, the city looked like a second sky, windows dancing with lights like stars across an otherwise dark sea. The Sultan’s kingdom spread out below him. It was the closest I’d come to Izman since the day I woke up in Tamid’s workroom. I resisted the impulse to press my hands against the glass like a child.

The other three walls seemed designed to match the window by night. Blue plaster, inset with what looked like yellow glass stars that would catch the sun in the day.

It reminded me of Ahmed’s pavilion. Back in a home that was gone now.

I tried to imagine my prince here, when we took the city, keeping the peace.

But right now we were still in the middle of a war and I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to find something that might win it.

The room was dominated by a huge desk that was covered in papers and books and maps and pens. I doubted he’d miss some of it if it went missing. It was just a question of what to take.

The Sultan is coming back. I tried to say the words out loud, but they wouldn’t cross my tongue. I was safe for now, as I started to carefully lift papers off the desk, holding them up to the glow of light from the city through the window. I tried over and over again to repeat the words as I worked. An early warning system. I found a sheet of paper scribbled with figures and numbers I didn’t understand. Another one was a map of Miraji. It detailed troop movements, but those I’d heard about already in the meeting earlier. My fingers faltered over a familiar-looking drawing of armour. It was the suit of metal they’d put on Noorsham. There were words scribbled along the edges. The ones used to control him.

There were more schematics like it underneath. And others for what looked like machine parts. One of the pieces of paper was held down by a tiny piece of metal the size of a coin. My name was carved into it along with a jumble of other words in the first language. So this was what I had under my skin. I fought my urge to fling it through the window and watch the glass shatter.

I took one of the sketches and kept exploring. I pulled out a few interesting-looking pieces of paper. One looked like supply routes. Shazad would be able to decipher that easier than I could. There was another one that looked like a map of Izman. There were dots of red ink interspersed across the paper. I held it up to the light, trying to figure out what they might be marking. But I didn’t know Izman.

‘The Sultan is coming back.’ The words slipped out into the silence of the room, setting off a jump of panic in my chest. I didn’t have any pockets. I shoved the papers into the waist of my shalvar as I hurried out of the study, tugging my kurti back down over it.

I was back at the table picking at my food when the Sultan reappeared, taking his seat across from me. ‘What did he want?’ I asked as he picked the knife back up. I prayed he couldn’t hear the raggedness of my breathing.

‘You.’ He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that it took me aback. ‘You know, in the Gallans’ so-called religion they believe First Beings are creatures of evil. And their children are monsters.’

‘I know what they believe.’ My mouth had suddenly gone dry. I reached for the pitcher of sweet wine. The sudden movement made the paper stuffed inside my clothes crackle and I stilled.

‘They want me to hand you over.’ If the Sultan had noticed the noise, then he was doing a mighty fine job of hiding it. ‘To be brought to justice, they say. Which is a pretext, of course. They are hiding behind religious righteousness because they don’t want to admit that you are a serious threat to their being able to lie to my face and sway an alliance back in their favour.’