Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(67)

Kadir was the only person who seemed to be able to get a word out of Prince Rahim unsolicited. The two princes sparked off each other like angry flint. I remembered what the Sultan had said, that Rahim would make a good choice for Sultim if he weren’t so ruled by his emotions. So far I hadn’t seen any emotion from him except hatred for Kadir.

I returned to the harem every night to meet with Sam at dusk and hand over what I’d gathered.

What was left of the days belonged to me to spend however I wanted outside the walls of the harem. I explored as freely as I could, while carefully avoiding the foreigners who were gradually invading the palace. There were a hundred more gardens that bloomed so thick with flowers I could barely get the doors open, or where music seemed to drift through the walls along with a breeze that smelled of salt and bright air. It wasn’t until I climbed a tower that looked out over the water, and the same air picked up my clothes and hair in a rush, that I realised it was the sea. I’d spent my short time on the sea drugged and bound. But that wasn’t the memory the sea air stirred up. It was sitting on a dusty shop floor, as far from the water as I could be, with my fingers dancing along the tattoos on Jin’s skin.

Once, I rounded a corner to see a figure ahead walking with a limp that was so familiar I was ready to turn and run. I stopped walking so abruptly when I saw him that the guard accompanying me that day walked straight into me. The shame on his face was the most expression I ever got out of one of them. It was nice to know they were human somewhere under that uniform, at least. It turned out it was only an Albish soldier, wounded by a Mirajin bullet before the ceasefire. Besides, Tamid didn’t walk with a limp any more, I remembered.

I was putting on a good show of wandering aimlessly. But the Sultan wasn’t stupid enough to give me complete freedom in the palace, either; a soldier waited for me outside the gates of the harem every morning and latched on to me like a silent shadow. The soldier changed every day, and none spoke except to tell me when I was wanted at a meeting. If I tried to take a turn I wasn’t supposed to, my guard just became a new wall between me and whatever door or passageway I was heading for. A heavily armed wall that just stared straight ahead until I took the hint.

But I wasn’t about to give up. I needed to get back to Bahadur. The Djinni. My father. The Sultan’s new hidden weapon. I had to find a way to free him before the Sultan could use him to annihilate us.

*

I wished I wasn’t so familiar with the feeling of waking up in trouble. But the harem was softening me. Used to be, an intruder’s presence would’ve woken me well before getting close enough to put a blade against my neck.

I wrenched myself to sitting, heart racing in panic, ready to face whatever threat the night was bringing. Soldiers. Ghouls.

Worse. Ayet.

The light of the mostly full moon shivered along the blade in her hand as she drew away from me. Not a knife, I realised: scissors. More dangerous was the smile on her face. In her other hand, her fist was curled around a long dark braid.

My hand flew to my scalp. The last person who’d bothered to cut my hair was my mother before she died. In the years since, it had reached close to halfway down my spine, though it spent most of its time twisted under my sheema. Now it ended bluntly, just above my shoulders.

‘Let’s see how much he wants you now that you look like a boy.’ Ayet wound a piece of my slaughtered hair around her finger with a sneer.

Anger rushed through me, fiercer than anything so stupid and vain warranted. But I didn’t care if it was stupid and vain. I moved as fast as I knew how, lunging for her. Before she could so much as flinch, the scissors were in my hand. I might not be able to hurt her, but she didn’t know that. I pressed the blade against her throat and had the satisfaction of watching her eyes widen.

‘Listen to me.’ I had a grip on the front of her khalat before she could make a run for it. ‘I have bigger things to deal with than your jealousy about your husband’s wandering eyes. So why don’t you go take this out on someone who actually wants to steal him from you.’

Ayet laughed bitterly, throat moving against the blunt scissors pressed to her neck. ‘You really think this is jealousy? You think I want Kadir? What I want is to survive the harem. This place is a battlefield. And I think you must know that. Or else what did you do with Mouhna and Uzma?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Trying as hard as I could to stay out of the way of Kadir and his wives, I hadn’t been in the harem enough to notice anything about Uzma since she’d tried to humiliate me in court.

‘Uzma has disappeared.’ Ayet sneered, but I could see the fear behind those eyes now. Girls like her were dropping like flies and all she had to protect herself was a pair of scissors. ‘Just like Mouhna. People vanish out of the harem all the time. But Kadir only has three Mirajin wives. And then you arrive and two of them disappear. Do you think that’s a coincidence?’

‘No.’ Coincidence didn’t have so cruel a sense of humour. Jin said that to me once. ‘But I know this wasn’t me.’

*

It took me until midmorning the next day to find Shira. She was sprawled across a throne of cushions in the shade of a huge tree, attended by a half dozen servants. Two women stood guard, while one laid cool cloths on her skin, another fanned her, and another massaged her feet. The last one was immobile but ready, sweat beading down from the lip of the pitcher over her hands. She looked flushed and uncomfortable standing just outside of the shade.