Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(70)

‘You’re not meant to be here, are you?’ Bahadur finally spoke.

I’d only briefly wondered about my father in the years since I’d figured out that my mother’s husband wasn’t really my father. With my blue eyes, I’d always figured he was some foreign soldier, and I didn’t want to be half-foreign. So I didn’t think about it.

I’d been a bit more curious since finding out I was a Demdji. Since I’d learned my eyes were a mark my father left me along with my power. I’d wondered what I would feel when I finally came face-to-face with him, just the two of us.

I hadn’t expected that I’d feel so much anger.

‘I’m here because I need to know how to free you.’ I crossed my arms over my body, locking my anger inside my gut. There was no room for it here, no time. ‘Not because I especially care whether or not you ever get to go back to making me some more Demdji siblings who might destroy the world. But I might care if the Sultan uses you to burn all his enemies alive or bury their cities in sand.’

‘I only buried a city in sand once.’ He meant Massil, I realised. I’d been there, with Jin. Before I even knew what I was. Before we crossed the sand sea.

‘You didn’t think that might’ve been an overreaction?’ I asked.

Bahadur watched me carefully, never blinking those blue eyes. ‘I don’t need you to free me, Amani. I have existed since time began. This is not the first time I have been summoned and held by a mortal with more greed than caution. Eventually, I always find myself free, one way or another. When it happens doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, it matters to me.’ The words came out more violently than I’d meant them to. ‘You might live forever. But our kind is known for running out of time. This is all the time I have. This is all the time any of us has. And we’ve got a war to win before it’s over and lives that’ll get lost earlier if we don’t. So tell me, if you’ve been captured so many times before, are there words to free you?’

‘There are, though I do not know them. But there is another way. One you already know. Because you know the story of Akim and his wife.’

My mother had told me that story when I was young. I hadn’t thought of it in years. Akim was a scholar. A wise man, but a poor one. Knowledge did not often bring wealth, no matter what the holy texts said. And in his studies he stumbled across the true name of a Djinni.

He used this to summon the Djinni to him and trap him in a circle of iron coins.

One day while descending to get more sugar from the basement, Akim’s wife found the Djinni. She was much neglected by her husband in favour of his books. And so she was easily tempted by the Djinni. He told her that if she only freed him, he could give her the child she so desired.

So Akim’s wife broke the circle of coins that held the Djinni and freed him.

At this point in the story, my mother would usually pause dramatically before throwing a handful of gunpowder in the fireplace and letting it explode. Releasing the Djinni without banishing him with the right words was like releasing a dam of fire.

The Djinni burned Akim’s wife alive, and with her, the rest of the house.

‘You killed Akim and his wife.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a truth.

‘Yes.’ There wasn’t a hint of remorse there. ‘That might have been an overreaction,’ he admitted.

We would have to break the circle. Only this circle wasn’t made of coins. It was set into the ground. We’d need something powerful. Something like gunpowder.

Bahadur was my father. I didn’t think he’d burn me inside out. But there was no telling.

‘There were other ways for you to learn how to free me. There are others with this knowledge.’ Bahadur watched me from inside the circle. He was inhumanly still. He didn’t shift with restlessness or fiddle with his clothing as a human would. ‘Why did you really take such pains to come see me, Amani?’

‘Do you remember my mother?’ I hated myself for asking. For caring if he remembered one woman out of what I was sure were many in thousands of years. ‘Zahia Al-Fadi. From Dustwalk. Do you remember her?’

‘I remember everyone.’ Did I imagine the change in my father’s voice, the slight shift from the flat empty tone he’d addressed me with so far? ‘Your mother was very beautiful. You look like her. She was running away from her home. Through the mountains. She wouldn’t have made it very far. She had enough supplies for a few days, not a real escape. She would have been forced to turn back or die eventually. I had sprung one of your people’s ancient traps. The ones you set for the Buraqi. Crude, but, being iron, it did what it should have. Zahia found me in it. She released me.’

‘So why didn’t you save her?’ There it was. The question I’d really wanted to ask. Not whether my mother had made any kind of lasting mark on this immortal, powerful being, but why it hadn’t been enough for him to save her life. How he could leave her with me, a child who she’d eventually die protecting, and not have the decency to step in. ‘You could have, couldn’t you? You could have saved her.’

‘Yes. I could have appeared on the day your people chose to hang her and I could have cut her down and carried her away. Like in all those stories she told you as a child. But to what end? To keep her in a tower for a handful more years as my wife? She was mortal. Even you, who have a little bit of my fire, you will die, too, one day. Dying is what you do. It is the only thing that you all do without fault or fail. If I had saved her then, she would have died another way later.’