Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(81)

‘The rebels raided an incoming shipment of weapons at the south gate yesterday.’ The Sultan spoke again. ‘How do you think they knew where those were, Rahim?’

I was sure the Sultan could hear my heart speed up. I knew exactly which shipment he meant. They knew because Rahim had told me and I’d told Sam. Did he suspect us? Was it an accusation? Or was he asking his son’s military advice as a peace offering? I prayed wildly that he wouldn’t turn the question on me, that it wouldn’t be in this moment that we lost everything.

‘There is a war going on.’ Rahim kept his eyes straight ahead, over his father’s head, like a soldier at attention. ‘Your soldiers are unhappy. Unhappy soldiers drink and they talk.’ He chose his words so carefully that they were true. That I could have repeated them without hesitation. Though not carefully enough not to insult his father’s rule.

‘We killed two rebels in the raid,’ the Sultan said. My stomach clenched. A list of possible rebels I knew cascaded through my head. Imagining them all dead. Suddenly I desperately wanted to run to the Weeping Wall and Sam and find out who. Find out if I’d never be seeing Shazad again. Or Hala. Or one of the twins. But the Sultan wasn’t watching me. His gaze was on Rahim. Waiting for a reaction? ‘Next time I want one alive for questioning. Your soldiers from Iliaz seem well trained. Have Lord Bilal designate half of them to join the city guards on patrol.’ My shoulders eased in relief.

‘As you wish, Father.’ Rahim didn’t wait to be dismissed. He just offered his father a quick bow before turning on his heel.

And then it was just me and him. A long moment passed in silence. I half thought the Sultan had forgotten me. I was about to point out that I hadn’t been dismissed when the Sultan spoke again.

‘You’re from the end of the desert.’ It wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

‘The very end,’ I agreed. There was nothing after Dustwalk but uninhabitable mountains.

‘They say your people’s blood runs thicker with the old stories than elsewhere.’ That much was true. That was how Tamid had known how to control Noorsham. How to trap a Djinni. All the things that the north had forgotten. ‘Do you know the stories of the Abdals?’

I did.

In the days before humans the Djinn made servants out of dirt. Simple creatures made from clay and animated only when they were given orders by a Djinni. Good for nothing except to follow orders from their immortal masters.

‘The Abdals were as much their creation as we are, and yet the holy texts refer to humans as the first children of the Djinn. I understand why now.’ He riffled his hands through his hair as he leaned back in his chair. It was an exasperated gesture that looked so much like Ahmed it made me homesick. ‘The Abdals didn’t have it in them to be nearly so difficult as children.’

‘Abdals would be a fair bit harder to leave a country to, though.’ It slipped out before I could bite my tongue. I was too comfortable with him. He might look like him, but he wasn’t Ahmed. But the Sultan surprised me by laughing.

‘True enough. Though it would be easier to govern over a country full of Abdals. I wouldn’t have to constantly try to convince them I am doing what is best for them.’ One of the maps pinned up on the wall showed the whole world. Miraji was in the middle. Amonpour crowding our borders on one side. Gallandie looming over the north, swallowing countries as it went towards Jarpoor and the Ionian Peninsula and Xicha, the country that had sheltered Ahmed, Jin, and Delila for years. Albis a fortress holding against Gallandie’s expansion in the sea and Gamanix on land. It was a big world. ‘The people of Miraji are rising up in protest of the Gallan, of the Albish, of the Xichian, of all our foreign friends and enemies.’

I swallowed and felt the pain in my throat from where I’d almost just been choked to death by one such foreigner. ‘So don’t renew an alliance with them.’

I knew I’d overstepped. I knew as soon as the words left my mouth. But the Sultan didn’t rage at me the way he had at his sons. He didn’t sneer at me. He didn’t try to explain to me like he had when we sat across from each other over dinner in the next room.

‘You’re dismissed, Amani.’ And somehow that was worse than anything else he could’ve said.





Chapter 31

‘I think they’re fading.’ Leyla inspected the marks along my throat. They’d bloomed into a glorious necklace of purple fingerprints by the next day. ‘They ought to be gone by Auranzeb.’ That seemed to be everyone in the harem’s biggest worry on my behalf. That my near death would clash with my khalat. Across the garden I could see two women whispering behind their hands, casting me looks. Good God, I hated this place. Leyla’s gentle hands dropped away. ‘I really think you ought to go see Tamid, though; he might be able to give you something for that.’

‘I’ll survive.’

Her big eyes were wide with something unspoken.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Rahim told me, about Auranzeb. About getting out. And just … I wouldn’t want to leave Tamid behind.’

I started. Had Tamid told her about me? That I’d done exactly that? Was that a jab meant to hit me in that old wound? But there didn’t seem to be any kind of malice behind her words.

Leyla bowed her head, brushing her hair nervously behind her ear, avoiding my gaze. She was in love with Tamid. Or at least she thought she was. She was still shy of sixteen. And she’d spent her whole life trapped in a palace. Tamid had to be one of the first men our age she’d ever encountered who wasn’t a brother to her. No wonder she’d think she was in love with him.