Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(88)

‘Wait.’ I cut her off before she could chase her own thoughts too far away from me. ‘What do you mean you almost took their throne?’

‘Fereshteh promised.’ She said it with the certainty of a child repeating something she truly believed. Who didn’t understand that promises were just words. But Fereshteh was a Djinni. If it was dangerous for Demdji to make promises, how bad was one from a real live Djinni? A thousand stories of Djinni promises granted in horrifying torturous ways tumbled towards the front of my mind.

‘I figured out that the harem was an unwinnable game, early on. The only real way to win is by becoming the mother not just to a prince but a Sultim. Only Kadir can’t sire any princes. And Fereshteh was just there, in the harem gardens one day. Like he’d stepped out of a story and into my life to save me. And he said that he could give me a son. And just like that I had a way to win the unwinnable game. To survive past Kadir losing interest in me in his bed and become the Sultima.’ Her eyes were far away. ‘And when I touched him he turned from fire to flesh. And he asked what I would wish for our child.’

‘What do you mean, what you wished?’ My mouth had gone dry.

Shira’s bloodshot eyes snapped open, like she’d been startled from the edge of drifting to sleep. ‘He said he could grant me a single wish for his child. Every Djinni can.’

‘Shira.’ I chose my words carefully. ‘You’ve heard the stories as well as I have. A wish from a Djinni—’

‘In the stories men steal wishes. They trick and lie and cheat for an easy way to change their fortunes. That’s why the Djinn twist them. Thieves don’t prosper from wishes. But if the wish is given freely …’ Then there was no need to twist it. They could really give someone their heart’s desire.

‘You wished for more than a prince.’ But my mind wasn’t wholly with Shira any more. It was racing across the sands back to Dustwalk. To my own mother. If she’d been given the chance to wish for anything, what had she wished for me? What great boon had my father granted to me? ‘You wished for your son to be Sultan.’

‘The only way to win the game.’ Shira tipped her head back against the cold stone wall, a small sigh slipping through her lips. That was when the tears started to come. ‘I wished to be the mother of a ruler. I wouldn’t have to scrape to survive any more. I could have everything I ever wanted.’ A Djinni’s word was truth. If Fereshteh had promised Shira that Fadi would be Sultan one day, what did that mean for Ahmed? ‘But I lost.’ Tears rolled down her face. I’d never seen Shira cry before. It looked unnatural on her somehow.

‘Shira, do you want me to go?’

‘No.’ She didn’t open her eyes. ‘You’re right. Nobody wants to die alone.’

I expected to feel grief. But all I found inside was anger. And suddenly I was furious. And I didn’t know who I was angry at. At myself for not getting her out quickly enough. At her for being stupid enough to get caught. At the Sultan for doing this to both of us.

‘I should have wished for something else,’ she said finally as the tears stopped. When she opened her eyes again there was a fire there I’d never seen in her. One I suddenly realised had been there all along. Back in Dustwalk when I thought I’d been the only one who wanted to get out as badly as I did. In the harem when I thought I was the only one hiding something. She’d just veiled it a whole lot better than I had. ‘Tell me that you’re going to win, Amani. That you’re going to kill them all. That you’re going to take our country away from them and that my son will be safe in a world that doesn’t want to destroy him. That’s my real wish. Tell me that.’

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, fighting for the words. Truth-telling was a dangerous game. There were so many words I wanted to say. No harm will come to your son. I’m not going to let it. Your son will live free and grow strong and clever. He will live to watch this rotten rule crumble. He will live to see tyrants fall and heroes rise in their place. He will have the childhood we never could. He will run until his legs are tired if he wants to, just chasing the horizon, or he will grow roots here if he’d rather. He will be a son any mother would be proud of and no harm will ever come to him in the world that we are going to make after you are gone.

It was too dangerous to promise any of that. I wasn’t an all-powerful Djinni; I couldn’t make promises. All I could manage was, ‘I don’t know what will happen, Shira. But I do know what I’m fighting for.’

‘You’d better.’ Shira leaned her head against the cool metal. ‘Because I’m going to die for it. That’s what I traded your rebellion for.’ Her tears had dried now. ‘I promised them that if they got my son out, I would show this city how a desert girl dies.’

*

The crowd in the square outside the palace was restless and roaring with noise. I could hear it before I even reached the balcony at the front of the palace. It was nearly dusk and they’d taken Shira away. They had offered her fresh clothes, but she’d turned them down. She hadn’t been dragged; she hadn’t fought or wailed. She’d stood up when they came for her, like a Sultima going to greet her subjects instead of a girl going to die.

She’d made me promise I would stay with her until the end. I might not be able to follow her onto the execution platform, but I wasn’t about to break a promise to a dying girl. Nobody tried to stop me as I strode through the palace halls, Imin trailing me like