Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1)(49)

My shirt had been replaced, but my sheema was still tied around my middle, and between it and my body was the compass. My heart raced in relief as I pulled it out.

My eyes dropped to a small pile of bottles and bandages in the corner, and among them, a knife that looked like it was for medicine. There was dried blood on it. I snatched it up. I needed to find out where I was. And I wasn’t going unarmed.

The sleeping boy was an easy guard to slip. Sunlight hit my face violently through the tent flap, blinding me the second I pushed outside.

Somebody had painted the world while I slept.

I’d thought green was the color of dusty scrub that fought its way up between stones—not this color that boasted its existence, unafraid, to the desert. Behind me the huge dusty gold of the cliff face loomed over the camp, but the sand surrendered quickly enough as it crept away from the walls. We were overlooking an oasis, a burst of color and life, scattered with people. At a glance I guessed it was about the size of Dustwalk, a hundred or so souls. Only comparing this place to Dustwalk was like comparing a Buraqi to a donkey. And at the center of it all rose a gold-and-red tower that was high enough to scratch the blue off the sky.

My legs decided to walk instead of surrendering me to the ground at the last second. I held the compass close to my body with one hand; the other one clutched the knife. I didn’t know how much use it’d be. I was light-headed, either from loss of blood or from the overwhelming strangeness of this place. My legs moved half on their own. In a few steps, the burning sand turned cool as I stepped into the shade of the oasis.

I passed below trees hanging heavy with oranges and pomegranates and some fruits I didn’t even recognize. They sprang up everywhere, around pools so clear and deep, I felt if I got close enough I might see the beating heart of the earth in them.

The compass needle pointed straight through the oasis. Tents of every color were scattered among the trees, propped against trunks for support or hanging from tree branches.

And the people. Everybody I saw was dressed in colors that looked like they’d been born back when the world was new. A few folks were gathered around a pool, washing clothes and chattering; they didn’t look up when I passed. The girl who had killed the Skinwalker was leading a half dozen men and women with wooden blades through what looked like army drills. I almost stepped on two boys, younger than me by the looks of it, who were tinkering with something that looked like a bomb. They both looked up at me.

“You’re going to want to go the long way around,” one of them said.

“We’d rather only blow our own hands off.” As the other one spoke, I realized it wasn’t a boy at all. She was a girl, hair cropped close to her skull, and so skinny she’d have to stand up twice to cast a shadow, but a girl all the same. Neither of them seemed to have even a bit of worry about me being a stranger. Maybe having a magic door just saved you a whole lot of suspicion. I took the long, long way around to be safe, even if I wasn’t sure where I was headed.

I stepped out of the trees and into a large clearing of sand. Facing me was the biggest tent by far. It was twice the height of a man and it looked like it could hold half the camp—more like a pavilion than a place to sleep. The canvas was red, with a huge blue sun stitched into the canopy.

Identical to Jin’s tattoo.

As I moved closer, I saw that a lone figure stood in the tent. He should’ve looked small under the high canopy, but somehow he seemed to fill the space as easily as the sunlight. He was bent over a table, so all I could see was the crown of his head. His hands were planted on either side of a huge map. Other papers were held down by stones and empty cups and weapons.

And one beat-up brass compass.

The sun caught the knife in my hand, sending a flash of light across the tent. The boy looked up, startled, his eyes going straight to me.

He didn’t look at me like I really looked—a strange girl hovering in the opening of the pavilion, dusty, bruised, bloody, hair caked with sand. And a tongue suddenly unable to talk. He looked at me like I had every right and reason to be standing there.

“You’re hurt.” His brow furrowed with concern. For a second I didn’t understand, and then I realized I was bleeding through the bandages.

Then his eyes swung to the knife in my other hand. I did the only thing I could think of. I held up the compass like a peace offering. “I’ve got this.”

“Ah.” Understanding dawned on his face. “You’re the one Shazad brought in with my brother.”

He said something else, but I only heard one thing.

Brother.

The word bounced around my head, looking for another meaning than the one I knew.

Then he said something else, but one word stuck itself in my head and didn’t let anything else through.

Brother.

My head scrambled looking for another explanation, but there was only one person he could mean.

Jin was his brother.

“Who are you?” I asked, even though I already half guessed.

An uncertain smile flicked over his face, like he wasn’t sure if I was joking. His smile looked nothing like Jin’s. “I’m Ahmed.”

He didn’t say his full name. He didn’t say he was Prince Ahmed Al’Oman Bin Izman. The Rebel Prince and rightful heir of Miraji. Prince. Stepped out of campfire stories. Who inspired cries to revolution across the desert.

I had no idea what I’d expected of the Rebel Prince, but it wasn’t that he would look just like every other desert boy I’d ever known. He was young. Black hair, skin dark from the sun, a strong square jaw, clean-shaven. Standing in a pavilion crowned in the sun with the commanding air of a Sultan twice his age. His sun. Not the sun of some foreign country tattooed on Jin’s heart. The sun of the rebellion. Of his brother’s rebellion.