Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1)(58)

“You’d have to ask Jin for his own reasons for not telling you. But if you want honesty from me . . .” Ahmed sighed. He looked older than eighteen. “The Demdji are an asset, Amani. Don’t get me wrong; every man and woman in this rebellion is. But Imin is the best spy I have. And Hala has saved more people than maybe even Shazad has. My sister is the reason I didn’t die at the end of the Sultim trials. The twins can take animal form and can cover distances in a matter of days that would take a normal man weeks. In a war, you take what best serves your cause.”

I wished it were Jin trying to convince me. He’d be so much easier to argue with. But Ahmed’s logic couldn’t be bickered against so easily. And that just left me as the problem.

“I can’t . . .” I faltered on the words. “I can’t do what your other Demdji can. I reckon I would’ve noticed by now if my face changed or I could make illusions walk through the air. I thought I might stay and . . . do what Shazad does.” Though now I said it out loud, it seemed stupid, too. Shazad might be wholly human, but I’d seen her kill a Skinwalker without breaking a sweat. Without a gun, I was just a girl. Not a Demdji. “I didn’t figure I’d stay to make bugs crawl out of people’s skin or turn myself into another person.”

“If you choose to go, you can,” Ahmed said. “It’s dangerous in Miraji for a Demdji, but you seem to have handled yourself just fine so far.” I thought of the girl the Gallan general had shot through the head in Fahali. She had been like me. I remembered Jin warning me to be careful. Warning me against Izman. “But if you decide to stay, there are a half dozen other Demdji who could help you figure out what your power is, whatever it is that you can do that can help this rebellion. If you still want to.”

If I wanted to.

If I wanted to be part of this story. This riddle.

Truth be told, it was more than a want.





twenty-one


There were three pomegranates hanging from the branch. And then there were two and then four. I glanced over at Delila, who smiled sweetly. “See, it’s not that hard.”

It’d been a week since Jin woke up and Ahmed promised they could help me unearth my powers. A week of meditating with Bahi and of Delila instructing me that the way she cast illusions was that she just did. Somehow she thought a demonstration would help.

“This is useless.” It didn’t help. “We don’t even know that my gift is with illusions.”

“It is the most common Demdji gift,” Bahi offered philosophically from the sidelines.

“Just try,” Delila said.

“Yes,” Hala put in, looking on. “Make one disappear and you’ll be on par with the street performers in Izman.”

I stared at the tree. I wasn’t sure what I was reaching for. Hala said it came from her mind. Delila seemed to think she pulled her power out of her chest. I couldn’t find anything in either one. The whicker of horses nearby unraveled whatever attention I’d had. I glanced over my shoulder. It was the party Ahmed had sent out three days before. A raid on a mountain outpost to bring back more guns.

I’d asked to go with them. I knew guns. Ahmed had said no. That it wasn’t worth it sending out a Demdji before she had her powers in check. Just like he had the time before that. I was starting to wonder what the point of staying was if I wasn’t any use at all.

As I watched their saddlebags, clinking heavy with guns, the frustration that had been rising in me whipped itself into a frenzy. I couldn’t manage to change my shape or my face, or climb into anyone’s head, or conjure images out of the air. Folks in camp had started taking bets on how long it would take me to figure out my powers. Or maybe I didn’t have any, the whispers had started to suggest.

As I stared, one of the three pomegranates split open, spilling angry black ooze. I knew it was Hala’s work. My gun sprang into my hand on instinct. I aimed with easy certainty and pulled the trigger. The pomegranate exploded in a violent burst of seeds and red juices, Hala’s illusion disappearing with it.

“There,” I said, holstering the gun. “Now there are two.”

A laugh made me turn my head. I realized Jin had been watching. He was passing by us, carrying a stack of firewood toward the center of camp on one shoulder. He’d recovered quickly from the Nightmare bite. I’d seen him training at hand-to-hand combat with Shazad yesterday. She still beat him. Badly. But he held his own for a while.

Fresh humiliation burned my neck as Jin saluted me and I turned away. We’d been doing a dance all week where Jin pretended nothing was wrong between us, and I pretended he didn’t exist.

Like he thought it didn’t matter that he’d tricked me to get me here. That he’d pulled me off that train to keep me from going to Izman, not to keep me safe. That he’d convinced me the best way to get there was the caravan, preying on my ignorance about my own country. That I’d gone along with it because I was stupid enough to think we really were a team.

I brushed the thought off. It was petty of me to hate him. This was a war. He’d done what he needed to do. Even if I turned out not to be all that helpful.

“Do you know that you cast illusions while you sleep?” I asked Delila. It came out sharper than I meant it to. “I’m not going to become some all-powerful Demdji overnight just by focusing.”