Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1)(64)

“That’s not what Sara says,” Shazad muttered.

I wondered if Sara was the reason he’d failed as a Holy Father. He claimed he’d drunk too much before morning prayers once and the previous night’s dinner wound up on the High Father’s robes, but I’d heard a dozen stories of why Bahi hadn’t finished his training.

“No one can prove that that baby is mine.” Bahi sagged.

“He has your smart mouth,” Shazad retorted.

“He’s an infant,” Bahi said. “Don’t they just wail and scream?”

“Sounds like your son,” I muttered.

Jin snorted.

“Ah, well.” Bahi pulled a bottle of something out of his bag. “Here’s to my son, then.”

“Why do you have liquor?” Shazad massaged her temples, like she already had a hangover. In answer, he pulled out two more bottles.

“Medical reasons. It’s in the scripture. Look it up. Ladies first.” He held the bottle out to her. Bahi’s face was pure victory as Shazad’s fingers closed over his. He let his fingers linger just a second before he released them. I was starting to think I was right about him leaving the holy fold for a girl, only not one named Sara. I wondered if Shazad really hadn’t noticed or if she was just pretending for his sake.

“You know I’m not allowed to drink,” Shazad said, taking a deep swig.

“You’re not allowed to drink?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice as she passed the bottle on to me. It was cheap stuff that burned on the way down.

“The general doesn’t approve,” Bahi interjected. I knew he meant her father, not her.

Shazad gave a mock salute, but her smile was too earnest to make me believe she didn’t love her father. “He says a drunk soldier is a dead soldier.”

“Clearly one time the general was wrong,” Bahi said, pulling out a second bottle. “Or else he would’ve had a dead captain a thousand times over in my father.”

Shazad started to retort something, but Bahi was already roping Izz, Jin, and Hala into some drinking game that seemed to involve flipping over a pair of coins and then slapping palms into rocks before taking a swig.

We might die here, I realized. They were just used to it. For the past year they’d all been throwing themselves into danger and near death over and over, just for the shot at a better world. I’d done that, too. I’d walked into the pistol pit with nothing but a good shot at death for the chance of finding a better place. But that’d just been for me. They were walking into danger for themselves and everybody else. The whole of Miraji. So that no one else died like they had in Dassama. So that no one had to live like I had in Dustwalk.

“Ladies!” Bahi called, pulling me out of my own head. “Won’t you join us? So far, I’m winning.”

“I thought the point was not to drink the most,” Hala retorted.

“Clearly you and I have different definitions of winning.” Bahi said.

“We were just giving you a head start.” Shazad bumped my shoulder with hers. “When you wake up and all your blood has turned to liquor, you will look back on that as your first mistake on the way to losing.”

I laughed in spite of myself. After one bottle was empty, Bahi got up the bravery to re-create his drunken serenading under Shazad’s window. We were drunk on anticipation and good old-fashioned liquor under stars that seemed to belong to us to rearrange at will.

And I realized that, scared as we were, I’d never been so happy as I was that night.

? ? ?

THE NEXT MORNING something woke me before the sun. I lay very still, trying to figure whether it was just a memory from a dream I was already forgetting.

The camp was still asleep around me. The fire’d been doused. Shazad was on her side, one hand resting across her blade like she was expecting someone to come for her any second. On the other side of the fire pit, Hala was curled up, buried in her bedroll.

Izz would be on watch duty in the sky in the shape of a Roc, but Bahi and Jin’s bedrolls were both empty. I got up, joints popping, and started toward the sunrise, pulling myself up onto the ridge that protected the camp. That was where I found them.

Bahi didn’t have a prayer rug, but he was sprawled on his knees, his head down, his lips pressed to his hands. I stood very still. I could hear the words of morning prayers muttered like a whispered secret. It felt like witnessing something intimate. I stepped back, not wanting to intrude. I caught sight of Jin, crouched a few feet away on a narrow ledge, his back against the mountain, his hands dangling into the open space over the rails. I padded across the dusty stones of the ridge in bare feet.

“The hangover’s not that bad.” I heard the croak in my own voice as I went to sit next to him.

“As much as I would like to blame Bahi’s cheap liquor, I can hold my drink.” He ran a hand over his face. “I haven’t slept well since I woke up from the Nightmare bite. When I close my eyes I see the camp burning if we don’t intercept the weapon. My family burning. You burning.”

I looked up at the last one. He let out a long exhale.

“You don’t have to stay—you know that, don’t you? You were right at Shihabian. You’re here because I . . . because I got you involved in this. Because I wanted you to stay. But I don’t want you to have to die. You could still go. To Izman. Or wherever you want. Get out of this.” He was apologizing, only I wasn’t mad anymore.